Climbing

When US government agencies release data on utilities and power generators, it’s typically extremely hard to access and even hidden behind paywalls by private companies. A lack of access to public data helps the fossil fuel industry maintain power over our electric utility planning processes. Open data levels the playing field. Rather than spending time (and money) just accessing and cleaning data, advocates and researchers can use our database to focus their energies on policy recommendations and analyses that move us toward decarbonizing the grid and help marginalized communities transition to clean energy.

It’s often easy to lose sight of the positive change that is happening since my work is not loud and progress can be slow. However, the process of pursuing new climbing goals is an ongoing reminder of the enormous impact that small changes and persistence can have. It’s this lifetime of learning through climbing and the relationships I’ve built over the years that keep me motivated in both my climate work and climbing progression.

Katie Lamb reaches high on King Air in Yosemite.

Photo: Keenan Takahashi

While I’ve been on some amazing expeditions and first ascents, my favorite climbs are the ones I did with friends. Opening up new routes, like the many I’ve done with my climbing partner Joshua Jarrin, or the northeast ridge on Tiquimani in Bolivia with Anna Pfaff, have helped me become the climber and mountaineer that I am today.

Being part of the new generation of women mountaineers and guides in Latin America has been a great challenge. But I can see and feel a change in the mountains now—as more and more women go out into the mountains and become guides, I feel that I’m part of that change.

Juliana Garcia plays with unbe-leaf-able flora below Volcano Antisana in Ecuador.

Photo: Bernd Zeugswetter

Given the incessant drizzle of bad news, work in environmentalism is often Type 2 fun. It forces us to draw on the same brew of optimism, flexibility, problem-solving and stoke that we need in the mountains. Absorbing yourself in the problem can keep you from stressing about the outcome. Sometimes we need to stop worrying about “scale” and focus on the terrain right in front of us. Expedition behavior—doing your part and then a little bit more—makes everyone’s life better, whether you’re in a cook tent or an office.

Mountains give me perspective. They make us feel small. We see a lot of the universe when we’re in clean, thin air at altitude. It reminds us that we’re insignificant in the context of space-time. That might sound like futility or nihilism, but I find it comforting. It takes the pressure off.

Rushad Nanavatty on Scepter in Hyalite Canyon, Montana.

Photo: Andrew Burr