Peaks Foundation's WLAS 2013

I recently attended and spoke at Peaks Foundation's Women's Leadership and Adventure Summit in Golden, Colorado.  Hanging out with trailbreaking female adventurers was enjoying and educational.  Highlights of the weekend included hearing about the recent excursions of professional climber and fellow New Hampshire-ite Janet Bergman Wilkinson, listening to the inspirational founder of Women's Adventure Magazine, Michelle Theall, and learning how single mom Jennifer Miller was able to follow her passion and create her own outdoor adventure business, Paddle-N-More.

My two favorite presentations were the screening of Peaks Foundation's Mountains Will Move and Cathy O'Dowd's video-talk, Leadership and Teamwork on the Summit.

Mountains Will Move is a perfect example of what Peaks Foundation is all about.  A group of Canadian girls team with a group of Tanzanian girls to climb a local African peak.  Here's the trailer -- the full movie can be purchased here.

In Leadership and Teamwork on the Summit, Cathy O'Dowd, the first woman to climb Everest from both the north and south sides, speaks about her first ascent of the tallest mountain in the world.  She climbed on a team rife with personality problems and sexism during 1996, the year of the infamous storm.  Her presentation is one of the best I've ever seen -- I highly encourage you to watch the full 16 1/2 minutes.

In sum, this was a fun and inspiring weekend filled with strong women and good personalities. 

Highpoint #43 and Two Incredible Conferences

We just returned from Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.  During the past two and a half weeks, I spoke at Peaks Foundation's Women's Leadership and Adventure Summit, the girls and I hiked up Utah's Kings Peak (13,528 feet), and Hugh spoke at No Barriers Summit 2013 (Hugh also won the No Barriers Lifetime Achievement Award!).

During the next week and a half, I will post thoughts on both conferences and give a full Kings Peak trip report (with a ton of photos).

We had a stellar time out west and I've a lot of important things to relate.  The first post will be on Peaks Foundation's WLAS -- that post will go live by tomorrow evening.

In the meantime, here's one of my favorite photos from our Kings Peak hike.

Ascending Kings Peak, August 4, 2013