Julie is 31 weeks pregnant, mid-cross-country move, and still made time to talk to me, which I’m extremely grateful for.

Julie mountain biked until five days before her daughter was born, bikepacked the California coast at 14 weeks pregnant, and built a community of thousands of women because she needed one and it didn’t exist yet.

We talked about the unsolicited opinions strangers love to throw at pregnant women who dare to stay active, the journey of rediscovering yourself after becoming a mom, and why staying weird is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids.

A few things from our conversation that stuck out to me:

• “Your risk is not binary.” The world loves to flatten pregnant bodies into a single, fragile category. Julie’s work is a direct pushback against that.

• Your kid’s childhood is also your parenthood. Pouring into yourself is not selfish. It makes you a more present, more alive version of who you already are.

• The cosmic auntie deserves her flowers. The women who show up with ginger tea and belly rubs and check-in texts need to be protected at all costs.

The Mothership Collective just hosted 130+ events in a single month. They have a private Facebook group with thousands of members, a growing blog full of real stories from real women, and a feed on Instagram that is sparkly and rah rah.

Whether you’re pregnant, postpartum, a seasoned mom, or someone who just loves cheering other women on, there is a place for you here.

Listen and Stay Connected

Women in Wild Places

• Follow us on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces @outsidegabs

• Join our ⁠Substack:

• Join our upcoming trip to Bears Ears National Monument in Utah - spots are limited

The Mothership Collective

• Follow them on Instagram: @The.Mothership.Collective

• Follow them on Substack:

• Check out their website

Thanks for listening and see you out there,

-Gabriella

I’m so glad that I went. During the fever dream of running 9 miles through the desert, jamming my hands into sandstone cracks, and standing on top of Ancient Art, I remembered what it felt like to just be me.

I recap my recent trip and a very exciting upcoming one that you can join on our episode:

Come to Utah with us this fall. Women in Wild Places is partnering with KMAC Guides for a five-day backpacking trip into Bears Ears National Monument — September 27th, all levels welcome, women only, spots are limited. Ancient ruins, canyon country, daily yoga, and good people. Sign up here.

Listen & Stay Connected to Women in Wild Places

New episodes are available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

• Instagram: @womeninwildplaces

• Host: @outsidegabs

• Explore gear lists & episode-inspired kits: https://shopmy.us/shop/outsidegabs

Thanks and see you out there

-Gabriella

Claire and Emma grew up off-grid on the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. They didn’t have neighbors or a grocery store around the corner. It was their family, boats, bears, chickens, greenhouses, and the rhythms of the sea. They fished commercially with their father through middle and high school, living on the boat through the summers. They learned to mend nets, bait hooks, and maintain everything around them. Their days were full of doing real things.

A decade ago they built Salmon Sisters from the ground up, starting with screen-printed t-shirts and tote bags made for the women in their community who were doing hard, skilled work on the water and couldn’t find gear that reflected that. Since then they have grown it into a women-owned seafood brand, processing facility, two retail shops, a coffee shop, and a cookbook series. All while raising young children and continuing to show up as genuine advocates for wild Alaska fisheries.

What strikes me most about Claire and Emma is that everything they have built flows directly from how they were raised. They have a deep connection to place and respect for the resources around them. The belief that working with your hands and living close to the seasonal rhythms of the natural world is not just a viable way to live, it is a deeply worthwhile one. This comes from growing up watching the fishing boats go by, picking salmon berries on the same hike over and over, and knowing that the salmon returning to the river each year is something worth protecting with everything you have

In this episode we talk about what it takes to bring wild Alaskan salmon from water to plate. We get into why commercial fishermen are some of the most knowledgeable scientists and stewards of the fisheries they depend on, and the truth about sustainable fishing in Alaska that tends to surprise people. We talk about what it has meant to be women in an industry that was not always designed with them in mind, how Claire and Emma are raising children with a deep connection to where their food comes from, and the advocacy and habitat protection work they are doing so that future generations of fishermen and salmon have something left to come home to.

This conversation meant a lot to me. I feel grateful for women like Claire and Emma who are doing such important work, and that they are protecting future generations of fisherwomen and salmon.

Listen & Support Salmon Sisters

Claire and Emma have spent a decade building something special out of genuine love for the people and fisheries of Alaska. Through their seafood, their advocacy, and their storytelling, they’re helping more people understand where their food comes from and why it matters.

You can follow their work and find their products here:

• Instagram: @aksalmonsisters

• Website: salmonsisters.com

If you’re headed to Homer this summer, stop into their shops. And if you are not, their wild Alaskan seafood ships directly to your door.

Listen & Stay Connected to Women in Wild Places

New episodes are available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

• Instagram: @womeninwildplaces

• Host: @outsidegabs

• Explore gear lists & episode-inspired kits: https://shopmy.us/shop/outsidegabs

If this conversation meant something to you, I would love if you shared the episode or this Substack with a friend, left a review, or tagged us. It truly helps keep the show going so we can continue sharing stories like this.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you out there.

-Gabriella

Most people don’t associate the Catskills with backcountry skiing. No wide open bowls, no big mountain descents, no fantasy powder days. What you get instead is rugged, cliffed-out terrain, barely any snowpack, trees so tight you can’t turn, and trails that go straight up and straight down with no mercy.

Julie McGuire skied all 33 of them. Solo. And she became the first woman to ever do it — only the third person total, after two brothers.

How It Started

In 2018, Julie’s marriage abruptly ended. She started hiking the Catskills High Peaks to hold onto something familiar. Then COVID hit, she moved up full time, and started skiing every day.

Something shifted for her in those dense, quiet woods alone, no cell service, navigating cliffs with skins still on because it was the only reliable way to control speed on terrain that doesn’t give you room to turn.

She describes it as a spiritual awakening. A presence she felt most acutely in total isolation, that she still hasn’t fully shaken. She didn’t originally set out to ski all 33 peaks. She just kept getting nudged forward until she did.

What Backcountry Skiing the Catskills Actually Demands

This is where the conversation gets technical and genuinely interesting if you’ve spent any time in these mountains.

The Catskills don’t give you the conditions that make backcountry skiing rewarding in the traditional sense. The snowpack is low, the terrain is unforgiving, and there’s almost nowhere to make a controlled turn. Julie figured out early on that keeping her skins on through the steepest sections, as counterintuitive as it sounds, was the only way to manage speed through choke points with no runout.

She also learned to move fast on whatever snow existed, knowing that waiting for ideal conditions in the Catskills could mean waiting forever. Most of her peaks were done in marginal snow, on rugged terrain, alone, with no cell service.

Taking Her Students Into the Wild

Julie teaches high school English in the South Bronx. Through the Winter for Kids program, she now takes her students skiing every year including three full days of lessons over three consecutive weeks. She also brings them into the Catskills seasonally for trail maintenance with the NY/NJ Trail Conference.

For a lot of these kids, it’s their first time out of the city. First time on a mountain. First time a stranger on a trail has said hello to them unprompted.

“Miss, it’s like a community up here,” one student told her.

The ski program has had ripple effects she didn’t anticipate. One student who had a blowup with her in class ended up joining the ski club, graduated, and now volunteers with Winter for Kids. The Northeast ski community donated a full kit… board, bindings, boots, outerwear, when she put the need out there.

On Intuition, Fear, and Knowing When to Turn Around

One of the more honest parts of this conversation is when we get into how Julie navigates the line between fear and intuition in the field because in the backcountry, getting that wrong has real consequences.

Her approach: start moving and see if the feeling persists. If something still feels wrong once you’re into it, turn around. She’s done it. She’ll do it again.

She also talks about how skiing solo, particularly in the early days of the project, forced a level of internal attunement that’s hard to access any other way. When there’s no one else to defer to and conditions are getting sketchy, you get very honest with yourself very quickly.

The Film

Queen of the Catskills documents the project and is still touring. It won best short film at a festival in France. For a film about a relatively niche pursuit in a regional mountain range, that’s worth noting.

Connect with Julie:

📸 Instagram: queenofthecatskillsny

🎬 Find the film touring near you

Connect with Women in Wild Places

📸 Podcast Instagram: womeninwildplaces

🌿 Host Instagram: outsidegabs

🎒 Gear Lists & Favorites: shopmy.us/outsidegabs

💬 Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend who belongs in wild places.

Thanks for listening, and see you out there,

-Gabriella

When most people think about wild places, they picture mountains, coastlines, forests, or deserts… Basically landscapes that are visually expansive and easy to romanticize. Much less attention is paid to what exists underground. Most people don’t consider the enormous network of caves and subterranean ecosystems that exist.

Dr. Iva Njunjić has built her career exploring those hidden spaces.

A cave biologist, National Geographic Explorer, and the director and co-founder of Taxon Expeditions, Iva studies life in places most humans will never see: narrow tunnels, flooded chambers, and vertical shafts that drop hundreds of meters into the earth. Her research focuses largely on cave-dwelling invertebrates, especially beetles, species that have evolved in permanent darkness and isolation over millions of years.

“Caves are worlds of eternal darkness,” she told me. “Without sunlight, plants can’t grow. And without plants, food is incredibly scarce. And yet, despite this, life finds a way.”

A Door That Changed Everything

Iva’s path into cave science began in a tourist cave in Serbia when she was thirteen years old. She remembers that the cave was well-lit and carefully managed. But when the official route ended, she felt frustrated that she could not continue.

“I remember thinking, I don’t know who these speleologists are,” she said, “but I’m going to become one, because I want to go further.”

Nearly a decade later, after moving to Belgrade for university, she enrolled in her first speleology course and began learning the technical skills required to descend into vertical caves and navigate underground systems.

“It really felt like I had entered another world,” she said of that first experience. “Dark, cold, mysterious, and magical.” Over time, her curiosity turned into a profession.

Living Laboratories of Evolution

Today, Iva has explored hundreds of caves across Europe, Asia, and beyond. Some require hours of rope work, crawling through narrow passages, or navigating flooded chambers. Many involve long days underground, limited supplies, and constant attention to safety.

