Stories From The Mountain

Hello! Who are you and where are your outdoors roots? I’m a Photographer and have always been curious by nature. As the only full time in house Photographer for Arc’teryx I spend a lot of time outside with a backpack, camera in hand, photographing people skiing, climbing, running, trekking and generally getting after it in the mountains. I grew up in a family who loved being outside but being raised on the coast of Australia my life as a child was more about water sports than mountain sports and rarely included skiing or mountain biking which are now two of my favourite sports. Although amazing much of my childhood was either waterskiing, surfing, sailing or just being at the beach....

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi, name is Kayley Scaffidi. I’m a travel nurse and an Integrative Nurse Coach. I’m originally from Geneva IL, but as a travel nurse, I’ve been on road for the last 4 years. If you’re unfamiliar with travel nursing, it means I take short term contracts all over the country with a 3 month minimum stay and the ability to extend the contract if I so choose. As an integrative nurse coach I can work with a variety of people to unlock their potential for wellness of their mind, body and soul. Travel nursing has allowed me to pursue the outdoors in a way I never thought possible. In the...

Hello! Who are you and where are your outdoors roots? I’m the Katie behind Katie Wanders.  I’m a 32 year old outdoorsy New Englander who spends 9 to 5 as an environmental scientist and the hours between as a weekend warrior, cramming as much adventure into a weekend as I can.  Growing up, I was always active and outdoorsy, a tomboy at heart.  In my early twenties, I started to collect hobbies like one collects coins and on top of horseback riding and running, I quickly learned to ski and scuba dive.  I started to spend my winters torn between ski trips in the mountains or dive trips to the coral reefs.   In 2014 after always feeling that itch to...

Hello! Who are you and where are your trail running roots? My identity is as intertwined with the trail as my nickname.  Hi, I’m Kat, short for Katherine and found in many an iPhone under ‘trail_kat’.  The best way that I can describe my relationship with trails and mountains is that they have been imprinted onto my DNA. For some, the mountains are a way to push boundaries, but for me they just feel like home.  Even as I explore new places, and test my own limits, there is an undeniable nostalgia and deep sense of belonging that the trails provide. For the first six summers of my life, my parents would take my brother and me to the White...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? My name is Stephen Kiser and I was born and raised in Kannapolis, North Carolina. I did not have a lot of outdoor experiences as a kid since I was pushed pretty heavily into sports that was pretty much all I knew until after I was 19-20 years old. I never felt called to nature or was your typical outdoors person, if anything I was the opposite. Give me the A/C, clean clothes, nice restaurants and the city life. That was until June 2019 when I realized how miserable  I was and just had to get away from everything I knew. At that time, I was being called into nature....

 Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi, my name is Adam Kimble and I’m a professional ultrarunner, motivational speaker, race director and running coach from Tahoe City, CA! Nature and the outdoors have been a big part of my life since I was young, taking camping trips with my dad, brother, and cousins. However, it wasn’t until my wife and I decided to quit our jobs and travel for a year in 2015 that I really developed a lifelong love for running and hiking in beautiful areas all over the world. We visited 17 countries that year, and a large part of all our visits was running on the trails, participating in races and getting...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi, I’m Shelly, mom, mountain climber, hiker and outdoor enthusiast.  My favorite place to be in the world is anywhere the sky is my roof and dirt and rocks are my floor. And that has always been my preference, as far back as I can recall, the outdoors has always been the place where I feel like I belong.  It feels like home. It’s where I feel safe and free to be completely me.   Growing up in Minnesota, we didn’t have mountains to climb but we did have great expanses of land and water to explore and play in as well as bluffs and rocks to scale and boulder. Which,...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi, my name is Mary Lane (@mountaingirlml) and I am a wildlife biologist, climber, hiker and desert dweller residing in southwestern Utah. I was lucky to have grown up in an environment where getting outside and exploring was a regular part of life. As an avid hiker and mountain biker, my dad always took our family on camping trips around the Smoky Mountains where we would explore the dense forests, rocky overlooks, and towering waterfalls decorating the Cumberland Plateau. The funny thing about my earliest memories of connecting with nature, is that they are full of dreamy waterscapes from tubing down the river to jumping into lakes and exploring waterfalls...

