Learn How to Read the Map (and Maybe Leave the Pearls at Home)
Laura Beebe, Sterling College
Bringing you a little backcountry inspiration today with my guest, Laura Beebe!
Laura is on the faculty of Environmental Humanities at Sterling College in Vermont, and you might recognize that name, because I was introduced to Laura by Heidi Myers of Rasputitsa fame, whom I interviewed back on Earth Day. I've linked my conversation with Heidi up here because I just know you’ll want to go back and listen to that one too!
Anyway, I was fortunate to catch Laura in between a semester she spent in the desert and a field program she was heading to in Colorado for the summer. That’s already a super-cool reason to be connecting with Laura, but to make it even more incredible, wait until you hear the story of her first backpacking trip in the Tetons…. Let’s just say she was Reese Witherspoon’s doppelganger. Maybe I’m talking about Wild, maybe I’m talking about Legally Blonde, maybe I’m talking about some preternatural melding of the two - you’ll have to be the judge.
But all kidding aside, Laura’s story is a powerful testament to the importance of the right mentors and messaging, and how difficult it can be to see, never mind overcome, all the barriers we tend to build in front of ourselves.
Check out all the cool stuff Laura and her students are up to over @sterlingcollegevt on Instagram, or visit their website, sterlingcollege.edu.
And if all of our talk about outdoor skill acquisition in girls has you fired up, go back and check out my episode with Amanda Hatley of SheSummitsCo, or you can take it even further back to my episode with Lauren Jacobs of UMaine Outdoor Leadership in August - keep that inspiration going, scroll on down in your podcasting app and cue up some more fire for your ears right this second!
Links from our conversation: