Kat Schaumberg heard the conventional advice to prove her worth by climbing high mountains – but she ended up ditching the toxic culture to pursue true leadership instead.


Kat began her career in outdoor education at 18 and went on to work as a mountain guide, instructor, and logistics coordinator for many outdoor organizations. She’s spent hundreds of days on expeditions across Alaska, Yosemite, Patagonia, Ecuador, and Nepal, and has been featured in Climbing Magazine writing about the vulnerabilities of being a female guide in a male-dominated space.


Kat and Angie talk about:


  • Getting hired at guiding companies and feeling treated as less competent than male coworkers
  • What it meant to be a "marketable female guide": the pressure to be strong, charismatic, likable, and professional all at once — while suppressing her personal self
  • A trifecta of traumas that ended her full-time guiding career and sent her toward healing
  • Bringing bodywork and somatic awareness into expedition guiding
  • The menstrual cycle and outdoor adventure
  • Co-founding a forest school and completing a two-year, 10,000-mile sailing journey: "always lead with the lungs, follow with the feet"



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Brought to you by the Alliance for Gender Equity in Outdoor Adventure (GEA Alliance). Hosted by Angie Lake and edited by Alyson Castonguay.

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