Trent Griffin

In the Don Sheldon Amphitheater

Trent and the Beaver in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, Denali National Park, Alaska

  • Glacier pilot in Alaska
  • Skydive pilot in Hawaii
  • Surfer

Dreams require tinkering. It’s the impetus of invention, even in one’s self—it’s the audacity to try and fail yet persevere through. “I’m afflicted with the obsession of just tinkering with stuff. I get it from my dad.” Similarly to his Dad, tinkering instilled Trent with the follow-through to succeed, no matter what the challenge.

Technically, Trent’s story begins in Australia, but while he and his brother were still babies his parents transplanted the family to Talkeetna, Alaska. The house was in shambles so his dad fixed it up while the rest of the family stayed in Anchorage. “It was pretty trashed. I believe there was a motorcycle inside the living room taken apart, and the outside steps for the porch were, like, out in the middle of the yard somewhere. To boot, it was 35 below zero for like a month that winter.” Trent’s dad persevered and renovated the home in which the boys would grow up. That ability to hunker down, see a project through, and enjoy the how-to process is something his dad passed onto him. “My dad’s always been my hero, and I take after him in most things. He’s an amazing builder and mechanic, and he just loves to tinker.”

Talkeetna signTalkeetna, Alaska is the aviation hub of the Alaska Range, and the pre-base-camp hangout for most Denali climbers. Therefore, many aviation legends and climbing tales are spun in this little community of about 1300 people. Trent grew up less than a quarter mile from the town’s 3500ft airstrip, but consciously speaking, that proximity played little part in his career choice. Before college, he was just a regular kid playing hockey and working on cars. “INoParking actually didn’t fly an airplane, I mean actually sit at the controls of the airplane until I was in college. I just didn’t have somebody to go flying with the whole time. If I did, I’m sure I would have gotten into it a lot earlier.” Therefore, when he did pursue his pilot’s license it was a very cognizant choice.

After graduating high school with approximately eighteen other students, Trent’s parents encouraged him to pursue professional aeronautics at University of Alaska Anchorage, during which time he earned his private pilot’s license and instrument rating. By then, Trent had 95 hours—he also had an epiphany. He thought, “Why do I need to pay all this money to be part of a university setting when I could just be part of a flying club?” This was a defining choice in two ways. First off, he paid far less per flight hour than he did renting a plane—not to mention he saved on tuition fees. Perhaps more importantly, though, joining a flight club exposed him to tailwheels and ski planes—the latter particularly is a specialized type of flying that few people have access to, let alone consistently, but which nourished Trent’s adventurous side. “Flying on skis was awesome. It made flying this total open abyss where you could go, especially in Alaska. You’ve got lakes everywhere, flat surfaces, and tons of snow. As long as you’re being careful you can get there on skis.”

Trent and I met in Alaska at our first aviation jobs, albeit in much different capacities. Trent was essentially a co-pilot and I was the office manager/flight coordinator for the same company. I was starry-eyed about the unique brand of flying it showcased. In high school, I attended a career day pilot’s talk, but my dreams of adventure were dashed when the speaker painted a limited reality of airlines, military, or both. But Alaska offered something different: the opportunity to fly in in unique places and tinker one’s career around a nomadic lifestyle. At the time of employment, Fly Denali and Talkeetna Aero operated jointly—Fly Denali landed climbers and tourists on Mt. McKinley’s (Denali’s) glaciers in ski planes, while Talkeetna Aero employed twin engines equipped with supplemental oxygen to fly over the mountain’s summit at 20,306 feet. Eventually, Trent would fly both types of aircraft as pilot in command, but back then he was second in command in the twins. Trent’s aviation career was just taking off.

Stony Hill 001

Office with a view

After the summer at Fly Denali/Talkeetna Aero, with about 575 flight hours logged, Trent went to Bethel, Alaska and became a bush pilot for Grant Aviation. At this point, it’s useful to define what a bush pilot is precisely, since the term bush pilot is often sloppily used to encompass all Alaskan aviation.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a fur hat from beaver and seal.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a hat from seal and beaver fur.

