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

Show Notes:

Amy’s Links:

• Fifth Class Climbing

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday! I’m your host, Ting Ting. I’m currently working and playing in the Pacific Northwest, escaping the heat of Las Vegas. Early this year, I finally caught up with Amy Shore from Fifth Class Climbing, based in Bishop, California! And I’m excited to share our conversations with you.

Amy grew up in North Dakota and spent her young adult years traveling the world while pursuing her college degree in International Studies. After finding climbing at the age of 21, it became her life’s passion and has been a main focus of her life for almost two decades.

Bouldering, sport & trad climbing, establishing big wall first ascents in the Sierra and Patagonia, guiding 14,000 ft peaks… Amy loves the vast array of disciplines that climbing allows one to pursue. Establishing Fifth Class Climbing School in 2016 allowed her the freedom to guide what really inspired her, which was not big mountain objectives, but rather women’s events and courses that focus on teaching women to be independent climbers.

In 2021, Amy became the lead safety manager for a National Geographic TV show, combining guiding with rigging and logistics, and traveling the world to do it.

Most recently, Amy became a mom and now has a 20-month-old son. She still runs and guides for Fifth Class and is currently most interested in a new pursuit: projecting sport climbs. The day after our interview, Amy sent her first 5.13.

Things We Talked about:

• From Whitney Base Camp to Fifth Class Climbing
• Wanted to work with different clientele to focus more on instructions
• Instructed before she became a climber
• Upbringing – explored outdoors and tried different sports
• Travel and then Travel & Climb
• From pebble wrestling to big walls
• Mom & projecting single pitch sport climbs
• Training entered her life
• Guiding is an empowering profession
• Started her own business in 2016 – Fifth Class Climbing and School
• Rigging for TV shows
• Changes and transitions after having a kid
• Why Amy loves logistical challenges

Quotes:

• There’s a small amount that is a part of me that likes to suffer and push myself and see what I can do.
• When you’re in that kind of mindset of doing big wall first ascents and alpine climbing and then guiding, you’re in a very much no fall territory.
• I get to be the places I love being. I get to teach and I get to give people an amazing experience that is maybe once in a lifetime for them. maybe get them hooked so that they’re doing this all the time. and it was empowering
• It’s nice to be able to facilitate programs that people are excited about offering and helping them make that happen through the permitting and stuff.
• As adults, we kind of take ourselves seriously and as a kid, you just do what you want to do.
• That risk tolerance thing changing [has] been a really interesting part of it for me. And sometimes I think it’s good guiding wise because I do have a lower risk tolerance than I used to. And I think that I see things and maybe this is from spotting my son too, but I think I see things preemptively better than I used to.
• That’s why I really like doing the rigging work and the TV work as well is that I think I logistics is kind of my jam
• I love hearing that kind of feedback after guiding. And it’s a special industry we’re in. we get to help people realize their dreams.