“You cannot bring stress or anxiety underground,” she explained. “You have to empty your mind and be completely focused. Mistakes can be dangerous.”

Caves are among the most extreme habitats on Earth. Without sunlight or vegetation, species must adapt in remarkable ways. Many cave organisms lose their eyesight. Others develop elongated limbs and antennae to sense their surroundings. Some slow their metabolism to survive long periods without food.

“One amphibian I study can live up to ten years without feeding,” she said. “And even without moving.”

For Iva, these adaptations offer insight into how life responds to scarcity, isolation, and long-term environmental pressure.

The Vast Unknown

During our conversation, Iva shared a statistic that still surprises her.

Scientists have formally described about 1.5 million species. Estimates suggest there may be closer to 10 million.

“That means about eighty percent of species are still unknown to us,” she said. “And most of them are tiny.”

These are insects, spiders, snails, and microorganisms that perform essential ecological functions: pollinating plants, aerating soil, recycling nutrients. Yet they rarely receive attention or funding.

“We protect only what we know and care about,” Iva said. “That’s why discovery matters.”

She added that while hundreds of researchers may study charismatic animals like tigers or elephants, there may be only one expert for thousands of insect species.

A Beetle Named Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi

Several years ago, Iva and her colleagues decided to name a newly discovered water beetle after Leonardo DiCaprio, who is known for his environmental advocacy.

The decision was partly strategic. “We wanted to put this neglected species into the spotlight,” she said. “To show people that it exists.”

When the paper was published, it received global media attention. DiCaprio changed his social media profile photo to the beetle. The story went viral.

“Suddenly, everyone cared about a two-millimeter insect,” she said.

For Iva, it was proof that science, storytelling, and popular culture can intersect in productive ways.

Check out Taxon Expeditions video on the subject here.

Bringing People Into Science

This philosophy shapes Taxon Expeditions. Rather than keeping research limited to academic teams, the organization brings non-scientists into the field to participate in real biodiversity research. Participants help collect data, observe species, and learn directly from experts.

“We do real science,” Iva emphasized. “With permits, specialists, and published results.”

Some participants return year after year. Working with them, she said, helps her stay connected to the sense of wonder that first drew her into the field.

“They remind you how beautiful these tiny creatures are,” she said. “You start seeing them again with fresh eyes.”

Learning to Care

Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about what individuals can realistically do to support biodiversity.

Iva encourages people to learn the names of the species around them. To plant native plants. To leave fallen leaves and decaying wood in their yards. To think about what they buy and who they support.

“Every day, we vote with our wallets,” she said.

She often uses the phrase “be a messy gardener.”

Healthy ecosystems, she explained, are not neat. They are layered, imperfect, and full of overlapping life. Allowing that complexity into everyday spaces is one way people participate in conservation.

Listen & Support Dr. Iva’s Work

Dr. Iva Njunjić’s research brings attention to some of the most overlooked ecosystems on Earth. Through her science, teaching, and expeditions, she’s helping more people understand and protect the hidden worlds beneath our feet.

You can follow her work and learn more here:

• Instagram (Iva): @cavernella

• Taxon Expeditions: https://www.taxonexpeditions.com/

• Instagram (Taxon Expeditions): @taxonexpeditions

If you’re curious about citizen science, biodiversity research, or joining a real scientific expedition, her work is a great place to start.

Listen & Stay Connected to Women in Wild Places

New episodes are available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

• Instagram: womeninwildplaces

• Host: outsidegabs

• Explore gear lists & episode-inspired kits: https://shopmy.us/shop/outsidegabs

If this conversation meant something to you, I’d love if you shared the episode or this Substack with a friend, left a review, or tagged us. It truly helps keep the show going so we can continue sharing stories like this.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you out there.

-Gabriella

Christie grew up in Alaska and began hunting later in life, at 40, as a way to harvest her own food. What started as a practical decision quickly became a larger practice of attention, humility, and embodiment that reshaped how she understands her body, her creativity, and her connection to land.

I loved hearing about the sensory world of the hunt including the entrance into the day, long hours of waiting, reading weather and tracks, listening, and ultimately stepping into “animal mode.” Christie shares how holding an animal’s body changed her relationship to her own, and how grief and gratitude often exist side by side in the moments after a successful shot.

We also explore why hunting has become such a polarizing topic, and how it can open space for dialogue rather than division. Christie reflects on writing her book Moonlight Elk, the risks of sharing such intimate experiences, and her hope that stories can help us listen to one another more carefully.

This episode is about hunting, but it’s also about food systems, humility, motherhood, creativity, spirituality, and learning how to pay attention in a world that rewards distraction. It’s about slowing down, questioning our assumptions, and remembering that we are part of nature, not separate from it.

Listen and Stay Connected

Connect with Christie Green

• 🌿 Website: https://www.christiegreen.net/

• 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠

• 📖 ⁠Christie’s Book: Moonlight Elk⁠

• Christie’s ⁠fashion brand Christie Nell Designs

Connect with Women in Wild Places

• 📸 Instagram: ⁠@womeninwildplaces ⁠

• Host: @outsidegabs

• ⁠Join the free community on Substack⁠

• ⁠Shop essential gear⁠

Amanda spent multiple seasons working on fire crews and hotshotting, witnessing massive wildfires most people will never experience up close. Through years on the line, she came to understand something many of us resist: fire is never really “in control,” and the idea that humans can fully control it is largely a myth.

We talk about what it’s like to live in survival mode all summer, the nervous-system crash that comes in the off season, and the emotional and psychological toll of increasingly long, intense fire seasons. Amanda shares what it feels like to see communities burn, to work inside catastrophe, and to carry that weight long after the season ends.

We also explore her transition from firefighter to storyteller, and her current chapter pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Montana and returning to craft, attention, and creative practice as a way of making sense of the world.

Photo credit Amanda Monthei

This episode is about hotshotting, the creative process, and how living with uncontrollable forces shapes the way we pay attention, write, and understand our place in the world. It’s also about humility, limits, fire ecology, and what wildfire teaches us about being human in a changing climate.

Connect with Amanda

• Listen to her podcast: ⁠Life With Fire⁠

• Follow her on Instagram: @a_monthei

• Check out her ⁠website⁠ and Substack

Connect with Women in Wild Places

• Follow us on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces @outsidegabs

• Join our ⁠Substack⁠

• Subscribe to our ⁠Patreon⁠

If you loved this episode, please consider following the show, leaving a rating or review, and sharing it with someone who loves wild places, good stories, and thoughtful conversations about the world we live in.

Thanks so much, and see you out there.

-Gabriella

When Sasha performs, she’s suspended by fabric above blue ice, spinning in snowstorms, climbing into cold where most people wear heavy down jackets and thick insulated gloves.

I wanted to know what makes someone gravitate toward that kind of art and what loss teaches you when the place you love burns.

This is Sasha’s story.

Photo by Luke Nemeth

Falling Into Flight

Sasha didn’t grow up imagining herself dangling off climbing anchors in subzero windchill. In her twenties, she wandered into a pole class on a whim and was instantly hooked.

She enjoyed the strength, discipline, and grace of this art form. Pole then led her to aerial silks and to her, that really felt like flying & freedom.

At the same time, she was already someone who lived outside hiking, backpacking, skiing, and climbing. These two worlds sat by side but separate for years. At one point Sasha asked herself, what if I put both of these two things I love in the same place?

This led her to a strong and new beautiful interplay between her and the landscapes where she would perform her art rigged to glaciers in order to showcase their beauty, impermanence, and fluidity.

Photo by Kris Andres

Learning to Dance With Risk

People assume Sasha must be a thrill-seeker based on her work, but she says the opposite: I do this because I’m careful.

She choreographs every exit because she knows her body, her limits, and has an awareness of what she can do in the cold and the elements.

She performs without a rope or harness and because there’s nothing to catch her, she plans not to fall by spending months preparing her choreography and routine.

Some days she brings an idea all the way to the mountains only to turn back because the wind shifts or the ice feels wrong. Her art requires saying no as often as yes. For Sasha she respects the landscapes in which she performs her art, and acts accordingly.

Photo by Silver Fern Productions

The Force of Climate

The magic of performing in a frozen world is also part of the heartbreak.

At first, she danced on glaciers because they were beautiful. Then she went back and saw the ice had changed. Year after year, the landscapes that held her rigs and her art were shrinking in front of her.

She then experienced a heartbreak of equal and opposite force: wildfire.

Sasha and her partner lost their home in the Jasper Wildfire of 2024. They were away when it happened so they were left only with the bags they had packed for their trip. Everything was gone.

I truly cannot understand the unsettling feeling of losing everything that made up the feeling of home, and how you grapple with having to rebuild your life both physically and emotionally. Grief is not conceptual when it takes your house, your neighborhood, your photos, your socks. For Sasha, wildfire changed from being an abstract news story to having to rebuild a life from scratch.

Out of that devastation came the impulse to make something that offered a way forward - her art.

Photo by Megan Posein

Embers

Sasha teamed up with a film crew to create Embers that followed her for the year following the wildfire. In many ways it’s a commentary on how she processes her personal and climate related grief in the wake of this massive disaster.

She didn’t want to make another doom-heavy climate film that leaves viewers feeling like there’s nothing they can do. So instead, the story lands on hope. How Sasha found her own, and how we can all find it amidst these large, looming themes in our own lives.

In filming, she met glaciologists, wildfire researchers, climate thinkers, and people working in different corners of the problem like engineers, artists, teachers, scientists.

In her mind, her part is based on the tools she has: movement and art against the backdrop of place. She serves as a visual reminder that beauty is worth fighting for.

Photo by Pete O’Hara

Generative Grief

After I had time to reflect on this conversation, I realize what stuck with me most is the idea of channeling grief into hope.

After losing her home in the wildfire, Sasha could have easily stepped away from her craft and felt crushed by the impossible size of climate angst, but instead she drew a spotlight onto it with the unique tools available to her.

I think it’s a good reminder, amidst the fact that climate events touch everyone - even if the smoke isn’t in our backyard, that we all have a part to play to raise awareness and protect our world.

Photo by Luke Nemeth

Listen & Support Sasha’s Work

Sasha’s films are both breathtakingly stunning and emotionally poignant. You can find her work and connect with her here:

• Website: https://www.sasha-gali.com/

• Instagram (Sasha): https://www.instagram.com/sasha_gali/

• Wild Aerial Film: https://www.wild-aerial.com/wild-aerial-film

• Embers Film & Festival Info: https://www.wild-aerial.com/embers

Listen & Stay Connected to Women in Wild Places

Episodes available everywhere you listen.

• Instagram: womeninwildplaces

• Host: outsidegabs

• Support the show + join the community on Patreon

• Gear lists & episode-inspired kits

If this conversation meant something to you, I’d love if you shared the episode or this Substack with a friend, left a review, or tagged us. It really helps us keep the show going so we can share more stories like this.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you out there

– Gabriella

Kristy and Anna are identical twins who live in rural Alaska. They own and operate Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing out of a small village about 60 miles northwest of Anchorage. Together, they care for and train 32 sled dogs.

“It’s not really a career,” they told me early in our conversation. “It’s a lifestyle.”

Kristy and Anna Berington, by Kiliii Yuyan

Born in Sync, Drawn to the Same Work

Kristy and Anna were born five minutes apart, and their mother didn’t even know she was carrying twins because their heartbeats were perfectly in sync. Kristy was born first, and then the doctors told their mother she was not done yet.

“We were a surprise,” they said, laughing. “Our dad didn’t know whether to leap out the window or leap for joy.”

They grew up on a small farm in northern Wisconsin surrounded by animals. They were first drawn to mushing through books, movies, and imagination. Eventually, a neighbor with sled dogs invited them into her kennel. They learned by doing chores, handling dogs, and running junior races.

Talking to them, it became clear that their closeness was not something they had to work at.

“At the core of it, we just love the same things,” they said. “Some twins are polar opposites. We’re not.”

Finding Their Way to Alaska

After time in the Army National Guard and university, neither sister felt settled. They answered a classified ad looking for handlers at a sled dog tour operation in Northern California where they lived in a tent in the summer and a small cabin in the winter.

Eventually, Kristy traveled to Alaska to help evaluate dogs for purchase where she met Iditarod champion Dean Osmar. He noticed her ease with the dogs and asked if she would consider moving north.

Kristy said yes. Then she added one more thing.

“I kind of told him it was a BOGO deal,” she said. “I have a twin sister. We do everything together. Can she come too?”

Not long after, they packed everything they owned and moved to Alaska.

Building a Kennel and a Routine

Kristy and Anna didn’t start with a full team. They worked for different mushers, learning how no two kennels operate the same way. Over time, they accumulated dogs and built their own kennel.

Today, they care for 32 sled dogs. I was surprised to learn that these are not purebred huskies. Racing Alaskan huskies are actually mixed breeds selected for endurance, appetite, and attitude.

“They’re marathon runners, not linebackers,” they explained. “They’re covering over a hundred miles a day for days in a row.”

Training starts in late summer with very short runs and builds gradually. Everything is planned around distance, frequency, intensity, and recovery. The dogs’ needs dictate the schedule.

“They always come first,” they said. “You can be tired or cold or hungry. It doesn’t matter. They come first.”

On the trail. Photo by Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing.

Communication Without Words

One of the most striking parts of our conversation was how they described communication. Sled dog racing is built on trust. There are no reins. Commands guide direction, but much of the communication is nonverbal.

“You have to know what normal looks like to know when something’s wrong,” they said.

They notice subtle changes in gait, posture, or expression, or just a feeling that something is off. When that happens, they stop and assess.

“They’re tough,” Kristy said. “They’ll keep going if you let them. So it’s on us to make the call.”

Before races, they take a quiet moment with their dogs. “You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you,” Anna said. “It’s a team.”

On the trail. Photo by Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing.

Race Day and the Long Trail

Race days begin early for vet checks, gear inspections, trackers placed on sleds, and dogs barking in every direction. Once teams leave the starting line, the world narrows.

In longer races like the Iditarod, the field spreads out. After the first couple hundred miles, there can be long stretches where a musher sees no one.

“There are moments when it feels like you could be the only person on earth,” they said. “Just you, the dogs, and the wilderness.”

Those moments are difficult and deeply intimate. After races, mushers gather and trade stories about storms, trail conditions, and survival. What struck me is how this is a unique and intimate community built through shared experience.

Photo by Will Koeppen.

Why the Dogs Do This

One of the biggest misconceptions about sled dog racing is that the dogs are forced to run.

“They want to do this,” Kristy said plainly. “If they don’t want to run, they won’t.”

These dogs are bred for movement and endurance and they find total joy when they live fully in the present.

“They’re not thinking about the next checkpoint,” Anna said. “They’re just happy to be running.”

That presence is something Kristy and Anna try to learn from.

Photo by Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing

Why They Keep Going

Kristy and Anna have raced through brutal conditions, including the infamous 2014 Iditarod, which featured bare ground, ice, storms, and a record number of withdrawals.

“It was probably the hardest stretch we’ve ever done,” they said.

The work makes them grateful because their daily comfort feels earned and more appreciated. What keeps them going is the team rather than the finish line itself.

“We’re out there surviving together,” they said. “That changes the relationship.”

Anna and Kristy

Listen and Stay Connected

You can follow Kristy and Anna and meet their dogs through Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing:

• Website: https://seeingdoublesleddogracing.com

• Instagram: @seeingdoublesleddogracing

• Facebook: Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing

Many of the races they compete in offer live GPS tracking, so you can follow their team as they move across Alaska.

To stay connected with Women in Wild Places:

• Instagram: @womeninwildplaces

• Host: @outsidegabs

• Podcast: Available on all major platforms

• Patreon: Join here

Thank you, as always, for reading, listening, and supporting stories of women choosing wild, unconventional lives.

See you out there,

-Gabriella

Photo by Jacek Wejster @yacmen

The Mythical Goal That Becomes Human Up Close

From the outside the Triple Crown looks unreal. When Kate talks about it, the shine does not disappear but the process becomes far more relatable. It turns into a long list of small pieces that build a big goal.

This huge project is composed of friends hiking gear so you can move light, mentors who pass down systems and confidence, planning sessions that look like spreadsheets laid out on crash pads. It’s forcing down food when your body wants nothing and trusting your partner to pull you through the sections where your strength fades. It’sthe belief that a full week of rest at the right time might give you the extra minutes that decide the outcome.

Hearing her break it down reminded me that huge objectives are rarely magical. They are usually a long chain of normal days that stack up until the impossible shifts into view.

Laura & Kate atop Half Dome. Photo by Jacek Wejster @yacmen

The Power of Belief in a Space Not Built for You

Kate shared openly about the early reactions she got when she first brought up the Triple Crown. Not outright criticism, but the kind of light dismissal that many women have experienced when expressing their interest in pursuing something big. Her reaction was simple... If the men in Yosemite could do it, she knew she could too.

She called herself a competitive feminist. She believes women belong in every layer of climbing, including the ones that have always been defined by men. For her, the Triple Crown was not just a checkmark or a headline. It was a way to open a door for others who will come next, and a reminder that big dreams should be followed.

Kate and Laura. Photo by Thibaut Marot @thibaut.marot

Community, Mentorship and the People Who Carry You Forward

One of the strongest threads in Kate’s story is mentorship. She became a competent climber because experienced people were willing to teach her. She found the Yosemite Search and Rescue community by showing up again and again and proving that she cared. Those relationships gave her the skills she needed and the belief that she belonged in the biggest terrain.

Now that the Triple is behind her, Kate wants to give back. She has already started taking younger women climbing in Boulder and wants to be the person who says clearly, you can do this. She knows the difference that one mentor can make and she wants to be that for someone else.

Holding More Than One Identity

One thing I loved about this conversation is how Kate talked about her life beyond climbing. She is proud of the Triple Crown and the history she made, but she is also a designer who loves staying up late working on creative projects. She is someone who can nerd out on gear systems and also spend days sketching and building ideas on her laptop.

It is a helpful reminder that we do not have to choose a single lane. Our passions can coexist. Big mountain goals can sit next to creative work, stable careers or whatever else makes us feel whole.

Listen to the Full Episode

The full story covers preparation, fear, math, community, thunderstorms, mentorship and what it means to keep going when you hit the wall and still have thousands of feet left to climb. It is live now wherever you get your podcasts.

Photo by Jacek Wejster @yacmen

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Find Kate:
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Thanks & see you out there. Until then, I hope you find the courage to follow your audacious goal.

-Gabriella

In many of the big moments I have had there, one person has been behind the camera: Abbi Hearne.

Abbi is a world class adventure and elopement photographer, co creator of The Hearns, a mom, and someone who has very intentionally built a life that does not follow the standard script.

Abbi, in Moab. Photograph by The Hearnes.

She is also someone who is deeply in relationship with landscapes. She does not see Castleton Tower as a backdrop. She sees it as a character in the story, equal to the couple standing in front of it. The same is true for Alaska’s glaciers and iceberg lakes. They are beings she loves, and beings she is actively losing.

When we sat down to talk for Women in Wild Places, I knew we were going to talk about glaciers and love. What I did not expect was how much this would become a story about choosing your own life, listening to your intuition, and staying present with people and places that are changing right in front of you.

Here’s the story.

Little Abbi

Abbi grew up in Texas with two older brothers and parents who valued time outside, mostly because it was simple and free. They did not grow up as a hardcore “outdoor adventure family.” There was the backyard., the park, and the ordinary outside that is available when you open the door and tell kids to go play.

She remembers her brother and her building “compounds” between three trees in their yard. They would stack sticks and leaves, creating these little worlds. His army men and her princesses all lived together under the same canopy.

In almost every childhood photo, her toys are perfectly lined up. Stuffed animals in order. Dolls arranged in rows. She would sit them down and read them books. Her daughter, Hyder, already does the same thing. Tiny bunnies lined up in a row. Books are held open by her small hands.

And then there was her dad, who saw something in her before she could see it herself.

“For as long as I can remember,” she told me, “my dad would say, Abbi is going to be an entrepreneur. Abbi is going to do her own thing. She is going to be the boss.”

At the time, she did not understand why he was so sure.

“I remember thinking, this is so cool, but that is something other people do,” she said. “I just assumed I would go get some regular job.”

The teacher who said she would never make it

Abbi went to college for art education. She loved art and loved kids, so teaching was a stable way to have both.

During her final semester, she was student teaching under a woman who really wanted her to take a full time job at that school. At the time, Abbi didn’t realize that her mentor teacher would get a bonus if she stayed. She only knew that this person clearly did not like her, yet kept pushing hard for her to apply.

When Abbi finally said, “I think I want to try photography for a year and see if I can make it work,” the response was blunt.

“You are never going to make it,” the teacher told her. “Photography is too competitive. There are too many people already doing it. It is not a stable job.”

“I always say that first year was out of spite,” she laughed. “I was like, cool, I will prove you wrong. I am going to make more money than you.”

Sometimes motivation arrives in ways you wouldn’t expect. That comment didn’t feel like encouragement but it still gave her something to push against. Over time the energy shifted from “I will show you” to “I actually love this,” but that sharp, dismissive moment was the spark that helped her step off the default path.

A few years earlier, she had met someone else who would shape that path in an even bigger way.

Abbi shooting in Fitz Roy, Patagonia. Photograph by The Hearnes.

Church camp and the suburbs

Abbi met her now husband and business partner, Callen, at church camp when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. From the beginning, they knew that they wanted to live a different sort of life.

At the same time, they did what their families expected. They went to college, graduated, got married, and moved to The Woodlands, a suburb north of Houston. They did not fit there at all.

While they were teaching and working, they were also gym climbing and watching the Reel Rock films. Abbi recounts reading every mountaineering and Royal Robbins book she could get her hands on. The two started road tripping to Big Bend and Yosemite and Colorado. And then… there was Moab.

Falling in love with a place you initially hated

The first time they drove into Moab, Abbi hated it.

It was mid summer, so naturally it was one hundred and ten degrees. (They were camping.) They had rented a crash pad to boulder at Big Bend boulders, but it was so hot that the only time they could climb without slipping off the rock was at eleven at night with headlamps.

She is afraid of the dark, and as they moved around the boulders her headlamp lit up tiny scorpions on the rock and black widows in the cracks. The campsite was right across the road.

“This is hell,” she remembers thinking. She cried in the car.

But the next morning they hiked to Delicate Arch for sunrise, and it was beautiful. In town she bought Steph Davis’s book “Learning to Fly,” and by the time they drove back to Texas she had romanticized fallen in love with the desert.

They went back in October and saw Moab in the cooler air and golden light.

From there, they started doing more and more road trips. Houston to Moab for two and a half days, then back in time for Callan to play drums at church. Short trips that did not make sense on paper, but made sense in every other way to them.

Abbi climbing in Moab, Utah. Photograph by The Hearnes.

Eventually, they planned a longer three week loop. They drove all the way to Canada and back, and decided that when their apartment lease ended they would take three months off Callen’s job, live on the road for a season, and then come back to Houston to “settle down.” Maybe have a baby. Do the expected thing.

On the way home from that trip, Moab was their last stop. As they drove out of town, both of them stared out their respective windows and quietly started to cry.

“We were both crying and hiding it from each other,” Abbi said. “We were so sad, but we had not let ourselves admit that three months was not going to be enough.”

Somewhere on that long drive back to Texas, one of them finally broke the silence.

“This feels wrong,” one of them said. “Leaving the place that feels like home to go somewhere we call home, but does not feel like home.”

By the time they pulled into The Woodlands, the plan was no longer “take a three month break and then come back.” The plan was “leave, and follow the life we want.”

Leaving did meant not only walking away from stable jobs, but also walking away from the life their families had pictured for them. They were about to step outside the expectations of their church community.

“The thing I was most afraid of,” Abbi said, “was how embarrassing it would be to do this big thing and then end up coming back. I was so scared of that.”

When they finally told their families, the reaction was more supportive than they expected. Some friends were all in, cheering them on. Others were skeptical and worried about jobs and retirement and health insurance. Normal fears.

Now, when people ask her whether they should take a big leap, this is what she comes back to again: “It is actually more painful to never try because you are afraid to fail, and then spend the rest of your life wondering,” she said. “You can always come back. You will just come back with more information.”

Abbi and Callen.

The adventure coffin years and unexpected success

Their first year on the road felt, in Abbi’s words, like a movie montage. They bought a tiny camper that their friends nicknamed “the adventure coffin.” It was essentially a full sized mattress with a shell on top. You could not stand up inside. There was storage under the bed and a tailgate to cook on.

In winter, in Moab, their breath froze to the plastic ceiling. They would wake up to a layer of frost above them, scrape it with their fingers, then come back at night to sheets that had frozen stiff from the daily melt.

It was ridiculous, and they were delighted.

They were also slowly building a photography business around adventure sessions and elopements. That first year, booking a three thousand dollar elopement felt like winning the lottery. They truly believed they could live off that for six months. Their needs were simple. Then the business exploded.

They eventually upgraded to a Ram ProMaster and built it out themselves. At the time, van life was still relatively fringe. When they told the dealership they planned to live in the van, the sales staff looked confused. There were no glossy influencer van tours to model their decisions on. They were improvising as they went.

In 2017, they shot fifty five adventure sessions and thirty five weddings. They said yes to nearly every inquiry that came in. Moab in August, Yosemite in early September, Back to Moab mid September, Rainier late September. If they could physically drive between locations in time, they did it.

Abbi and her husband Callen in Bryce Canyon. Photograph by The Hearnes.

On the surface, it looked like the dream, but inside the van, the story was more complicated.

Abbi was thriving on the business side. She loved the work, both in the field and behind the scenes. She was obsessed with the craft and with building something that could support them.

For Callen, things felt a little different. He had gone on the road for adventure. Being in Yosemite but not actually climbing in Yosemite made him feel a little restless.

They were young and had no real roadmap for how to communicate through that kind of misalignment. Their community back in Texas, understandably, did not have a lot of context for what they were trying to do. To most people, it would look like they were complaining about having “too much” of a dream life.

That season taught them many things about what they needed in order to stay in this life for the long haul.

After that, the way they worked changed. They started creating a travel calendar that put their needs first. Instead of saying yes to every Yosemite inquiry, they picked two windows that felt good.

In 2018, they pointed the van north and drove to Alaska.

Falling in love with ice

Abbi has always been drawn to ice and cold places. In college, in Texas, she painted glaciers and icebergs. Patagonia lived in her imagination for a long time before she ever saw it.

Driving the Alaska Highway for the first time felt like stepping into a dream she had held at arm’s length for years. Much of what they saw on that drive, they were seeing without any prior visual script. There were no endless reels about that route yet. It felt new to them.

Their first crossing into Alaska was in Hyder, a tiny border town. They camped on a bluff above a glacier, and watched the blue ice spill down the valley.

“We kept saying, this is like Patagonia but we can drive to it,” she said. “Our phones work here. This is wild.”

Abbi exploring a glacier. Photograph by The Hearnes.

In Valdez they found an iceberg lake that quickly became one of their most cherished places. On that first trip, Abbi sat alone by the shore late at night in the rain and FaceTimed her dad, who was awake at his computer back in Texas.

“I wanted him to see the icebergs,” she said. “But he kept asking me to turn the phone around so he could see my face while I was looking at them.”

That detail made my eyes well up… A dad who understands that the real story is on his daughter’s face.

That same trip, everything changed. On the way to an engagement session, her brother called. They had a thirty minute drive to the trailhead, and in that window he told her their dad had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. It was serious.

She hung up the phone, told Callen what she could, and then did what so many of us do under shock… she disassociated.

“Trying to reschedule would have been so complicated,” she said. “I just decided to do the session and then deal with it.”

They had a wedding in Denali the following week. Friends offered to take it for her, but she chose to stay and see it through. After the wedding, she flew home to be with her family while Callen and a friend drove the van back to the lower 48.

That first Alaska trip became layered in her mind. It was a mix between awe and joy and a diagnosis that would shape the next four and a half years.

They’ve been back every summer since.

In that stretch of time, Alaska became something like a family member. It held their pre kid years, their early business, the arc of her dad’s illness, pregnancy, postpartum, toddlerhood.

Abbi in AK. Photograph by The Hearnes.

It also became the place where the speed and scale of climate change felt personal.

The glacier that feeds that iceberg lake in Valdez has pulled back dramatically. The first year, they could walk onto the ice. Now, you can only hike to a distant viewpoint. Somewhere in between, there was a massive calving event where about a mile of the glacier tongue broke off at once.

There is another glacier near Hyder that used to touch the lake. Now it sits far up the valley. Abbi talks about looking back at old photos and barely recognizing the same place.

To make sense of what she was seeing, she picked up a book called The Secret Lives of Glaciers by glaciologist M. Jackson. In it, Jackson writes about living in Iceland and talking to locals about the glaciers they had grown up with.

One thing that stuck with Abbi was how people described their glaciers as being “sick.” They talked about them as if they had a terminal illness. The slow thinning and retreat were like a progression of symptoms while big calving events were like strokes or major declines. Everyone knew, on some level, how the story would end.

Abbi and an Alaskan glacier. Photograph by The Hearnes.

For Abbi, who had just lived through four and a half years of her dad’s terminal cancer, this language made uncomfortable sense. The timeline of that Valdez glacier and the timeline of her dad’s illness will always feel connected in her memory. Two beings she loves, changing in ways that cannot be reversed.

“Even if we stop emissions tomorrow,” she said, “these glaciers are not going back to where they were in my lifetime. What has happened has happened.”

There are some places where the changes are subtle enough that she has to look at old photos to really see them while there are others that make the reality impossible to ignore.

When I lived in Alaska, I remember going to Exit Glacier and learning that the visitor center had been designed so people could see the glacier from the windows. Now you stand at those same windows and look at empty air. The ice has pulled so far back that you have to hike to see it.

We are watching this happen in a single human lifetime. In many cases, in a single decade.

It is impossible not to think about mortality when you are watching something ancient disappear this quickly. It raises a hard question that runs underneath this whole conversation.

If the places you love are changing in ways you cannot stop, how do you keep loving them without being swallowed by grief?

For Abbi, part of the answer has to do with her work. The other part has to do with how she is raising her daughter.

Landscapes as characters

When Abbi talks about the places she returns to, she talks about them the way you talk about people you love. There is the iceberg lake in Valdez that holds her last pure memory of her dad before his diagnosis. There is Castleton Tower, which she and Callen greet every time they drive into Castle Valley.

“We always say, Castleton still stands,” she told me. “It is a joke, but it is also very comforting.”

That relationship shows up in her images. When she photographs a couple in Castle Valley, she is not thinking “two people, one rock.” She is thinking about a trio.

“It feels like I am taking portraits of the couple and of Castleton,” she said.

In her work, the landscape is never just proof of an “epic” wedding. It feels like a third presence with its own long backstory. Because she knows these places so intimately, she carries years of memories into each shoot. The land shapes the love stories she tells, and those love stories shape her relationship with the land.

“My job makes me believe in love,” she said. “Dating sounds horrible these days, but I get to see people at the moment when it works out.”

Some days start with early alarms, long drives, and exhaustion. But then she meets the couple, drops into the significance of their moment, and reconnects to why she does this. She and Callen once photographed the elopement of the doctor who delivered their daughter. He literally brought their child into the world, and later she photographed him promising his life to someone else.

It is a strange kind of job, being one of so few witnesses to someone’s most important day. Many elopements have no guests at all.

“There are people in their lives who love them very much who are not there,” she told me. “And I am. That is not lost on me.”

Parenting a child in a changing world

There is another relationship running through all of this: the one between Abbi, her daughter, and the places they love that are changing.

I asked her what she hopes to teach Hyder about the outdoors, especially knowing what she knows about glaciers and climate and loss.

Abbi and her daughter Hyder. Photograph by The Hearnes.

“So much of my emphasis with her,” she said, “is teaching presence and admiration and joy in these places.”

They talk about climate and taking care of the planet, but her primary focus with her daughter right now is relationship.

“I want her to have a real connection to these places,” she said. “If she grows up to be someone who cares for the land and fights for it, I believe that will come from love, not from me telling her she should feel guilty.”

She brings the same philosophy to her online presence. She’s not interested in shaming people about their footprint or yelling into the void about how we are ruining everything.

“I want people to know these places exist,” she said. “I want them to feel drawn to them, to be in love with them. I think that is what actually motivates people to care.”

When she thinks about her daughter’s future, there is tenderness and grief.

There is a glacier lake near their house in Alaska that her mom remembers from her own twenties. At that time, it was full of icebergs and you could see the glacier from the road. Now, on a good day, there might be a single iceberg floating in silty water. The glacier has pulled so far back that you have to work to catch a glimpse of it.

That is a single generation change. Her mother’s early adulthood and her own adulthood.

“Hyder is going to grow up with all these childhood photos in places that will not exist in the same way when she is old enough to reflect on them,” she said. “That is really sad.”

With her dad, there was nothing they could do to change the outcome of his illness, but what they could do was maximize the time they had. She thinks about glaciers the same way.

“I want to do whatever I can for the planet,” she said. “And at the same time, on a daily level, one of my biggest priorities is to enjoy it. To be here with it. To stay in love with it and stay in relationship with it.”

Abbi and her daughter Hyder in Moab. Photograph by The Hearnes.

That is what she is trying to give her daughter. Not a childhood full of fear about the future, but a childhood full of real, embodied memories in places that feel like home.

Inviting people outside

Abbi has spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to share her images with a wider audience. One framing that feels right to her involves painters, not influencers.

When painters first went to Yosemite and brought back their canvases to Europe, most of the people who saw those paintings would never stand in the actual valley. The paintings were proof that something like that existed. Proof that the world held more than the view from your village.

Maybe a few people saw those paintings and actually made the journey. Many did not. The image itself still did something to their sense of what was possible.

“I like to think of what I share as a modern version of that,” she said. “I am basically saying, this is here. This exists. You can be in it, not just scroll past it.”

This has ripple effects she will probably never fully see. She gets messages from people who did not work with her directly, but saw her photos and chose to get married in a place that felt true to them rather than a ballroom that did not.

“I love when people say, I did not hire you, but your work inspired me to do something different for my wedding,” she said. “That feels like success to me.”

It’s all part of the same thread - choosing a life that is not standard issue and choosing to be awake in it.

The characters in your own life

What stays with me from this conversation is how many kinds of love and grief can exist in the same frame.

Abbi is photographing couples on one of their happiest days in places she knows are literally shifting beneath their feet. She is raising a daughter to fall in love with places that may look very different when she is thirty, so that love itself becomes a kind of tether to care.

And still, she keeps going back. She keeps saying yes to the landscape as a character. She keeps making images that feel like love letters to ice and rock and sky.

There is something powerful in that choice to stay. To keep visiting a place that reminds you of your dad’s voice on a late night FaceTime call.

My hope is that her story invites you to think about the characters in your own life. The mountain that has held your tears on more than one hike. The local trail that has seen you through breakups and promotions and quiet Sunday mornings. The city park that feels like a tiny, accessible wilderness in the middle of your week.

What would it look like to treat those places as beings you are in relationship with, instead of just backdrops to your life

Maybe after reading this you book a trip you have been putting off. Or you call someone you love and tell them you love them. Or you simply spend a little extra time outside this week in a place that feels like home.

Listen & stay connected

If you want to keep up with Abbi and The Hearnes, go find them online. Their images are love letters to many of the landscapes we talked about here, and you can feel the relationships in every frame.

Find Abbi on Instagram at @abbihearne and follow the adventures of her and Callen together at @thehearnes. Their portfolio and glacier / canyon / desert love letters live over at thehearnes.com.

If you want to stay connected to Women in Wild Places, you can:

• Follow the podcast + community on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces

• Find me, your host, on Instagram at @outsidegabs

• Check out my gear lists and episode-inspired kits: https://shopmy.us/outsidegabs Spotify for Creators

If this conversation resonated with you, sharing the Substack or episode with a friend, leaving a review on your listening app, or tagging us in a post from your own “character” landscape helps this project reach more people who need it.

Thank you for being here and for taking such good care of the places and people you love.

-Gabriella

There is a big gap between what we see online and the real, layered truth of rebuilding your relationship with outdoor life during this phase of life.

If you’re pregnant, postpartum, thinking about becoming a parent someday, or simply curious about how big life transitions reshape our connection to wild places, this might strike a cord with you.

Today I’m sharing what surprised me, what challenged me, and what helped me stay connected to adventure in a season when everything felt unfamiliar.

Nursing my baby on a helicopter in Moab, Utah.

The Expectations People Put on You

Long before I gave birth, people were quick to project their own fears onto me.

“Enjoy your freedom now.” “Say goodbye to your adventures.” “Everything is about to change.”

My partner and I have always lived in a way that centers movement and mountains. There has never been a time when we didn’t have some sort of objective or trip on the calendar. So hearing people insist that all of that would disappear was discouraging and sometimes made me question myself.

But early on, we made an agreement: we were not going to give up the things that make us who we are.

Pregnancy: The Unexpected Reality

I had a healthy pregnancy and was able to run, hike, lift, practice yoga, and even climb for a bit. My medical team supported all of it. And yet, I still had people tell me not to do those things, as if pregnancy made me fragile.

What surprised me most wasn’t the physical adaptations, even though there were days when simple things left me breathless. It was the feeling of not fully recognizing my own body. I have spent years pushing myself as an athlete. I trained for Denali, built strength in the gym, and thrived on long days in the mountains. Learning how to pull back instead of push was new. Listening to my body instead of overriding it was new for me.

Hiking, 5 months pregnant.

Postpartum: The Part I Didn’t Expect

I thought I had an idea of what postpartum healing would feel like. I didn’t. The exhaustion, the physical recovery, the hormonal waves, the brain fog, the breastfeeding logistics, and the recalibration hit all at once.

In those early months, the only outdoor time I had was slow walking or stroller miles. Eventually those walks turned into slow jogs, and eventually I began rebuilding strength with a trainer, focusing on the simplest foundations: breathing, stability, core activation. It was slow, but it was exactly what I needed.

Three months postpartum in Utah.

The Identity Shift

The hardest part for me was not physical, but mental.

I found myself wondering whether I was still a climber if I wasn’t climbing and whether I could call myself an athlete if my training looked nothing like it used to. Those questions were unsettling and cracked open parts of my identity I hadn’t examined before.

The truth I finally landed on is simple. You do not lose the parts of yourself you’ve earned. They are still there, even if they feel quiet for a while.

Motherhood reshaped my identity but it didn’t erase it.

Adventure still matters to me, but it just looks different in this season.

Adventuring as a Family

Adjusting to outdoor life with a baby adds a new dynamic. There is me and my partner, each of our relationships with our son, and the three of us together. Each has its own flow.

At ten months, we have not had many couple-only adventures yet, and I do miss that. But adventuring with Merlin has created a new kind of fulfillment.

We have canoe camped, had crag days, and backpacked. We’ve spent many weekends in the Adirondacks because we were having so much fun we didn’t want to stop. Camping with a baby is not as hard as people assume, especially if you already feel comfortable outside.

Some things that helped were using a three-person tent with a memory foam topper, bringing a well-fitted baby life vest for canoe trips, leaning on a good backpack carrier, having an off-road stroller, and creating a cozy, safe sleep setup. The biggest thing, though, was lowering the stakes and letting adventure take new forms.

You can find some of our favorite gear items here.

