Cheyenne grew up in Shelby, Montana, and found climbing in Bozeman. She now calls Truckee home and spends her time chasing big linkups, trail running, skiing, and pursuing any adventure that asks her to dig deep. With roots in conservation and community, she leads with kindness and grit, always finding joy in good people and good company.

This story was originally published on the Broad Beta website in September of 2025. In it, Cheyenne digs into fear - of missteps in the mountains and of being ourselves in the world - against the backdrop of a climb in the Beartooths with a good friend. 

Click here to see beautiful photos from her trip after you listen. 

Follow Cheyenne's photography on Instagram @cheystirling

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Story read by Cheyenne Stirling

Episode edited and produced by Cat Coe

Music by Holizna Radio and Ketsa, respectively. All music sourced from freemusicarchive.org.

www. broadbeta.com

In this episode you'll hear 93-year-old Roswitha "Ros" McIntosh read her story, which was originally published on the Broad Beta website in May of 2025 (check it out here to see the photos of her skiing in Germany as a child). Ros was born in Germany during the Hitler years, and when she was a child they spent most nights in cold damp cellars while bombs leveled the city. Eventually, she and her family were allowed to move to their cabin. From their serene mountain top they witnessed the burning cities - the insanity of war - in stark contrast to the beauty of nature.

Years later, Ros came to the United States on a scholarship. She graduated from Smith College and the Harvard/Radcliffe Program of Business Administration. Eventually, she turned her love of skiing into a job when she became the first woman to join the Squaw Valley ski patrol. 

Ros is now retired after 25 years working as a consultant and writing for The Risk Management Manual.  She lives on the Pacific Coast in Alameda, California, and cherishes her daily two-mile walk along the beach, her regular ping pong and bridge games, and playing the piano. The first thing she does every morning is 40 minutes of Duolingo to practice French. But most important to her are her frequent trips to the mountains. At 93, she is still skiing, inspiring us all to never stop pursuing our love of the mountains. 

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Story read by Roswitha McIntosh

Episode produced and edited by Cat Coe

Music by Holizna Radio (intro), Kirk Osomayo (segue) and Ketsa (conclusion), respectively. Music sourced from www.freemusicarchive.org.

www. broadbeta.com

Kate Kelleghan is on the cutting edge of big wall speed climbing, and this spring she and Laura Pineau became the first female team to complete the Triple Crown in Yosemite. The Triple Crown consists of climbing El Capitan, Mt. Watkins, and Half Dome, all in under 24 hours. Prior to June of this year, only 10 parties of men (and Alex Honnold alone) had completed the Triple Crown which was established 24 years ago by Dean Potter and Timmy O'Neill.

Kate has progressed incredibly fast from climbing the Flatirons as a newbie to pushing the limits of trad climbing. In this interview, she shares about how she found climbing after being an artsy teen who didn't love the outdoors and how she survived an epic rescue during one of her first early big wall attempts. She talks about her partnership with Pineau, the evolution of her own risk tolerance, and her tactics for dealing with pain and fear. Her sense of humor and determination are infectious and will leave you inspired and thinking about your own personal limits and what goals to set next. 

Cover photo courtesy of Jacek Wejster

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Episode hosted by Broad Beta co-founder Jeannie Wall and Cat Coe

Episode produced and edited by Cat Coe

Music by Holizna Radio (intro and first segue), Kirk Osomayo, and Ketsa (conclusion), respectively. Music sourced from www.freemusicarchive.org.

www. broadbeta.com

The story on today's episode was written and read by Jenna Malone and published on the Broad Beta website in February of 2025 (originally published in The Avalanche Review 43.3). Check it out to see photos courtesy of Ben Vandenbos. Jenna sets an amazing example of an intelligent, driven, talented avalanche educator; we hope you'll enjoy her story which is chock full of interesting insights around the psychology of backcountry skiing.

Jenna works as a PA in Trauma and Critical Care at Intermountain Medical Center. In her spare time, she works at Alta Ski Resort outside of Salt Lake City as a part time ski patroller. There's more! She also teaches for the American Avalanche Institute, guides for Wasatch Powderbird Guides and Utah Mountain Adventures, and has spent multiple seasons as a medical provider for Denali Rescue Volunteers...and is on the Denali Rescue Volunteers board. She has presented at multiple Snow and Avalanche Workshops and has contributed to The Avalanche Review and Ascent Backcountry Snow Journal. We are so grateful that Jenna took the time out of her incredibly busy schedule to record her story so our audience can hear her thoughtful, beautiful voice.

Please refer to her story for citations to the studies if you want to enjoy further reading on this topic.

Check out Jenna on Wyoming Public Radio and on the Utah Avalanche Center podcast

Follow Jenna's adventures on Instagram @jmaloneski

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Story read by Jenna Malone

Intro music by Holizna Radio and Kirk Osamayo, respectively, and conclusion music by Ketsa. All music sourced from freemusicarchive.org.

Episode produced by Cat Coe

www. broadbeta.com

Steph Abegg has become well known in the alpine climbing world for her detailed trip reports and route overlays on high quality photos of multipitch rock climbs. She describes herself as a climber, photographer, adventurer, and a math and data nerd, with a passion for displaying data in creative ways. Steph's background in math and data analysis are evident in her well-organized trip reports, which she aims to make as objective as possible. Recently, Steph redesigned her website, which started as blog-style reports back in 2006, to make the trip reports more user friendly and printable, in an ever-growing database of routes from all over the world.  

Steph was raised in a family of climbers, and she and her sister Jenny have both emerged as notable women in the climbing world. In this episode, Steph tells us about how she began information sharing in the climbing world, how a major injury almost sidelined her and the years'-long comeback that followed, and so much more. Her passion for the wilderness, adventure, climbing, and data sharing are infectious. We're so grateful to her for sharing her story with us.

Check out Steph's trip reports here

Follow Steph on Instagram @stephabegg_com

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Episode hosted by Broad Beta co-founder Jeannie Wall and Cat Coe

Episode produced and edited by Cat Coe

Conclusion music by Ketsa and Intro music by Holizna Radio. Music sourced from www.freemusicarchive.org.

www. broadbeta.com

Szu-ting Ye, known as Ting Ting in the climbing community, moved to the US from Taiwan to attend grad school in computer science in Philadelphia. During grad school, she discovered trad climbing at the Gunks, which changed the trajectory of her life. She took a NOLS course, met her mentor who eventually became her husband, and went on to establish first ascents around the world. She has written articles for the Alpinist, and she has published books about climbing in her native language of Chinese. Along the way, she underwent the AMGA rock guide track and became a full time climbing guide. 

Ting Ting settled in Las Vegas in 2019 and began guiding full time. In 2023, she started her own podcast called Female Guides Requested. We recently connected because of our overlapping audience, and we had lots of fun hearing her story, how her podcast came to be, and how we can combine our podcast powers.

Female Guides Requested website & Female Guides Requested on Apple Podcasts

Female Guides Requested on Instagram

Szu-ting Yi on Instagram

Alpinist magazine articles by Szu-ting

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Hosted by Jeannie Wall & Cat Coe

Edited & produced by Cat Coe

Music: Intro music by HoliznaCCO, transition song by Ketsa (The Road 2), conclusion song by BOPD (1.26 beat 1). All music sourced on freemusicarchive.org

www. broadbeta.com

Jan McDonald Bradley grew up in New York and ran away to Jackson, Wyoming, as a young adult. She shares her deeply personal journey as a woman in a man's world in the 1970's. She worked as the first female river guide in the Tetons and backcountry skied before it was cool, back when Jackson Hole was known for having "10 men for every 1 woman."

Jan left a difficult family life and found empowerment through travel, outdoor sports, and connection with the wilderness. In this interview, she also describes the journey of raising two daughters and how doing so eventually led her to face the demons that characterized her own childhood. 

We are so honored that Jan shared her story with the Broad Beta community, and we are beyond inspired by her strength, courage, and perseverance as both a mother and a strong woman in a man's world. 

Content warning: This episode contains sections about sexual and domestic abuse. 

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Hosted by Jeannie Wall & Cat Coe

Edited & produced by Cat Coe

Music by Holizna Radio & Rocky Marsiano

www. broadbeta.com

Brette Harrington does it all…extremely well. Her resume includes groundbreaking solos, 13+ trad climbs, and mind-boggling alpine and winter climbs, not to mention ski descents, big walls, and hard sport climbs. Only her heart and dedication to excellence match her versatility in the mountains.

