Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast. Welcome back. This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today, we are joined by a true trailblazer, Norie Kizaki.

Bornin a remote Japanese village where her family oversaw a Buddhist temple, Norie’s path to the mountains was anything but traditional. After moving to the U.S. for graduate school and falling in love with the Rockies, she navigated therigorous AMGA certification process to become a mountain guide.

In this episode, we dive into her transition from the corporate world to the outdoors, her experiences as an immigrant in a male-dominated industry, and the deeplypersonal choice she made to prioritize motherhood alongside her professionalaspirations. Let’s welcome Norie Kizaki.

Quotes:

• On her rural upbringing: “We didn’t really have much of a mountaineering culture really when I was growing out… outdoor exercise was for rich people. It didn’t really occur to me that people do that.”
• On her “American Dream”: “I started to dream about going to America… just growing up in this tiny little village I just wanted to see outside world and outside world it wasn’t just Japan.”
• On her mentorship with Angela Hawse: “I met female guides including Angela Hawse and I was very inspired. I didn’t know that profession existed and I didn’t know that woman could do it.”
• On the difference between guiding and personal climbing: “If you wanted to be a really good talented rock climber, you should not become a guide… guiding is completely different from personal climbing.”
• On shifting priorities during her fertility journey: “I really did struggle with I really want to do this course… and I just decided that what? It’s not really worth it. I need to stop this for now [to focus on becoming a mother].”
• On what she wants to be remembered for: “I think I want my grave to say caring mother even if it doesn’t say I am a guide… that was it. And then I decided what if I wanted to say caring mother even if it doesn’t say I am a guide.”
• On overcoming intimidation as an immigrant: “I realized I had to work much harder if I look different and if I speak differently… I didn’t want to be a victim, I didn’t want to be sorry for myself for looking different or being different or speaking differently.”
• On the “Mama Guilt”: “I always have to balance motherhood and guiding… it’s always a balancing act and it never ever feels like it’s balanced and it’s never going to be balanced unfortunately.”

About Norie:

Originally from rural Japan, Norie moved to Colorado in 1996 for graduate school and has been guiding for more than 20 years. She completed her AMGA programs in 2021, marking several historic milestones: she is the first mother to complete the Mountain Guide Program, the first Japanese woman to achieve IFMGA status, and the first woman of color to become an AMGA/IFMGA guide.
In recognition of her expertise, she was named the 2023 Guide of the Year by the American Mountain Guides Association. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Norie spends her winters ski guiding in Japan. She and her husband also sponsor the Kizaki-Wolf Scholarship through the American Institute for Avalanche Research & Education (AIARE) to support underrepresented populations in the outdoors.

Show Notes:

Emilie is a an AMGA/IFMGA Mountain Guide but she likes lots of things that have nothing to do with mountains: cats, true crime podcasts, and books about early Arctic exploration to name a few. 
When she is guiding, she’s a generalist and finds equal enjoyment on sunny rock climbs, steep ice, and snowy slopes. 
If she’s not home in Salt Lake City, UT, she likes traveling the world….the more unusual the place, the better!

Emilie’s Links:

• http://www.emiliedrinkwater.com

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, welcome back. This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today I am joined by a veteran of the guiding world, Emilie Drinkwater. With over 25 years of experience, Emilie’s career has taken her from the rugged ice of the Adirondacks to pioneering leadership programs for women in Afghanistan. As an IFMGA-certified guide and a member of the AMGA instructor team, she brings a wealth of knowledge on what it means to make guiding a lifelong profession.

In this episode, we dive into her transition from the Northeast to the West, the cultural complexities of guiding abroad, and a recent, harrowing health scare that changed her perspective on the risks we take in the mountains. Let’s get into the conversation with Emilie Drinkwater.

Quotes:

• On her start in guiding: “I literally begged my way into a job guiding people… Guiding’s kind of my only marketable skill at this point. So luckily I like it and I have no plans of stopping anytime soon.”
• On being a female guide: “I love the title of your podcast because my whole career is like I have these opportunities because a female guide has been requested. And I’m often in a place where I’m… a bit of a rarity.”
• On the reality of the profession: “Guiding it’s a good career for extroverted people, which I’m not. And so, yeah, any job, it’s most of the time it’s great, but there’s definitely times where I’m tired or stressed or have a little feeling of burnout.”
• On the value of instruction: “I always learn from students… every single program I learned something new and I’m like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’ve never seen or heard that before.'”
• On guiding in Afghanistan: “When we think of terrorists and Taliban… the majority of people in Afghanistan are just generous and kind and they’re poor. They don’t have money, it’s a tough place to live.”
• On the guide’s mindset during a health crisis: “As guides we are really used to being uncomfortable all the time… our tolerance level may be dangerously high. And that is something I’ve learned is I need to say something sooner if I’m not feeling good.”
• On finding the right partner: “A perfect partner is somebody who compliments you… somebody that you’re on the same page with—they’ll support you, but also you have a similar enough skill set.”
• On the definition of success: “Success begins with a willingness to try… because I think if you tried something you probably learned a lot from it… the success comes in trying and learning from each bit of it.”

Juliana Garcia started climbing the mountains of Ecuador at fifteen years old. Since then, she has climbed and guided many mountains and big walls throughout the Andes, Peru,Bolivia, Colombia, as well as in Pakistan, Alaska, United States and the Alps. She became the first female Latin American certified IFMGA mountain guide and served as the President of the Ecuadorian Association of guides for 6 years.

She is currently one of the instructors of the Ecuadorian guiding school ESGUIM. Juliana is also a Patagonia Brand Ambassador and an AIARE Avalanche Education Instructor and POW ambassador. She served as “board member” at the IFMGA for six years and became the first female and non-European to occupy that position. Recently she was recognized by the IFMGA as an “honorary member”.

Juliana got her “ski guide” diploma this spring 2025 in U.S by the AMGA. She became the first female Latin American to obtain this status as a full IFMGA. She is passionate aboutlearning and sharing.

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast,welcome back! I am your host, Ting Ting, from Las Vegas. Today’s guest is a true trailblazer in the international guiding community: Juliana Garcia.

Juliana is an Ecuadorian mountain guide whose career is a series of "firsts". She was the first woman to pass the rigorous aspirant exams in the Bolivian system and became the first female IFMGA-certified guide in all of Latin America.

Juliana’s influence extends far beyond the technical terrain of the Andes. She served two terms as the president of the Ecuadorian Mountain Guides Association, where she was instrumental in bringing their national school up to international standards. She also shattered glass ceilings at the highest level of the profession as the first woman ever to sit on the board of the IFMGA.

At the time of this interview, Juliana was based in Washington state and was in the final stages of a multi-year journey to become a certified ski guide—a discipline she picked upas an adult to bring high-level snow science and safety back to her home community in Ecuador. (And to no one's surprise, she passed!)

Now, let's dive into Juliana's inspiring life journey—her transition from volcanoes to the Cascades, the power of mentorship, and why she believes the most important tool a guide can have is the ability to listen.

Links:

• Her Place in the Mountains – Patagonia Stories
• Juliana’s Instagram page – julianagarciaguide

Quotes:

• I’m just a person that loves to be outside, loves to be in the mountains. yeah, that’s it, I think.
• When I became part of the board… I became the first female to sit at that board ever. That blew my mind. I was like, ‘You kidding me?
• I knew that that discipline exist… and I was like, what? I’m going to learn how to ski as an adult. I’m going to learn a lot of our snow science and I’m going to do it.
• I love sharing how people put themselves outside of their limits, sometimes and they do it and they found joy doing it. I love to be part of that journey of other people.
• I think we are really good on listening. I think we are really good on perceiving what is going on in our surroundings when we are guiding… and I think we’re really good on not being ashamed to turn around.
• I don’t care anymore. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody… I realized… I was pushing myself for no reason… no one is going to pushing me… I’m doing my own path.
• What we can do to help is just to choose to be uncomfortable for a moment in our daily life… We need to choose in our daily life things that we can do that support the energy overall.

Joanne Urioste is an American rock climber who was inducted into the elite group of Honorary Members of the American Alpine Club which includes 136 climbers worldwide “who have had a lasting and highly significant impact on the advancement of the climbing craft.” In the late 1970s and early 80s, she and her husband, Jorge, established many internationally-recognized long technical climbs in the Red Rocks of Southern Nevada. She was the first woman to publish the first guidebook—ever—to a major climbing area that was previously unknown. She also contributed to pioneering ultra-distance adventure running in the 1990s. She lives with Jorge in Las Vegas, NV, and continues to establish first ascents, even in her seventies.

Episode Intro:

Welcome back to the Female Guides Requested. Happy New Year! This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today’s guest is a legendary figure whose name is etched into the very sandstone of Red Rock Canyon. Joanne Urioste is a pioneering rock climber, author, and guide who re-imagined what was possible on the towering walls of the American Southwest.

