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Justin Bowen’s first time scaling walls and new routes was in a climbing gym during a friend’s birthday party. It wasn’t until high school, driven by persistent memories of that experience, that Bowen started climbing on a more consistent basis.
Eventually, while attending college in Arizona, Bowen planned his first trip to Yosemite, where he jumped right onto the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral. He quickly realized just how much he still had to learn about building anchors and placing gear. A few years ago, Bowen met friend and mentor Mark Jenkins, who he says shared a wealth of knowledge based on his decades of climbing around the world. Bowen still climbs with and learns from Jenkins on a regular basis.
In this episode, Bowen reflects on how he manages fear—both in the mountains, and in his day-to-day life. He talks about being a PhD student, and the terrifying prospect of only having two-to-three weeks off a year to pursue climbing objectives after finishing school. And he speaks to the striking similarities between the Tetons and Mt. Kenya. Tales from Bowen and Jenkins’ Mt. Kenya expedition are featured in Alpinist 83.
This episode is brought to you by the American Alpine Club
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Justin Bowen
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn

For Alan Rousseau, the allure of mountaineering is in the unknown. When he looks up at a mountain and contemplates whether it can be climbed, he sees a mystery to be solved. 
Rousseau is an IFMGA guide who divides his time between pursuing his own goals in the mountains, and helping others do the same. His achievements in the Alaska Range, to which he has ventured more than twenty times, include first ascents of Ruth Gorge Grinder and Aim for the Bushes. In 2020, his first ascent of the west face of Tengi Ragi Tau with Tino Villanueva was recognized as one of the year’s greatest climbing achievements and the pair won a Piolets d’Or. Villanueva wrote about the climb in Alpinist 81. 
In this episode, Alan reflects on more than ten years of climbing in the Alaska Range, and exploratory climbs like Aim For the Bushes that he and his partners established earlier this year. He talks about the difference between planning trips to Alaska and the Himalaya, and the mountains that act as his compass.
This episode is brought to you by the American Alpine Club
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Alan Rousseau
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn
 

Caroline Gleich lives on the ridgeline between adventure and activism. Her trips around the globe often transcend summit goals as she merges mountain missions with driving awareness around diversity, equality and inclusion, and environmental justice.
In 2019, Caroline summited the tallest mountain in the world—with a fully torn ACL in her knee. Two years earlier, she was the first woman to ski the entirety of Utah’s Chuting Gallery. But before she became a professional skier, Gleich thought she wanted to be a pro climber, after getting her start on old school sandbagged trad routes. While she ultimately pursued skiing, Gleich uses her rock and ice climbing skills to further her ski mountaineering goals. 
On the advocacy side, she organizes marches, protests and rallies to further the causes she believes in, and has traveled to Washington DC to lobby for Protect Our Winters.
In this episode of the Alpinist Podcast, Caroline recounts her Everest expedition, challenges stereotypes around body image, and dives into the dark side of her personality and how she plans for a future full of unknowns.
This episode is brought to you by the American Alpine Club
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Caroline Gleich
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn
 

For Andrea Charest, climbing is entwined with community. She and her husband Steve own Petra Cliffs, a climbing gym and mountaineering school in Burlington, Vermont, where they also work as guides. She’s volunteered much of her time over the years to Crag Vermont, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving, protecting and advocating for climbing access in the Green Mountain State.
She empowers her fellow climbers to take the lead, and has a knack for enabling others to move past their perceived limitations.
Earlier this year, Charest became an AMGA-certified ice climbing instructor, a hard-earned goal years in the making. 
In this conversation, we talk about her journey through the ice instructor exam, and how she balances business, play and parenthood. Charest shares her love for the global climbing community, her excitement around the continued growth of Petra Cliffs, and the importance of helping climbers make the transition from the gym to the crag.
This episode is brought to you by Rab Equipment
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Andrea Charest
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn
 

Poet Sarah Audsley has an elevated point of view, even when her feet are on the ground. While the Vermont-based writer and climber believes she was indeed born to write poetry, she didn’t start pursuing it professionally until age 29. 
Before that, she traveled the world, from Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro to Turkey’s Mt. Ararat to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, before making her way back to Vermont, the state where she grew up.
Audsley’s work has been widely published, including her debut collection titled Landlock X. Her poetry and writing has also graced the pages of Alpinist, with poems published in issues 65 and 74, as well as an interview with Ed Roberson in Alpinist 71.
In this conversation, Audsley reads two select works, reflects on the idea of elective suffering, and relishes the elevated perspective climbing provides. 
This episode is brought to you by Rab Equipment
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Sarah Audsley
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn
Photos by Anne Skidmore
 

Korean rock and ice climber Young Hoon Oh is a student of the mountains and the culture borne from them. While pursuing a PhD in anthropology, he spent two years living among Sherpa communities in Nepal and studying the outsized impact Sherpas have on Himalayan mountaineering. 
Today, Young Hoon represents Korea as a member of the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA), and is a lecturer in anthropology at Seoul National University. A father of two young children, he doesn’t get to climb rock and ice as often as he used to, but he’s found new ways to explore and experience South Korea’s wild places with them in tow. Young Hoon also served as the editor of Alpinist Korea, before returning to his love of research, teaching and climbing advocacy.
Young Hoon urges his fellow climbers to explore the unknown and pursue adventure, and to look past stories of western heroes, first ascents and summits conquered. He looks beyond the physical and mental wellness aspects of climbing, and reflects on what we can learn from facing danger and even confronting the possibility of death in the mountains. 
This episode is brought to you by Rab Equipment
Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Host: Abbey Collins
Guest: Young Hoon Oh
Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn