Hiking Ninjas - Coming to a Hiking Trail Near You, or Are They?

Have you ever been walking down the trail on a hiking trip or a day hike and suddenly see “something”? It could be lions and tigers and bears oh my! Or could it be a Ninja? While there may not be Ninjas on the trail, Cuong Nguyen and Vince Velasco are trying to change that.

As co-workers, Vince and Cuong started hiking together about a year and a half ago. They enjoyed the fun of going on hiking adventures and discovering new places. Together they have hiked over 50 trails together, including the recent completion of the six pack of peaks in SoCal. They have found waterfalls, explored caves and mines, climbed mountains, and are participating in the 52 Hike Challenge. But after awhile, they quickly found that taking photos to memorialize their journey was just not enough.

Cuong has a background in karate and Vince has a background in wrestling. While they might be vertically challenged at 5'-5" they have great agility. While on hikes, they started to have a little fun trying to see who could get the best "action" shot.

They first posted these action shots on their own respective Instagram pages @hikebbqrepeat and @vicious.vince but soon realized that the unique actions shot were uncommon within the hiking community, so they created @hikingninjas Instagram page.

The page quickly caught on and started to see followers steadily grow. Although, it is still growing more users are also tagging Hiking Ninjas in their "action" hiking photos.

They have big plans for the future which include a hiking ninja challenge which would include a patch to those who successfully complete a challenge. The challenge would have different levels of completion similar to belt ranks in martial arts.

Until then, follow them at @hikingninjas and tag them in your own action hiking photos.