Jane Huber grew up in Sussex County, New Jersey. She graduated from Boston University and lived in Brooklyn before moving to San Francisco in 1991. Huber has worked as a library page, Action Park lifeguard, waitress, editorial assistant, recipe tester, department store sales associate, cooking school office manager, barista, and bookstore clerk. An avid hiker since the mid-1990s, Huber created the Bay Area Hiker website in 1999. With photos and detailed narratives for more than 250 hikes, Bay Area Hiker was described by Jon Carroll in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an obsessively complete guide for hikers." Huber lives with her husband and son in a San Francisco neighborhood where coyotes stroll the streets in the middle of day.