An Ode to Outdoor Moms and the Adventures We Have Together

During a recent weekend, four mom friends and I gathered at the base of Colorado’s Winter Park Ski Resort, while our respective families were back home. My friends and I giddily skinned into the woods and ended up climbing over 2,000 feet, sharing snacks and sweating profusely, en route to a lunch spot. After a beer at the lodge, and some conversation you can only have with your girlfriends—sorry, husbands—we rode the slopes for a couple hours before a night of doing a puzzle in our sweats and laughing our asses off.

I’ve been thinking about adventures like this a lot with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, but also the heavy weight of sorrow, since learning about the avalanche tragedy near Lake Tahoe on February 17. Among the nine who lost their lives were six mothers, adventure-lovers who, I read, bonded over their semi-regular trips to the mountains together.

I didn’t know Carrie Atkin, Liz Clabaugh, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse, Caroline Sekar, or Kate Vitt. But here in Colorado, I have my own pack of Carrie, Liz, Danielle, Kate, Caroline, and Kates.  They’re my dear friends—also moms—I share adventures with regularly, from ski touring in the backcountry to rafting the Colorado River. They may have different names than the moms who lost their lives, but the pictures of the women look the same.

The description of the women sounds so similar that, when the news broke of the tragedy, my husband said to me, “The group sounds a lot like you and your friends.”

I am lucky to have adventurous friends, and I count my blessings often, especially when we’re out adventuring. We load a car on summer weekend mornings and head to trailheads in the Indian Peaks, where we run to high alpine lakes and sometimes over the Continental Divide. We usually jump into the frigid water, swearing and laughing before rolling back down the trail to the car. We talk about our kids, our husbands, our work, our aging or deceased parents. We work through each other’s problems du jour—an argument with a spouse, a teenager with too many missing assignments, a job layoff.

In the winter, we put skins on our skis or splitboards (me) and tour in the mountains, or go skate skiing, or running on trails of the foothills around Boulder. A couple of us swim laps in an outdoor pool, no matter the weather.

Most of us were blessed to know each other when we became pregnant around the same time. (The others have filtered into the group through the years.) Back then, 18 years ago for me, we were runners and triathletes, adventure racers, ex-Outward Bound instructors, skiers and snowboarders. We had all moved to Boulder for one reason or another and had luckily found each other. Pregnant, we commiserated on slower-than-we-liked runs about baby weight and fragile bladders.

Once we had our babies, we took them on hikes. We carried them in Baby Bjorns and backpacks, showing our offspring the natural world—and friendships—that we loved. We laughed over what we’d become: so domestic! And we supported each other to keep alive the parts of ourselves we knew we needed to survive the stresses of motherhood and life in general: our adventurous souls.

When our kids were in elementary school, we’d compare notes about teachers and bullies and youth sports as we’d meet up to run local trails. On a long, grueling climb to the top of Boulder’s Green Mountain, for instance, our individual problems became smaller as we realized we shared similar struggles. And we’d often come up with gameplans for each other as we’d ramble down rocky singletrack. We still do.

Now that our kids are teenagers, with some in college and some soon fleeing the nest, we lean on each other as we cross high alpine ridges in blustering headwinds. We ask for advice from the ones who’ve been through periods of life that others of us are about to enter. As we ramble through tall pines and across bridges over snowmelt rivers, we celebrate each other’s successes and vent about fights with our own adult siblings. And we plan future adventures, because we know we need them.

When we’re in the mountains together—or the rivers, or campgrounds, or woods—we are ourselves. We’re always moms. We’re always wives or partners. We never lose the other roles we hold. But because we spend time together in the wild, we are the freest, truest versions of our adventurous selves, and return to our families refreshed. Happy. Present. At peace, both because we know we are not alone in whatever struggles or concerns we may be dealing with at any given stage of life, but because we’ve let our adventurous souls fly free for a little bit. We’ve fed a deeply rooted need. And we’ve done it together.

I don’t know whether  it’s soothing to know that the six women/mom/adventurers lost their lives doing what they loved, and that they were together. What I do know is that, if they were anything like me and my friends, which it sounds like they undoubtedly were, they loved their families and each other and their adventures fiercely. Like, incredibly fiercely. And that none of us should take any single thing for granted.