Thousands of Bay Area residents woke up Friday and raced — not to the malls — but up mountains, down ravines, across beaches and into deep woods for solitude and serenity.

Part of the burgeoning #OptOutside movement — conceived by outdoor retailer REI as a “Green Friday” alternative to Black Friday shopping — they joined more than 5.7 million other Americans who pledged to spend the day outside, up from 1.4 million last year. About 500 organizations also joined in, triple last year’s tally. Related Articles Yosemite National Park to reopen Friday, with more campsites available

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“We’re trying to get people off of couches and away from the madness,” said Eder Castro, 31, of San Bruno. He led a group of 15 hikers up the 3-mile route to the top of the rocky, windswept summit of Fremont’s Mission Peak as part of the nonprofit 52 Hike Challenge, which partnered with REI for the day.

As a nearby herd of Black Herefords grazed on velvet green grass, Walnut Creek’s Simona Ladan laughed, adding: “The crowds are smaller.”

And many more Americans are informally following suit.

The 4:30 a.m. workout class from San Jose’s Achievement Fitness Gym slept in, then gathered for a brisk workout to the top of Mission Peak. It was part of their effort to see who can lose the most weight in four weeks.

At Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in Fremont, Chris Johnson of San Jose unsuccessfully searched for palm warblers, a tiny species of songbirds. But he ended up sighting much more: a loggerhead shrike, a white-tailed kite, an orange-crowned warbler, a Say’s phoebe and two merlin.

Alan Marcum snapped a photo of an apricot-colored sunset at Palo Alto’s Byxbee Park. Santa Clara’s Bill Bousman spotted a peregrine falcon in Alviso.

There’s a new donkey in the Palo Alto neighborhood of Barron Park, so neighbor Caroline Rose went to visit it. She then explored a nearby reservoir to see if recent rains had attracted ducks and herons.

“I’d gladly pay a bit more not to go shopping when everyone else is,” Rose said.

State and national parks across the country waived their entry fees for the day, or offered special activities. In California, 13,000 free passes were available to 116 state parks; in the Bay Area, free passes to Natural Bridges, Mount Tamalpais, Half Moon Bay and other state parks were quickly snapped up.

Tweeted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with a video of a vast flock of migrating snow geese: “Those #BlackFriday crowds are intense. #OptOutside.”

Last year, REI did the unimaginable: On the holiest day of retailers’ holiday season, it announced that the company would close its Kent, Washington, headquarters and 143 stores on Black Friday — and pay all 12,139 employees to go play outside.

Even its webpage took the day off. Offline, under an “Unable to connect to office network” message, it posted a video of friends unpacking gear from a red Subaru during a fierce snowstorm.

“The idea of giving our people an incentive to get out there struck us as an excellent way to say thank you and to highlight what we care about,” said REI spokeswoman Bethany Hawley.

Then it invited people to share their outdoor experiences by using the hashtag #OptOutside on social media.

The move, a stroke of marketing brilliance, has been embraced by other outdoors retailers. Other companies — from Santa Cruz’s Giro Sport Design to Ventura’s Patagonia — also encouraged their customers to forgo shopping, or at least give back a little.

Apparel company Outdoor Research launched its own Black Friday Instagram campaign to raise money for the nonprofit Paradox Sports, which helps the disabled get outdoors. In New York City, Subaru provided a fleet of cars and drivers to take shelter dogs out into nature for the day. Squaw Valley-based Aracade didn’t shut its doors, but pledged $5 from every sale to Protect Our Winters, a group that fights climate change.

“REI’s decision reflects its fundamental empathy for its customers, who have zero desire to stand in line for the best deal on a gorgeous fall Friday, when they could be hiking Mt. Moosilauke,” wrote the journal Advertising Age.

By Friday morning, #OptOutside was trending on social media from wild places as varied as New York City’s Central Park to California’s Sugar Bowl ski resort. All day long, Tweets landed from the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee; Gold Beach, Oregon; Chicago’s Blackwell Forest Preserve; Coconino National Forest, outside Flagstaff, Arizona; Jelks Preserve in Venice, Florida, and the Chugach Mountains of southern Alaska.

Mike Groenevelt wrote to say he was chasing white-tailed deer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mackenzie Cane was looking for big horn sheep in the San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs. Pam Kell was kayaking the delta in southern Alabama.

Across the nation, the enthusiasm was contagious. “Kicking up the red dirt in Sedona, Arizona!” wrote Suzi Minor. “Yippee! wrote Pamela Baca-Hanes. “Heading to Arnett Canyon near Superior, AZ!”

On the steep flanks of Mission Peak, Hayward’s Ismael Ramos and his friends with 52 Hike Challenge gazed down on the traffic below.

“Isn’t it funny that Thanksgiving is the day you give thanks for everything you have,” Ramos said, “and the next day you go out and look for more stuff?

“Being outdoors is a really relaxing experience.”