Ursa (@ursha.si) Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? I live in a country where mountains are just behind the corner and everything is reachable in about an hour or two. My father was a mountain guide, but when I was born he was already deeply in a sailing world, so can’t really say that it was his fault that I fell in love in the mountains. It started in primary school when I started attending weekend escapes organized by one of our teachers. She was taking us to the mountains by bus or train every second weekend and these are the most amazing memories I have from my 5th grade of primary school. But if I’m...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi my name is Tommy Durso and my favorite thing in life is going out into nature, camping and hiking as much as I can. I’m not a brand ambassador or sponsored athlete, just a college student who spends all his free time on the trail. I’m in my last semester at San Diego State University and have lived my whole life here in San Diego. My adventures started in elementary school when my dad, brother, and I joined the YMCA Indian Guides. Trail up to Mount Whitney We went on a few trips a year, camping in the mountains, deserts, and beaches, which really sparked my love for the...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hey guys! My name is Matt Berry and I am an avid climber and alpinist with a passion for exploration which fuels me to travel the world in search of adventure in some of the most beautiful and remote mountains on the planet.  I grew up in New Jersey where mountains are far and few between. As a kid, my parents brought my brother and I on annual camping trips throughout the east coast which sparked my initial interest in the outdoors, but it was not until my junior year of high school that I got my first real taste of the backcountry. After a friend of mine brought a...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? My story does not start in the mountains. It does not really start in the outdoors. Growing up in the midwest, I was never really outdoorsy or athletic. I was never forced to push myself or step outside of my comfort zone. I did not have any role models in the outdoor world. Prior to moving to Seattle four years ago, I could count the number of my outdoor “adventures” on one hand, and they included a couple attempts at car camping and a failed attempt at canoeing. About a week before I left Chicago for Seattle I ordered a pair of hiking boots. My friends at the time found...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hi my name is Jessica Sagnella and I'm from Puyallup WA, born and raised. Despite living in Washington all my life, I didn't grow up in the outdoors other than the summer camping trips with my family but those didn't include hiking or anything of that nature. I grew up playing sports. Primarily volleyball. That was my joy for 8 years. I played from junior high through community college while also playing club. In high school I participated in track doing the mile. I remember cross country in high school was trying to recruit me but it was at the same time as volleyball. My passion for running was nothing...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hello all!  I’m Karen Schroeder - avid hiker, rock climber, and physical education teacher in the mountainous state of Colorado.  I’m often told I have energy in abundance. This is why I find myself on a trail- it is where I find serenity.  Hiking and exploring the outdoors has always been in my blood.  As an infant and toddler, my father would take me out hiking each weekend in “The Snuggly.”  If you are not familiar with this contraption, it was a less-safe (albeit more rugged-looking) version of the packs in which toddlers are toted around today on the trails. (Granted: this is at Disney World, but you get the...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? I was introduced to the joy and allure of the high hills at the age of six when my family of adventurers would load into our 1989 Toyota Corolla each weekend to tent camp by night and hike mountains and relax lakeside by day - this would be our weekly routine for the coming 3 years until my family was broken by divorce.  Together we fed fish our bread crumbs over lunch break, learned to split firewood, dive into shallow pools, paddle canoes and haul heavy gear into the mountains. As a family we stood on the summits of the Adirondack, Berkshire and Green Mountain’s mightiest. [Summit of Katahdin, Baxter...

Mick Bailey Hello! Who are you and where are your outdoors roots? It was in the 1980s, when I moved from Montreal to Vancouver, that I really began to get involved with nature. The west coast of Canada is a true adventure playground, so hiking came first, but exploring places seldom visited soon caught my attention! Searching for the remaining stands of ancient forest in southwestern British Columbia became my greatest passion, when I wasn’t running trails or climbing mountains. When I first moved to the coast, the towering trees were the first thing I noticed. The heady aroma of Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, and Western Hemlock seemed to be everywhere. I enjoyed looking up into the canopies of...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? My name is Nathanael Asaro and I grew up in Northern Vermont. I grew up in a geodesic dome in Greensboro Bend, VT while helping my parents build our next house, a timber frame home in Craftsbury, VT. The dome I grew up in, now abandoned. I shot this photo in summer 2019. My passion for spending time in nature began at a young age when I would explore the woods around the dome in Greensboro. The surrounding land was very remote and wild. We often saw moose, bears, coyotes, and other animals in our yard or on the class four road up to our house. Around age seven, I...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hey there! My name is Courtney Wilson and I grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. My journey with the outdoors began when I was young and we went camping as a family at Fish Creek Pond Campground in the mountains. This became my favorite place as we continued to go there every single year of my life up into now. I learned to ski when I was four years old and then did some ski team “racing” when I was younger. My outdoors pursuit slowed down when I started team sports in middle school and then went on to compete on scholarship in NCAA DIV. II Track...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hello!! I’m Kirsten Alexis, and I’m a content creator, outdoor adventure enthusiast and collector of big dreams. Currently, I am located in Silicon Valley, California. I was born and raised here, and just recently moved back. I love this area, as it is so close to some of my favorite spots for adventure, such as Tahoe, which is where I can usually be found when I’m not home. I consider myself so lucky that I was exposed to the outdoors, adventure and fitness early on. My family really emphasized playing sports and getting outside, and I think that just really inspired me to do more. As a kid (and even...

Hello! Who are you and where are your hiking roots? Hello! I'm Gabriella Viola, an outdoor photographer currently living in Lake Tahoe, California. I was born and raised in Westchester County, New York. I would say that my hiking roots started pretty late in life. Growing up in a New York suburb, I wasn’t what most would consider outdoorsy. My outdoor experience mostly consisted of playing outside, summer camp, and family vacations in Florida. I attended college in Boston, and after I graduated moved to New York City.   Needless to say at this stage of my life, my time spent enjoying the great outdoors was pretty minute. I loved being a city girl and couldn't picture life any other way....