29/05/2026
This is me on the summit of Mt. Baker 10+ years ago, at the end of a 5-day mountaineering course. Except for one major difference: I was the only woman.
To be fair, I expected to be the only woman. I expected to learn from men and alongside men. And truly, I loved that trip. I loved seeing what my body was capable of. I loved climbing to the top of a mountain I had stared at my whole life. My guides were wonderful. I bonded with the other participants. I was proud to be there.
And I also felt different.
Sleeping next to a man I had just met felt uncomfortable, so I rented and carried my own tent. When everyone else practiced crevasse rescue on another person, I rescued a backpack.
But underneath all of that was this quiet pressure I didn’t have language for yet. I felt like my performance represented all women.
If I couldn’t keep up, I worried I was proving women were weak. If I expressed discomfort, I worried I was proving women were dramatic or difficult. So I kept up. I didn’t complain.
For a long time, I thought fitting into mountain spaces meant quieting certain parts of myself. I could be strong, but not too soft. Capable, but not too feminine.
And honestly, I performed that role really well.
It wasn’t until I saw the work Shelma was doing at Flash Foxy that I started to imagine something different. A world where femininity didn’t have to be muted to be taken seriously. Where women could climb hard, wear glitter, laugh loudly, ask for what they needed, and still belong fully in the mountains.
That spark eventually led me to start She Moves Mountains.
Now, when I flip through the Google Photos albums after a course and see our guides painting each other’s nails at basecamp, or participants wearing glitter on the summit, I feel so much pride.
Not because glitter is the point.
But because choice is.
Because softness and strength have always belonged together. Because no one should have to carry the weight of representing an entire gender while also carrying a heavy pack uphill.