The majority of Alaska is cut off from the road system that connects the state to Canada and then feeds back into the contiguous United States—a fact which pleases most Alaskans. Case in point, when the only road into the fishing community of Valdez was annihilated by an avalanche last winter the town shrugged it off and used boats to fill the void. Boats, sled dogs, snow machines, and bush planes are the unifiers between communities off the road system. “You can fly five minutes out of Anchorage and you’re out in the wilderness, but you’re not a bush pilot, you’re taking off out of Anchorage,” Trent explains. Most pilots agree that a pilot’s point of origin and intended destination must be off the road system to qualify as bush flying.

Winter flying in Western Alaska is not only off the road system, but it’s often brutal, and Trent’s experience was no exception. “That was pretty real. It was super windy, it was super slick, the runways were just solid ice.” Most Januaries produce more snowfall, but it was a warm winter. “Everything was, like, water over ice with little bits of peat gravel showing through.”

He recalls his first day waiting for the company instructor in the Cessna 207, which was tied down but not yet started. “It was blowing something like 25 gusting to 30-something. That’s pretty fast, especially when you’re just sitting there and the plane’s rocking all over the place and you hear these wind whistle sounds going by. But as soon as I got in the air I was like ‘okay, this isn’t so bad.’ A plane in the air can handle quite a bit—more than you think they can.” Trent adopted the challenges as learning opportunities. “The thing that it taught me is to make the right decision and listen to that little voice inside your head because you’re probably right. If you start pushing that limit too many times then you’ll probably have an accident. You have to realize: who are you proving it to?”

Concerning safety, some companies have a reputation for shopping unfavorable bush flights around the pilot lounge until someone finally accepts. Thankfully, Grant wasn’t one of them. Ultimately, it’s the pilot’s decision to refuse a flight but Trent encountered several self-righteous pilots on his three “tours of duty” in Western Alaska. “They were seeing how far they could take it. I’ve seen a few where the guy took off, it’s dark, it’s only seven-fifteen in the morning and they’re not supposed to be off until eight, and ten minutes of flying and their airplane was covered in ice. It’s scary looking—the spinner had spikes coming off of it. You see what their motivation is and it’s not worth it. It’s really not.”

Photo by MIchael DeYoung

Photo by Michael DeYoung

A few years of experience later, Trent returned to his roots as the chief pilot at Fly Denali. In an effort to boost his company’s reputation, Trent accepted an invitation to be filmed for National Geographic’s Alaska Wingmen, which meant flying the turbine beaver with a camera crew in tow. Reality television has synonymized Alaska with danger, but the term “reality” is a complete fallacy. Ask an Alaskan fisherman about Deadliest Catch, a pilot about any of the aviation shows, or any Alaskan in general about Sarah Palin and they’ll roll their eyes. “It’s crap. Everything is made up. ‘Don’t worry, we’re National Geographic,’ they said, and I was, like, ‘well I just don’t want everything to be staged, I want it to be real. You need to realize aviation isn’t this terrifying, death-defying event. It’s supposed to be safe. There’s so many things that you have to do to make it safe, and I don’t want you guys to film and ask me to tell you that ‘oh man at any point here if we lose an engine we’re all going to die.’ They really embellish the danger factor all the time, because otherwise they’d have nothing to film. ‘Well, another uneventful day of flying.’” The truth may not be as flashy, but reality is compelling in its own nature. Among its honors is the esteem of being honest and allowing audiences to draw their own conjectures.

Another fallacy permeating this lifestyle is tourism. Over time, many tourist towns construct a marketable facade of the town’s soul for tourists to consume. Growing up witnessing tourists trample your homeland is enough to embitter locals, however, Trent is more accepting. “Here’s the thing. I wasn’t the last one in, and I’m not the kind of guy who is ever going to tell people how it is up here. There’s certainly a pace of life everywhere you go, and everybody that’s visiting those places should respect that and not just expect it to be the way it was where they came from. No one can say this is my land, because they’re really just a blip in this timeline of this world. So when I think about it that way I don’t get annoyed.”