As you’ll hear today, Brette has undergone physical and mental hardships on her path to becoming one of the best all-around climbers of her generation. From numerous concussions and breaking her neck as a skier, to losing her life and climbing partner, Marc-Andre Leclerc, Brette has dug deep more than once to come back stronger than before. She is a true visionary and yet still down to earth and relatable. Her ability to articulate what drives her and what she has been through made this one of our most inspiring interviews to date.
 
In 2013, at the age of 23, Brette gained international climbing fame when she free soloed 2,500-ft Chiaro di Luna (5.11a) in Patagonia. At 32 years old, her first ascents span Alaska, Patagonia, the Canadian Rockies and beyond.

Brette began her outdoor pursuits as a competitive skier in Lake Tahoe. After she broke her neck at the age of 20, she ultimately backed off from competitive skiing and pursued rock climbing. She met Marc-Andre Leclerc in her early 20s, and he introduced her to ice and alpine climbing. The two went on to complete numerous impressive alpine and solo ascents together, as well as various first ascents. In 2018, Marc-Andre went to climb the unclimbed north face of Main Tower in the Mendenhall Towers massif near Juneau, AK, and never returned. Brette shares her experience of grief with us and how she dealt with the loss of her life and climbing partner.

Brette spent the years after Marc-Andre’s death deep in the mountains, continuing to build on the skills she built climbing with him. She opened routes on the Taku Towers on the Juneau Ice Field and made the first ascent of Life Compass (IV 5.10a M4+) in Alberta. In 2019, she climbed the biggest, hardest alpine route of her career at that time: a first ascent of the East Face of Alberta’s Mt. Fay that she and her partners named “Sound of Silence.” The same year, Brette went on to climb a line she and Leclerc had eyed together—an arcing crack on the East Pillar of Torre Egger, Patagonia. She named the 12c, 13-pitch climb “MA’s Visión.” She also completed her third 5.12 first ascent on the Chinese Puzzle Wall, a 500m big wall in British Columbia. 

While Brette excels at winter climbing and all things alpinism, she is devoting this winter to climbing rock and living in Las Vegas, building on another set of skills that will allow her to pursue harder alpine objectives in the future.

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Follow Brette on Instagram @bretteharrington
Watch the award-winning film The Alpinist

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Episode hosted by Jeannie Wall and Cat Coe
Production and editing by Cat Coe
Episode music by Holizna Radio
Conclusion music by Rocky Marsiano

www. broadbeta.com

Brittany has dedicated her life to climbing ever since the first time she walked into a climbing gym in Fort Collins, CO, at 9 years old. She went on to become a competition climber and podiumed at a number of comps, including a Canadian Tour de Bloc. 

Over the past few years, Brittany has climbed some of the hardest trad routes in the United States, including East Coast Fist Bump (5.14a) in Sedona, Stingray (5.13d), and the Salathé Wall VI (5.13b) on El Capitan. She can be found following the seasons in her van to different climbing areas year-round, while working from the road doing graphic design for Seattle’s Girls Rock Math (an organization that runs STEM-based summer camps for girls). 

Brittany loves trying hard, overcoming challenges, and growing as a person through climbing and with her community. As you will hear in this episode, one of the things that keeps Brittany hooked on climbing is the fact that there is no finish line. Her grit, authenticity, and determination will leave you feeling inspired to unlock your true potential and set your sights on bigger goals.

BrittanyGoris.com
Staying Hungry on the Salathe: an article written by Brittany
Brittany Goris in "Hooked on The Winds," a short film by Adam McClatchie
Follow Brittany on Instagram @gorisb
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Episode hosted by Jeannie Wall and Cat Coe
Production and editing by Cat Coe
Episode music by Holizna Radio
Conclusion music by Rocky Marsiano

www. broadbeta.com

This story was written by Tory Dille and originally published on the Broad Beta website in September of 2024. It is a beautiful and vulnerable recollection of when Tory lost her mother to cancer. She later climbed Mount Olympus with two dear friends to spread her mother's ashes. Tory honors the unique landscape of the Olympic Peninsula with vivid descriptions, taking you back there with her.

Tory is an educator and an advocate for wildlife and wild places. She is currently in law school pursuing a career in environmental law with an emphasis on public lands and endangered species protection. She splits her time between small communities in Southwest Montana, Colorado, and the Pacific Northwest.

See photos of the lush Pacific Northwest landscape and of Tory and her climbing partners here, on the Broad Beta website.
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Written by Tory Dille. Follow her on Instagram @tory_dille
Recorded and produced by Cat Coe

www. broadbeta.com