Starting her climbing journey in the early 1970s—a time when female climbers were often sidelined—Joanne sought out the high-risk, death-defying situations that most would avoid to prove her independence and mastery. Alongside her husband Jorge, she established hundreds of first ascents that are now world-renowned classics, including Epinephrine, Crimson Chrysalis, and Levitation 29.

Joanne didn’t just climb; she literally wrote the book on the region, publishing the original Red Rock guidebook in 1984. After a ten-year hiatus to raise her children—a period where she channeled her drive into becoming an elite ultra-runner—she returned to the rock with a renewed passion. Today, we sit down in her home to discuss her ‘renegade’ early days, the evolution of climbing ethics, and why she believes that taking risks is the only way to truly stay alive.

Links:

• Book: Collages of Rock & Desire: Re-imagining Climbing in Red Rock, Risk in the Andes & Running into Dreams (amazon)

Quotes:

• On the spirit of climbing: “It doesn’t matter if you are physically disabled or not perfect. If you have the spirit and love of climbing, there are different ways that you can climb.”
• On her ‘renegade’ beginnings: “We were just absolute renegades, just you know, shooting from the hip. Boom, boom! Let’s do this! Let’s do that!”
• On the intensity of managing risk: “Calculation, risk assessment was the game… you had very strong consequences if you did not calculate correctly.”
• On the purpose of pushing limits: “This was not about enjoyment. This was about managing the risk in a way that was where you would survive. Pitting yourself against very strong elements and succeeding.”
• On the ‘Bolting Police’: “As we started putting up better and better routes that were like amazing, then people started recognizing that… they started having tremendous hatred for us. As a matter of fact, that type of hatred actually pushed us to do more outrageous things.”
• On climbing as a spiritual act: “I wanted to really put yourself out there so that you would calculate as humbly as you could with nature and lay yourself down… almost as a form of worship to the natural forces.”
• On the unique wisdom of female climbers: “The groups of men will absolutely plug their ears and not listen to my advice… it’s actually detrimental to the men because they would benefit from the wisdom that they’re not listening to.”
• On why she continues to seek risk: “Having some risk in everything that I do… just keeps me alive. It expands my humanity. Looking at my weakest points and trying to work on them a little bit… it’s just such a beautiful way to live.”

Episode Intro:

Happy Wednesday andwelcome back to the Female Guides Requested podcast, this is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas.

Today, I’m thrilled to host Lisa Van Sciver, a renownedmountain guide based in the Tetons with nearly two decades of experience.

Lisa’s journey is one of passion, balance, and profound impact. She’ll share with us how she went from being a porter who thought guiding was "ridiculous" to one ofthe most respected figures in the industry, and how an early request for a female guide completely changed her career path.

We'll talk about her unique strategy for achieving career sustainability in a feast-or-famine industry, the power of female guide collaboration (or as her mentor, AmyBarnes, calls it, the "sisters of the rope"), and why interactingwith people, learning their stories, and witnessing their inner breakthrough is the most rewarding part of the job.

Lisa also shares with us her recent venture: an inspirational fundraising climb up Kilimanjaro.She'll walk us through her project, "Elevate Education," which is about creating an experience much "bigger than me"—using the mountains to provide educational opportunities for students in Kenya.

Get ready for an insightful conversation on climbing, career longevity, and finding purpose beyond the summit. Let's welcome Lisa Van Sciver.

Lisa's Links:

https://www.instagram.com/lisavansciver/

Kilimanjaro Climb — EducationFor All Children (EFAC)

Quotes:

"The big thing that pulled me into guiding instead ofthat was I really enjoy people. "

"We always have a lot of different things going on, butyou deep dive into one topic at a time."

"I think guiding can be a super long career, but youhave to be very dynamic with it."

"Where I've found sustainability for myself is I'vealways had a second career."

"As much as we're technical guides, were alsoentertainers. we are creating experiences for these people."

"It's shifted my own desires as far as I still have alot of desires of objectives I want to climb and things I want to accomplish in my life, but I think it just gave me more pause on a greater awareness of what people deal with in the world and how I can continue to look for ways to be compassionate and supportive."

"In some ways it's easier to get a job as a woman, butthen it's harder to get promoted. I think that's been from my own personal experience. everyone wants to add to their female roster, but then once you're there, you don't necessarily get the same treatment."

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, welcome back and happy Wednesday. This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. In this podcast, we spotlight the stories of women guides and guides from other underrepresented groups and see how they navigate the complex terrain of mountains and life.

Today we’re thrilled to host a true veteran of the backcountry: Natalie Brechtel.

With over two decades of professional experience, Natalie’s journey is nothing short of breathtaking. She’s gone from guiding in New Zealand to spending ten seasons working for the U.S. Antarctic Program as a Field Safety Coordinator and Mountaineer, all while contributing to the high-stakes world of Yosemite Search and Rescue.

Natalie is the founder of Gut-Z Journey, a business dedicated to building deep-seated confidence in the outdoors through a unique, holistic lens that combines wilderness medicine, strength training, and functional nutrition. As you’ll hear today, the name “Gut-Z Journey” perfectly embodies her philosophy—it’s about trusting your intuition and optimizing your health to make critical, life-saving decisions.

In this episode, Natalie shares her powerful insights on the importance of never outsourcing your decision-making in the field, why she prioritizes working with clients who are “invested in the process” of learning, and how she shows up every day as a strong female role model in male-dominated technical spaces.

If you’re looking to turn your physical and mental fortitude into unshakeable outdoor confidence, stay tuned. Let’s dive in with Natalie Brechtel.

Natalie’s Links:

• Gut-Z Journey
• WMA Instructor Bio
• My philosophy 
• Gutzjourney IG
• Dirtbag diaries podcast

Quotes:

• I live in a really outdoor driven town and I actually can find it exhausting to be around so many people that are so driven in the same direction. And there’s just something to be said about when you’re in your own community sometimes behavior just changes.
• I really believe in going from the gut first and it’s a double-edged thing for me. because I also went to school for holistic nutrition later in life and microbiome health and our gut sends a lot of signals with our intuition and a lot of messaging.
• when someone feels physically stronger they’ve reconnected with their body then they frankly tend to feel more confident
• I was trying to think about what I could do back in the US that would still feel fulfilling… that gut part of my intuition was like, Natalie, you need other things.
• I didn’t have examples of women doing the things I wanted to do… I can at least represent that these things are possible.
• You outsource that decision to authority and end up in a precarious situation, even though you knew it wasn’t the right decision.
• I think that when one really wants to pursue challenges just for their own growth, then there is no end point to that.

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday. I’m your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today, our guest is Caroline George. I’d say every active and want-to-be female guide should listen to this episode multiple times. Caroline’s voice was soft and comforting, but the words were incredibly impactful. The wisdom came from the essence she extracted from life events and decades of mountain climbing and guiding. The conversations provoked me to look into myself honestly and asked the ultimate question of “why.”

Caroline, an IFMGA mountain guide based near Verbier in the Swiss Alps, has faced many curveballs, but the mountains have always been her refuge—a place to find balance, reconnect with herself, and rekindle her inner light.

Most recently, she faced an unimaginable loss: her life and love partner, Adam George, perished in a helicopter crash in the Swiss Alps. Now, as the sole parent to their child, she is learning how to navigate the mountains in this new reality—both as a guide and as someone deeply connected to the peaks that have shaped her life.

Though the mountains remain unchanged, we experience them differently as life evolves. Caroline is discovering a new way of inhabiting this space, adapting to her shifting world while staying true to her passion. Guiding has become an anchor, offering both stability and a sense of normalcy as she forges ahead on this new path.

Now, please enjoy this episode.

Caroline’s Links:

• Into the Mountains (website): www.intothemountains.com
• Instagram: carolinewaregeorge

Quotes:

• On this journey of grief and healing and rebuilding, I can see that the mountains is a place of grounding for me.
• It’s like my life is constantly being forcing me to go deeper and deeper and to figure out the essence of my identity by stripping all the things that no longer belong.
• I think it’s a really hard place for women…it’s violent when you have to adapt so much to who you’re not just to get a certification.
• I feel like I have met that mold that whole time to really work myself into the ground…And now in my latest situation of survival, after having lost my husband and being the sole parent to my child, I’ve had to revisit how is it possible for me to be a guide.
• As guides, we can do a way better job to protect our own lives with our clients by empowering them.
• A good metaphor for that is all the technical skills you learn are a little bit like the walls and the roof and the bedrooms in a house unless they’re inhabited by people. They’re just walls, there’s no life to it.
• You can’t say no all the time just But with critical thinking and your gut feeling and your intuition, your experience and your knowledge all combined, you have to have the ability to step out of this situation and say no.
• I really want it to be a lifelong career should my body enable me…through that job, you’re forced to stay healthy, to have somewhat of a healthy lifestyle. And, it keeps you fit to be out there in the mountains. It keeps you smart and alert and not be a couch potato. So, on some form or another, I think I will always do that.
• I think in life it’s about finding passion, finding a community that feeds your soul and from there everything is possible.

Amber’s Links:

• Amber wants to share her writing with you! To sign up for her newsletter or to contact her, follow this link! https://linktr.ee/ambersaffirmations
• A personal essay from 2018 all girls Mount Baker climb: https://mountainmadness.com/blog/among-women-in-the-mountains-a-female-guideâ-s-learning-from-an-all-girls-climb

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday. This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today our guest is Amber Smith.

Amber is a femme-queer AMGA Certified Rock Guide with over a decade of experience. Most summers you’ll find her at the Yosemite Mountaineering School, climbing grandiose granite walls with her guests. She is passionate about playful, trauma-aware, and embodiment-focused instruction, and she views climbing as an opportunity for powerful personal transformation. If you go climbing with her, she will encourage you to craft a positive affirmation to hone your power.

Before landing in Yosemite, she guided throughout the western United States. She has led glacier mountaineering and alpine rock objectives in Washington’s North Cascades, ski descents in Wyoming’s Grand Tetons, sandstone crack climbs in Utah’s deserts, and girls’ climate science research expeditions on Alaska’s glaciers. In 2016, Amber earned a degree in Geography and wrote her undergraduate thesis on what she called “Feminist Outdoor Leadership: A Guide to Facilitation Strategies for Inclusion and Participant Empowerment in Outdoor Adventure.”

I enjoyed my conversations with Amber. Her thoughtfulness was evident when listening to her reflections on her life journeys. She is also inquisitive and not shy about experimenting with new ideas. She is keen on exploring her inner voices to facilitate her own growth and be tuned to others’ needs. Now please enjoy this episode with Amber.

What We Talked About

• Amber’s current, past, and future plans
• Amber’s Affirmation on guiding – be safe, have fun, try your best
• Doubts and questions about guiding as a profession
• Engrossed in the outdoor leadership program in college
• Feminist outdoor leadership
• From Oregon to Washington, stepping into commercial guiding and keep her foot in outdoor education
• Transitioning to Yosemite and guiding full time
• Loved the Yosemite climbing community
• Yosemite climbing and work cultures
• Hosted a webinar about working in Yosemite
• Thinking entrepreneurial  – mental health and mindset fields
• Learn to Lead with mindfulness clinics
• Experiments / Curiosities on grief and climbing and guiding
• Affirmation in life – exercise your weakness, leverage your strengths, don’t worry about the looks
• 
  

Quote:

• Keep my priorities clear. And its number one, keep yourself and your guests safe. If that’s all I do at the end of the day, nobody had a great time, but at least we were safe, then that was a successful day.
• I’d say that’s the whole journey of this industry for me is building the confidence in my voice, trusting myself and figuring out how to be myself in these spaces while also still sort of meeting some of the expectations of what your employers and your clients may want from you.
• I’m definitely not [the best climbers in the world]. But what I am good at is supporting people in their climbing goals. And that’s what the job is actually about..
• I think that’s really rad that I’m an ebike commuter to my rock guiding job.
• I think we get a lot of burnout when we’re not being intellectually stimulated.
• I’m basically not like ingraining negative association with the experience. I’m keeping my association with the process positive. and by having these positive associations, then I want to keep doing it
• One of the most important attributes of a guide is that you need to be intuitive with your guests. It’s very customer service type job. And we need to be intuitively listening to what they need all day.

... More

EP 52 – Amber Smith – AffirMATIONs – Female Guides Requested Podcast

Show Notes:

Lindsay’s Links:

• www.fixguiding.com
• https://alpinist.com/newswire/womens-expedition-explores-new-routes-in-indias-zanskar-range/
• https://amga.com/meet-amga-lindsay-fixmer/

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday. This is your host, Ting Ting, from Las Vegas. Today our guest is Lindsay Fixmer from Bozeman, Montana.

Lindsay Fixmer is an experienced alpine, ice, and rock climbing guide who has been guiding since 2006. She is on the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) Instructor Team, develops and teaches outdoor programming at Montana State University, and also instructs at indoor facilities. Lindsay spends her winters ice guiding in Montana and Wyoming, spring and fall at various rock venues in the western U.S., and splits her summers between Bozeman and the eastern Sierra. As an AMGA Certified Alpine and Rock Guide, Lindsay brings her passion for climbing to her work, inspiring her clients to excel, build confidence, hone skills, and meet their goals.

We dive deep into the interconnectedness among all different forms of climbing and how learning one can inspire the learning of others, and vice versa. I explored in depth Lindsay’s mission statement, how she emphasizes educating and inspiring people through patience and partnership. We talked about the balance of work and play, mentorship, and more. I learned so much from Lindsay, and listening to her describe ice climbing made me want to pick up ice tools again.

Things We Talked about:

• Climbing career started early
• Indoor versus outdoor climbing
• Potential side gig
• Lindsay’s mission statement
• A life-changing experience – 12 year old backpacked through Canyonlands
• All women’s trip to India and first ascents in Northern Himalayas
• Guiding and doing first ascents with Chicks Climbing and Skiing
• “Ice is my life” – Lindsay’s ice climbing journey
• The interconnectedness of rock climbing and ice climbing and all climbing
• Work/play balance
• Mentorship and Tom Hargus’s inspiring quote “the day I stop learning is the day I stop guiding.”
• Performance anxiety?

Quotes:

• If you enjoy watching people succeed and become more knowledgeable and more skilled, then it [guiding] is very rewarding work.
• I’ve been teaching ice climbing for a long time, but you’re always learning something new and the way that people respond to the words that you’re using and also the descriptors and the movement, you continually learn how people differently see things and respond.
• …even rock to ice. We say that they’re very different, but I don’t think that’s true because you’re either in or out of balance in life. So Our ergonomics don’t change. It’s just the medium.
• It is very much a partnership. you have to feel confident that your guide is with you and they can relate to you and understand and help you.
• Patience is a massive component of helping people succeed and opening that door to being more vulnerable and being okay with that.
• …when you really realize how small you are and how large the Earth and the universe is. And it was pretty amazing.
• Oftentimes you had to make adjustments based on the conditions and how to get off of something that you had climbed. It wasn’t always just V-thread really straightforward. There were some more interesting ways of getting off of things.
• Ice is always changing. It’s never the same. The routes always change, which is pretty cool.
• If you’ve shut yourself off to learning or just don’t want to do it anymore more. You’re on to something else in your life.

Show Notes:

Angel’s Links:

• Rock Iguana
• Coast to Bluff Recreation Access and Conservation
• Angel Robeldo’s Instagram

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday! This is your host, Ting Ting. In this episode, I have guest Angel Robeldo from Rock Iguana, a guide service located in the Cayman Islands. Towards the end of last year, one of my SPI students told me he needed certification to work in the Caribbean, which piqued my interest. As soon as I knew the owner of the guide service was a woman, you can probably guess what happened next!

Angel was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She left Brazil in 2005 to discover the world and ended up discovering herself. She has climbed around the world and done a lot of high-altitude mountaineering, including in the Himalayas, Andes, and Denali. Angel has traveled through more than 80 countries but found Cayman Brac to be the perfect place to live and enjoy her lifestyle. Since 2013, she has promoted and helped develop rock climbing in the Cayman Islands. She also helped build a non-profit boulder gym in Grand Cayman where a climbing community started to grow. Angel is an AMGA Certified Single Pitch Instructor.

One might say Angel is truly living the dream, but I’d say that is the guaranteed result because she has always followed her mind and heart. Now please enjoy the episode of Angel Robeldo.

What We Talked About:

• From ocean to mountains and back to both ocean and mountains
• An injury changed Angel’s life trajectory
• Fulfilled her dream of living in the Caribbean
• Personal and Professional climbing journey in Cayman Brac
• Growing up in Brazil
• Fear of height | Fear of Exposure
• Where are the clients from?
• Climbing courses and adventure travel
• Climb Iguana & Coast to Bluff Recreational Access and Conservation
• Work & life balance
• Being away helps strengthen the love of her residence Cayman Islands
• Holiday guiding

Quotes:

• I was terrified of heights. And that was one of the biggest thing why I stick to climb because I want to investigate that fear and I want to go over that fear.
• I love to guide people afraid of heights. That’s my favorite because I know exactly where you are.
• Have the fear and go for it. And then suddenly there is no more fear.
• I keep doing what I love and what drives me and what makes me feel very alive.
• When you owe a guiding company when it’s just you working it’s way easier because you just have to manage you when it started to get big and they have all the employees it’s just like sometimes it’s way more work and no more money
• Most of the time what stop all of us doesn’t matter if you are on a female body, on a masculine body, all stop us is on our heads