Camping with our son at Crane Mountain Pond in the Adirondacks.

Micro-Adventures

I learned the value of smaller windows of time. Instead of waiting for the perfect full day, I began using the slices of time that naturally existed in our routine. Sometimes it meant a quick trail loop near the house, a visit to the gym while my partner was home, or a simple sunrise walk before the day fully began.

These moments are not necessarily about intensity... I think of them as a thread that keeps me connected to what I enjoy. Adventure did not disappear, but it shifted into a different shape.

Out for a trail run on our backyard trails.

Rebuilding Strength in a New Season

Ten months in, I am still rebuilding strength. Carrying Merlin in his pack is its own kind of training. Lifting him from the floor, keeping up with the motions of daily life, and hiking with him have all become reminders of the strength that remains and the strength that is returning.

Postpartum strength comes back on its own timeline, and as mothers, staying strong feels essential. It’s part of how we show up for ourselves and for our children.

Merlin & me at the lake.

How Things Change

If you had asked me a few years ago what adventure meant, I would have told you it was about big mountains, risks, and goals. Now it also means backyard trails, easy mornings in the woods, and letting small windows count instead of waiting for perfect conditions.

At the same time I am starting to see how larger objectives might fit into our life again, eventually. My partner has an Alaska objective this summer and I have one planned after that. Our approach is different from the past when we would do things together, but we are finding ways to make it work along the way.

How to Listen & Stay Connected

If this episode resonates with you or you know someone navigating pregnancy, postpartum, or a shifting outdoor identity, I’d love for you to share it.

Stay Connected:
• Women in Wild Places on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces
• My personal page: @outsidegabs
• Gear we use & love: ShopMy Outdoor Picks

Sharing the show, leaving a quick rating, or even forwarding the episode to a friend truly helps this community grow.

Next Week on Women in Wild Places

Next week, I’m sharing a conversation with someone who has inspired me deeply in how she approaches motherhood, storytelling, and seasonal living. Elopement and adventure photographer Abbi Hearne joins me, and her perspective is one you will not want to miss.

Thank you for being here, for listening, and for supporting this project. What began as a curiosity has grown into something meaningful, and I’m grateful to share it with you.

I’ll see you out there.

- Gabriella

Kimber grew up in Washington state, spending long days fishing with her dad, eating donuts before dawn, and learning early what it meant to live off the land.

She was born with one hand, and for most of her childhood and young adulthood, that meant hiding. Hand in pockets, behind binders, out of photos. Then a few moments of representation changed everything: a fast-pitch pitcher with one hand, a mentor who believed in her, and later, a Reel Rock film of a climber who looked like her. Those breadcrumbs turned into a decade-long journey from “I can’t” to “I will” to “I did.”

In this episode, we talk about the phrase that guides her life, can’t, will, did, how she became an ice climber with a custom prosthetic tool, what it really looks like to balance a three-in-one life as teacher/athlete/speaker, and her upcoming third attempt on the Ham and Eggs route on the Moose’s Tooth in Alaska. We also dig into representation, unconscious bias, mentorship, and why provoking people into action means more than simply inspiring them.

This is a story about refusing to hide, tenacity, and becoming the representation you once needed.

Blueberries in the Backyard and Early-Morning Fishing Runs

Kimber grew up in small-town Washington and had the kind of childhood where you were outside until dark, summer breakfast was a bowl of cereal plus whatever berries you picked from the yard, and weekend mornings meant 4 a.m. wakeups to go fishing with her dad.

She remembers the hot chocolate, fresh donuts from Frank’s, and hours on the water.

It was a life built around the outdoors as sustenance: fishing, hunting, gardening, raising cows. Nature wasn’t necessarily a playground but was how you lived, connected with your family, and learned respect for the land.

Climbing wouldn’t come for a couple more decades.

Growing Up With a Limb Difference and Learning to Hide

Kimber was born with one hand. And despite loving sports (fast pitch especially), she spent most of her childhood and adolescence hiding it with a binder pressed against her side, hand tucked into pockets, and angling herself in photos so no one would notice.

She tells the story of a boyfriend who didn’t realize for four days and a best friend who didn’t know for months. Even as a high-performing athlete, she learned to minimize, in order to make herself palatable to others, and to avoid the Disney-villain stereotype she grew up seeing.

“I was consumed with the opinion of others,” she said. “The lack of representation made me feel like this has to be hidden.”

The Before & After: Jim Abbott, Fast Pitch, and a Door Opening

Her mom was acutely aware of how the world might treat her daughter, and found one glimmer of representation: Jim Abbott, the Major League pitcher born with one hand. That was enough.

Kimber pitched for nine years, modifying a glove, developing her own style, and learning early what it means to problem-solve, adapt, and perform.

Sports gave her a foundation, and the representation gave her a direction.

When Heartbreak Leads You to a Glacier

In her late 20s, after moving back home from Kansas City, a friend invited her to sign up for the Mountaineers’ Basic Alpine course, the gateway to climbing Rainier.

Kimber said yes. But before the course, an instructor told her: The committee wasn’t sure she could safely climb with one hand. Not out of malice, but out of fear, deficit thinking.

Scott, a former Army Ranger who had worked closely with veterans using prosthetics ended up being her ally without knowing it. He believed in adaptations. He believed in her.

“You don’t get kicked out,” he told her. “But you also don’t get a free pass. You’ll learn what works and you’ll teach us.” That moment changed everything.

Seeing Someone Like You

During the ice portion of the course, Scott held up a photo of climber Maureen Beck with a prosthetic ice tool. A one-handed athlete climbing at a high level.

One picture was all Kimber needed.

“I went from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I will.’”

She spent nearly two years working with a prosthetist to build a custom ice tool (pro bono) after showing him a video of Will Gadd and explaining what ice climbing required. Finally she could climb ice.

Now, nearly a decade later, she’s an athlete, an alpinist, and a mentor to others.

Can’t, Will, Did

This phrase can’t, will, did became her compass.

It carried her through learning to ice climb, leading pitches with a prosthetic, and through becoming a sponsored athlete.

It also carried her through the emotional work of not hiding anymore. She chose authenticity over fear, even when someone at a mall kiosk once recoiled at her outstretched stump.

That moment, she said, confirmed why representation matters: “He just hadn’t had enough exposure. I’m not going to hide so the next generation thinks they have to.”

Unconscious Bias on the Mountain

We talked a lot about bias in outdoor spaces and the quiet assumptions people make about who belongs, who’s a beginner, who can be a leader.

• Guides assuming she was new.

• A stranger asking if she was the guide simply because she wasn’t Asian like her partners.

• People projecting limitations before asking questions.

It’s not always malicious but it shapes experiences in real ways.

Kimber’s response was to model something different for the next generation.
Instead, she shows them thoughtful ways to ask “How do you do that?” instead of “You must not be able to.”

The Kindergarten Hot Seat

One of my favorite parts of this conversation was Kimber describing her “kindergarten hot seat,” where she brings professional athletes like climbers, surfers, skiers into her classroom via Zoom.

The kids get to ask anything: Do you get scared? What’s your favorite color?

They see people who look like them doing things they didn’t know were possible. They see disabled athletes, women athletes, athletes from diverse backgrounds. They learn new vocabulary: prosthetic, alpinism, glacier.

Kimber’s hope is that her students won’t wait until they’re 30 to see themselves in the outdoors.

Three Lives: Teacher, Athlete, Speaker

Kimber’s life requires a level of organization that only a kindergarten teacher could master. Herding 5-year-olds, managing parents, lesson plans, data collection and then switching into “athlete mode” every weekend, break, and holiday.

Her husband and teenage step-kids are a huge part of that balance, too… She relies on list-making, her supportive partnership, and constant learning on communication and boundaries.

“It’s chaotic,” she said. “But my cup is full.”

Moose’s Tooth: Attempt Three

This spring, Kimber heads back to Alaska for her third attempt on the Ham and Eggs route on the Moose’s Tooth.

Attempt one ended in injury and a frozen prosthetic.
Attempt two was thwarted by avalanches, high danger, and days digging out tents.
Attempt three will be a result of tenacity and patience.

“It’s a process,” she said. “The summit is optional. Coming home is mandatory.”

She’ll bring a modified prosthetic this time with a Velcro cap to prevent the release button from freezing.

And she’ll bring what she learned: You don’t always stay in the did, sometimes you go back to can’t, but that’s where perseverance lives.

Advice for Anyone Who Doesn’t See Themselves in the Outdoors

Kimber’s advice is simple and profound:

If you don’t quit, you win.

Fear of being seen, fear of looking “cringe,” fear of standing out keeps so many people from even trying. But the truth, she says, is that no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are.

Pursue your passion anyway.
Let go of the “fear of man.”
Don’t let someone else’s imagination limit your reality.

Listen & Stay Connected

If Kimber’s journey sparked something in you like maybe seeing yourself reflected, or a nudge to pursue something you’ve been avoiding I’d love to hear about it.

🎧 Listen to the full episode
Hear my full conversation with Kimber Cross on Women in Wild Places wherever you get your podcasts.

🧭 For anyone navigating identity, fear, or big objectives
I’ll be sharing more stories about women redefining what’s possible in their lives — on mountains, rivers, glaciers, and beyond.

🌲 Follow Kimber

🌐 Website: https://www.kimberbelle.com/
📸 Instagram: @kimberbelle

🌲 Follow WIWP and stay connected

• Follow along on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces for episode clips, behind-the-scenes, and trail days.

• Have your own story about finding a wild place, starting scared, or keeping your sport alive through big life transitions?
  📬 Send me a note at womenandwildplaces@gmail.com with Trail Dispatch in the subject line to be featured in a future episode.

Thanks and see you out there.

-Gabriella

A stolen commuter bike led to her first mountain bike. One flat trail ride turned into full-on obsession. And along the way, mountain biking became one of the ways she works through the hard parts of life: anxiety, big transitions, and the constant push-pull of motherhood and guilt.

This is a story about starting scared, finding your people, and letting yourself be the mom your kid sees absolutely shredding outside.

From “I Hated the Outdoors” to “I Need This to Survive”

Emily grew up in Oregon, surrounded by the mossy forests many of us fantasize about. But unlike the cliché of the PNW kid building fairy houses out of ferns and mushrooms, Emily wanted… her friends.

Her parents took her and her siblings camping and hiking all the time, but she remembers looking miserable in every photo.

“My mom told me later she wished she’d just let me bring friends. I didn’t actually hate the outdoors, I just really loved being with my friends.”

That detail matters, because it’s almost funny in contrast to who she is now: someone who needs outdoor movement to feel okay in her body and mind. It’s a reminder that your relationship to the outdoors is allowed to evolve. You can go from indifferent (or even resistant) to completely hooked.

The Bike That Got Stolen (and the One That Changed Everything)

Emily’s mountain biking story starts when her commuter bike (her practical, ride-to-work bike) got stolen.

Her partner surprised her at Christmas with a replacement: not just another commuter, but her first mountain bike.

And at first?

“I famously yelled that I only wanted to ride flat trails. Going fast or downhill terrified me.”

But her partner was patient. They started small. Emily learned the basics of body positioning, weight distribution, and how not to catapult herself over the handlebars. That slow learning curve eventually tipped into obsession.

Now, she jokes that “obsessed” is probably the most accurate word for how she feels about riding, and that it’s become a non-negotiable for her mental health.

Breaking Into a “Gnarly” Sport

If you’ve ever glanced at mountain biking and thought, that’s a lot of gear and a lot of risk, you’re not wrong.

There are bikes, suspension, dropper posts, shoes, helmets, pads, tools, and the mysterious art of “mechanicking” your bike. It’s also a sport that’s historically felt very male-dominated, which adds a whole extra layer of intimidation.

Emily remembers being terrified on those early rides. She was (and still is) vocal on the trail, yelling through features that scared her while her brain and body tried to catch up.

Over time, she started to see trails differently. Instead of just “downhill” or “uphill,” she started seeing features, which are individual puzzles she could piece together one by one.

“A hard trail becomes this sequence of puzzles. You figure out one feature, and then the next. When you finally ride the whole thing clean, the sense of accomplishment is huge.”

It’s not just adrenaline. It’s problem-solving, progression, and the quiet confidence of knowing you can do something today that you couldn’t do last month.

Finding Community in a Brewery Parking Lot

When Emily and her husband moved from Portland to Beacon, New York, they didn’t know anyone. No built-in community and no friend group. They were in a new town that had a mountain people mostly knew for hiking.

One afternoon, they spotted a small group of riders hanging out with bikes and beers in a brewery parking lot at the base of the mountain. Her husband walked over to say hi. Those strangers are now some of their closest friends.

“We joke that he makes the friends and I keep the friends. He’s better at walking up to people, and I’m better at following up.”

From there, everything snowballed. Group rides, bike park trips, travel plans, and a crew of people who share not just a sport, but a way of life.

If the idea of just walking up to people with bikes feels terrifying, Emily gets that. That’s why she loves local bike shops and outdoor stores that host weekly group rides, especially beginner and women’s rides where everyone is learning together.

If you’re in the Hudson Valley, there are great networks of rail trails to start on and local shops like Bikeway, Catskill Bike Shop, and Woodstock Bike Shop that offer group rides and rentals. It doesn’t have to start with a gnarly descent. It can start with a rail trail, a borrowed bike, and a curious “hey.”

The Puzzle of Fear, Flow, and Full-Body Focus

One of my favorite parts of this conversation was when Emily talked about the line between fear and joy… how being right on that edge is part of what makes mountain biking so addicting.

On a technical trail, every rock garden, root tangle, and off-camber turn becomes part of a moving puzzle. Your brain is constantly planning: weight here, brake there, eyes up, hips loose. Your body is absorbing hits, adjusting, committing.

It’s a full-body meditation.

“It’s this whole sensory experience. The smell of pine and wet leaves, the sound of rocks under your tires, the creek nearby… it pulls you fully out of your everyday stress.”

That’s a theme I keep hearing from women whose “thing” is outside: climbing, running, rafting, biking. When something requires your full attention, it becomes a kind of enforced meditation. You don’t have space to replay your inbox or your mental to-do list. You’re just there.

Tour de Mont Blanc on Two Wheels

Before Emily became a mom, she took on one of the biggest physical and mental challenges of her life: riding the Tour de Mont Blanc on a bike.

Most people know the Tour de Mont Blanc as a famous hiking route that loops around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy. It’s also the course of the ultra-trail race UTMB. It is not a bike path.

Emily joined a group of ten riders who decided to take it on by mountain bike. The trails were built for hikers, not bikes, which meant steep grades, technical terrain, and long stretches where riding simply wasn’t possible.

“You’re carrying your pack, 12 to 15 pounds, and then your bike on your back. Forty-plus pounds total. My shoulder will never be the same.”

The trip took five to six days. They stayed in mountain refuges along the way, shared meals with hikers, runners, and other bikers from all over the world, and spent entire days unplugged: no service, no screens, just the shared mission of getting to that day’s destination.

It was physically brutal. It was mentally demanding. It was also one of the most meaningful experiences of her life.

“You have this clear purpose: get from here to there today. Everything else falls away. It makes you question what your life is actually built around.”

Emily and her all-women crew on the Tour de Mont Blanc, bikes on backs, Mont Blanc in the distance.

Motherhood, Risk & the Guilt That Won’t Shut Up

When Emily became a mom to her daughter, Delilah, mountain biking didn’t suddenly disappear, but it did change.

Before motherhood, her goals were all about pushing: going faster, riding harder trails, beating her own times. After Delilah was born, her risk calculus shifted almost overnight.

“Breaking something just isn’t an option in the same way anymore. I think about picking her up, caring for her… it changes everything.”

She still rides. She still loves it. But she’s more risk-averse now, especially on the rocky, technical terrain of the East Coast. Her priorities have shifted from “how gnarly can I go?” to being outside with friends, moving her body, and taking care of her mental health without taking unnecessary risks.

At the same time, she wants to model courage and resilience for her daughter.

She wants Delilah to see her mom do hard things, fall and get back up, take smart risks, and live fully.

“I don’t want to teach her to be timid. I want her to see that she can be tough, that she can take risks and get back up when she falls.”

And then there’s the guilt. The quiet, voice asking: Should I be doing this? Should I be home right now instead?

Every ride, every run, every session with friends comes with that internal tug-of-war. But Emily keeps coming back to something a friend told her:

“The healthiest thing for kids is happy, healthy parents.”

Taking that ride or run might feel selfish in the moment. But if you come back more patient, more grounded, more yourself, that’s not selfish. That’s care.

A New Version of “Together”

Like many of us, Emily used to do most of her outdoor adventures with her partner. Mountain biking, camping, trips. They were shared hobbies and shared time.

Enter baby, dog, life. Suddenly, everything becomes trade-offs and logistics.

These days, Emily and her husband often trade off: one rides while the other hangs with their daughter and dog. To make it easier, they bought a small travel trailer and started parking it at bike parks and campgrounds.

“It’s different, but it works. We still get to camp with friends, still ride, and our daughter sees us doing what we love.”

Delilah has already started wanting to ride her own little bike, just from watching her parents. And while Emily is careful not to push it on her, she’s also not going to stop her when she asks.

There’s grief in this phase for the long, carefree days of riding or running with your partner without time limits or nap schedules. But there’s also a new kind of joy: your kid growing up with “outside parents” as the norm, and a family culture built around being in motion together.

Hype Girls and Girl Trains

Some of Emily’s best days on the bike have been on all-women rides.

She loves her guy friends, and often rides in mixed groups. But when it’s just women, something shifts:

• There’s more stopping to “session” features, trying them over and over instead of just blasting through.

• There’s relentless hype. If one woman rides a feature for the first time, everyone else cheers like they did it too.

• There’s less pressure to perform and more room to laugh, experiment, and be a little goofy.

“We’ll be in this little train of three or four women, screaming and laughing and cheering for each other. Getting to the bottom all together is the best feeling.”

And there’s a performance bump that comes with it, too. Emily says she rides more features when she’s following a friend than when she’s alone. Seeing someone just ahead of you ride a line makes it more possible in your own mind.

We’re visual creatures. Sometimes we need to see someone like us do something to believe we can too.

Crashing and Coming Back

Of course, the story would be incomplete without talking about the hard parts: crashes, concussions, injuries, and the mental game of getting back on the trail.

In the lead-up to the Tour de Mont Blanc, Emily had a concussion and a fractured foot, both from training.

She almost backed out of the trip.

But with support from her husband and friends, she decided to go. That decision, and the experience that followed, deepened her relationship with the sport.

“Going back to where you crashed and riding it again, it’s scary, but it’s important.”

She’s also changed how she manages risk. One hard-earned rule: don’t take big risks when you’re riding alone. The concussion that scared her most happened when she tried a jump she didn’t know how to do, solo, while riding in a state of “flow” and overconfidence.

Now, when she’s alone, she takes it easy. She saves progression and bigger pushes for group rides, where there’s backup, support, and someone to help if something goes wrong.

Finding Your Own Flow (On a Bike or Anywhere)

Emily doesn’t hit flow every ride. Anxiety, life stress, and the usual brain noise can make it harder to drop in fully.

But when it does click (usually with friends, on trails she loves) there’s nothing like it.

“You feel invincible in the best way. You’re just so in it that everything else falls away.”

Her advice for women who are curious about mountain biking but intimidated?

Start smaller than you think. Let it be awkward and humbling at first. Use the resources around you:

• Rail trails and flat paths to get comfortable on the bike.

• Beginner group rides at local shops—especially women’s rides, where everyone’s learning.

• Rental bikes if you’re not sure you’re ready to commit.

And if you’re in the Hudson Valley and thinking about it? She genuinely means it when she says: reach out.

