Mentorship in the Outdoors
12 years ago, I decided to up my game in the outdoors. While I wasn’t starting from scratch (far from it!), I entered a phase in my life where the most important thing was becoming competent in the backcountry.
This might have been the budding independence of my early 20’s, but to be totally honest, I think it had more to do with breaking free of my first serious relationship and realizing I could not do the same things on my own. This bothered me.
The first thing I did was find other male friends to become outdoor partners. I sought out men because they were the only people I saw doing the things I wanted to do. There were a lot of pitfalls with these temporary outdoor partnerships. One was that these men often worked hard to provide an experience (amazing skill men have) rather than empower me to gain the skills myself. Another was that too often these little forays into the hills danced a line between climbing partners and dating partners. There was often a tense, flirty undercurrent. I was as equally to blame as the men. The problem was this undercurrent meant the whole climbing experience got complicated and slowed my growth.
What I realized is that I had to start viewing myself as the start and endpoint of my outdoor goals. When I truly owned my own learning, the change was immediate. I signed up for the single-pitch instructor course, upgraded to a wilderness first responder medical cert, and took my avalanche 1 course. I didn’t do this all at once, but within a year or two. By owning my knowledge, I sent a completely different message to my potential partners. A message that I had value and that I was there to learn and grow and own the process as much as they were – even if I was less experienced. I attracted true lasting mentors – still with men. My climbing partners were invested in my growth as much as I was in theirs. Over the years I learned so much that in many cases our friendships have pivoted and now I am the mentor. Not only with these friends but many others, and happily, this now includes women.
Did I need all-women’s groups to go into my power- NO! I needed a perspective shift. I needed to believe in myself. Would I have sought out a woman mentor? YES! If I could have found her! There is something special about being with other women. They help me feel safer to lean into the things I do differently, my emotions, my instincts, my planning style that is uniquely feminine. In essence, I might have found my success faster, because it would have been a heck of a lot easier to believe in myself. Especially through the incredulity, doubt, and the derisive comments I sometimes received from men in the mountain community.