Listen & Stay Connected

If Emily’s story sparked something in you like maybe a long-latent curiosity about mountain biking, or a desire to protect your outdoor identity alongside motherhood—I’d love to hear about it.

🎧 Listen to the full episode
Hear the whole conversation with Emily Jordan on Women in Wild Places wherever you get your podcasts.

🧺 For moms balancing it all
If you’re a parent trying to juggle naps, night wake-ups, and your need to move your body outside, you’re not alone. I’ll be sharing more stories, strategies, and gentle reminders that your joy matters too over on Substack.

🌲 Follow & share your story

• Follow along on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces for episode clips, behind-the-scenes, and trail days.

• Have your own story about finding a wild place, starting scared, or keeping your sport alive through big life transitions?
  📬 Send me a note at womenandwildplaces@gmail.com with Trail Dispatch in the subject line to be featured in a future episode.

Thanks for being here.

-Gabriella

If you’ve ever dreamed about rowing through the Grand Canyon, running rapids, or finding your footing in a wild place that changes you, then this conversation is for you.

This week on Women in Wild Places, I talk with my friend Jess Parks, who has rowed the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon fourteen times and now calls Juneau, Alaska home. Jess and I first met as internet strangers on my cancellation permit trip in 2023, which led to an 18-day adventure.

In this episode, Jess shares how she went from rowing crew on the rivers of New York City to guiding whitewater in Colorado, and eventually building a life around big water, canyon walls, and community. We talk about the intensity of running rapids, the balance of risk and reward, the awe that keeps her coming back, and what it means to mentor and inspire other women at the oars.

City Rivers to Canyon Walls

Jess’s story starts in an unlikely place: Manhattan. She was rowing crew every morning on the East River, surrounded by skyscrapers and fluorescent lights. A cross-country road trip with friends cracked something open… she saw the American West for the first time and swore she’d never work indoors again.

Soon after, she found herself at a guide school in Durango, Colorado—her first time camping and her first time whitewater rafting. Out of her depth but completely hooked, she discovered a new kind of freedom on the water.

“I hated it so much that I swore I’d never work indoors another day of my life.”

Hooked on Wild Water

From that first trip, Jess began chasing rivers across the West, eventually finding her home in Juneau, Alaska, where she could balance a grounded life with big adventure. But the Grand Canyon kept calling.

Her first trip wasn’t with a commercial outfitter—it was a private winter expedition she joined through a chance encounter with a client’s son. That single “yes” turned into fourteen Grand Canyon trips over fourteen years.

“When I’m running rapids, I love how it occupies every single part of my attention. Everything else falls away. You’re in that exact moment, mind and body, totally engaged with the water.”

Jess captaining her boat on the Grand Canyon in 2023.

The Balance of Risk & Reward

Running rapids, Jess says, is part chaos, part meditation. Every move demands full presence: your muscles, your breath, your intuition all in sync.

But that presence is earned through preparation. She talks about how risk is mitigated, not erased, how safety, teamwork, and awareness create the confidence to “really push it.”

“Having people who have your back and other boats, good gear, good training… it makes the reward that much bigger.”

A Lifetime in Miniature

For those who haven’t experienced a Grand Canyon river trip, Jess describes it as “a lifetime in miniature.”
Eighteen to twenty-eight days without cell service. A small floating community that becomes its own world. Days that stretch from sunrise coffee to star-filled skies.

There are moments of exhaustion of course. Sand in your eyes, sore hands, endless rigging, and moments of awe that stop you cold: moonlight on canyon walls, the blue of the Little Colorado, a friend playing guitar in Redwall Cavern.

“Each trip feels like a lifetime in miniature. You leave with new stories, new lessons, and the kind of wisdom you can’t get anywhere else.”

Jess’s journals from 14 years of rowing the Grand Canyon.

Women at the Oars

Jess reflects on what it’s like to often be one of the only women rowing big rapids and how that’s shifted over time as she’s begun mentoring others.

She shares stories of her friend and mentor Susan, who still rows self-supported trips in her 70s; of Abby, whom Jess encouraged to captain her own raft; and of Kiana, her 19-year-old cousin who joined for her first trip and went on to study ecology after falling in love with the river.

“The river has given so much to me. To be able to help other people experience it and pass it on, that’s the best.”

Finding Your Own Flow

Jess’s advice for anyone dreaming of the Grand Canyon, or any big adventure, is beautifully simple:

Start small. Save a little at a time. Engineer your lifestyle to make space for the things that make you feel alive.

Private Grand Canyon trips, she points out, are often more affordable than you’d think. What matters most is willingness—the courage to say yes, even when you don’t feel ready.

“You never row the same river twice. The people are different, the water is different, and you’re different each time.”

Listen & Stay Connected

🧰 Gear for river trips & canyon adventures:
Curious what I actually use on the river and in big canyon environments? You can shop my curated gear list here:
👉 Shop my Grand Canyon & river trip gear list
🌊 Follow: @womeninwildplaces for episode clips, behind-the-scenes, and river stories.
📬 Share your story: send a note to womeninwildplaces@gmail.com with Trail Dispatch in the subject line to be featured in a future episode.

Sam, a Catskills native, has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and completed every trail in the Catskill Park

-Sam Cash

Kristi is a wildlife biologist, rescue dog mom, and endurance runner who believes that connection to each other and the land can change how we move through the world.

-Kristi Confortin

Both leaders of Trail Sisters Catskills, together they encourage and uplift women to explore without fear.

Here we talk about running as meditation, building confidence on the trail, showing up for yourself and others, and what sisterhood really means in the wild.

💌 Want to get involved?

Follow @trailsisterscatskills for local group runs and events in the Catskills (always no-drop, all paces welcome). Trail Sisters is a nationwide organization. To find the community near you, visit the Trail Sisters Community Page.

Join the conversation on @womeninwildplaces, or send your story for Trail Dispatch to womeninwildplaces@gmail.com.

Thanks, and see you out there!

-Gabriella, Host of Women in Wild Places

The first episode gives a taste of what’s to come in terms of themes, guests, and inspiration. I share a little about my experience climbing Denali as a woman in a typically male-dominated space, and the challenges and benefits that come along with that.

We hope you enjoy!

P.S. Want to share your story? Send a voicenote or drop a line to us at womeninwildplaces@gmail.com to be featured in our Trail Dispatch series.

Women in Wild Places Founder, in the Pyrenees

There are certain challenges that we face in a field that has historically been male-dominated, including a lack of other female partners to share experiences with, self-limiting beliefs that we cannot thrive in difficult conditions, or social and societal pressures insisting the outdoors are not meant for women. Our capitalistic society has also led us to believe that our time is better spent making and spending money than it is communing with nature.

To be truly adventurous takes a certain type of personality, a certain level of privilege, and a willingness to go against the grain. It takes work to undertake outdoor expeditions, and that level of work can often be a deterrent, especially when obligations pile up. Particularly difficult objectives in mountaineering, whitewater travel, and endurance efforts can be mentally intimidating. It takes time to plan trips, money to invest in gear and lost wages, and grit to train for pursuits that are often more easily physically accessed by men. While daunting, the benefits far outweigh the “negatives.” In fact, the effort itself is what makes the experience more rewarding than if it were easy, and that challenge is part of the appeal for many.

Women in Wild Places Founder, on Denali

For mothers especially, it can be tough to justify to ourselves or our partners that investing in outdoor pursuits is worthwhile. Some outdoorswomen choose not to have children so they can continue pursuing their objectives. A valid decision. Others have children while hoping to return to their version of adventures. Also a valid decision. Still others dream of raising outdoor-focused families: maybe not month-long expeditions in the Himalayas after kids, but shorter backpacking trips together as the new goal. Each path brings its own benefits.

As a lifelong outdoorsperson, I have deeply felt my time in wild places alone. Solo backpacking trips, nights in tents, and mountain running have given me space to reflect, meditate, and temporarily lose sight of the ego. The meditations and realizations I’ve had by existing without human-made distractions have shaped me into a better human. Many fear going alone… Whether because they didn’t grow up outdoors, because of self-doubt, or because of real or perceived danger. With preparation, risk can be reduced but never erased. That’s part of what makes the experience so rewarding: it takes a certain mental fortitude as a woman to go alone.

I have also found deep meaning in being outdoors in community. As many of us know, it can be difficult to find other women to get out there with. I’ve loved my time with diverse parties on mountains and rivers. It takes people with different skills, perspectives, and humor to make an expedition thrive. Still, I’ve often been the only woman, or one of very few, in male-dominated groups. These have been largely incredible experiences, but I’ve also faced moments as a leader where others defied me simply because of my gender. Regardless of group makeup, community outdoors builds confidence and comfort.

With these nuances in mind, I think it’s important to understand what an outdoor-focused lifestyle can bring. It’s difficult to describe the feeling of standing on a ridgeline after twenty days of high-altitude mountaineering. Or the peace of paddling quietly with otters swimming ahead, mountains rising in the distance. Or the satisfaction of pulling yourself up a cliff, then gazing down at the autumn-colored valley below.

Women in Wild Places Founder, in the Gunks

These moments are hard to verbalize, but unmistakable when felt. They move through us like a current, shifting who we are. Because of that, it’s necessary for us to have these experiences and feel them ourselves… so we know instead of think.

The goal of putting this to paper is to find community with others who relate. As women in wild places, we should encourage others to do the same… to tap into their potential, to feel the real, tangible world around us. We come from nature, and it is in our nature to be immersed in it. The effort of being a woman in the outdoors shouldn’t be seen as a deterrent, but as a worthy challenge that brings peace, satisfaction, and worthiness.

It’s my hope to help create a community of women who feel more confident in themselves outdoors, knowing the rest of us are a net to catch them. When we immerse ourselves, we return refreshed, stronger, and happier. We understand life is fragile and short - and that there is no time to waste. Take that hike. Sign up for the expedition. Train for the mountain. You’ll find strength in yourself you didn’t know was there. As wild women, we know that we are of this earth and will return to it—so we’d better get exploring.

-Gabriella DiGiovanni

Founder of Women in Wild Places

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