IMG_5470Trent immersed himself in tourism as an outsider when he landed a job flying in Hawaii. After a chance meeting in Alaska with the owner of Skydive Kauai, Trent accepted an invitation to check out the operation in the winter. “I kinda went on a whim, brought my girlfriend with me and said ‘I’ll figure it out.’” Before long, Trent became their full-time pilot flying skydivers and hour-long air tours.

Most single-engine pilots eventually chase money into larger aircraft, a tendency Trent calls, “The big shiny jet syndrome.” Although most of Trent’s flight hours have been single-engine, time in the Navajos and a recently earned Airline Transport Pilot license diversifies his marketability should he decide to pursue something larger, which seems unlikely. He illustrated the dilemma musing over the ski planes he’s flown professionally. “Flying bigger airplanes doesn’t really appeal to me. Even going from the Beaver to the Otter, all of a sudden it’s a slower-turning airplane, I mean it’s awesome, but it’s not a 185. The 185 is like a little hot rod and then compare that to the Otter, it’s like driving a dump truck.” The idea of the airlines conjures adventure for some, but sounds mundane to Trent. A more appealing step to him would be fire-bombing for wildfire control or flying with the Department of Natural Resources.

Looking toward Anderson Pass in Denali

Looking toward Anderson Pass in Denali

Although repetitious flying invites monotony, Trent recognizes his good fortune. “Every day is different. Even though it’s the same mountains and the same terrain, the scenery is always changing. The clouds, the weather, the winds; the picture is painted differently every day, but with the same background.” Trent has witnessed spectacular sights from the cockpit, from humpback whales breaching in Hawaii to northern lights in Western Alaska. “I saw 7 bears on a beached whale one time. One of them I distinctly remember was laying on its back and its belly was, like, over its rib cage, and he’s almost just scratching itself looking up at me, not a care in the world sitting next to this huge stinking gray whale. Those bears were in heaven. I feel pretty lucky to be seeing those kinds of things.”

Aviation is just one of Trent’s many interests, but it certainly adds a dynamic when indulging his other hobbies. Now that he owns a Tripacer he expects he’ll still be flying on weekends. “But it will be a means to an end. I’ll go straight to where I’m going, land, and have an adventure. That’s what it’s all about: getting to those way cool out of the way spots that are otherwise unobtainable. I like to see stuff from the air, but I don’t really have an ambition, like, ‘I want to go fly the Grand Canyon.’ I have much more ambition to raft the canyon, or fly somewhere and get out there and hike. That’s what an airplane allows up here is there’s so much freedom where you can go. You can fly out there and then enjoy this total, untouched wilderness.”

Although Trent opted not to return to Skydive Kauai this winter he is planning a long surf vacation in the off-season. “If I had a warm ocean and waves [in Talkeetna], I would never leave. That’s what my other passion is. Really being next to the ocean, being in the ocean—I love surfing.” Ultimately, there may be a way to combine his passions. “I’d love to fly for, like, a surf adventure company and go to these exotic spots with a float plane or a Twin Otter, and just drop people down out there for, like, a week at a time and have boats to get them out to surf spots. It would be amazing.” The gift of this lifestyle is that such dreams are viable. If he tinkers long enough, Trent might just figure out how to transform this idea into reality.

Continue to: What You Need to Know About Becoming a Commercial Pilot.

Kauai sunrise at 10,000 ft.

Kauai sunrise at 10,000 ft.

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditlinkedin

Brooke’s Five Tips for Seasonal Success

Brooke ramp

  1. Throw yourself out there and trust the blank slate. It sounds cheesy but the more I trust the universe and the less I panic and try to plan the more it does seem to be good.

  2. Even when the shittiest of shitty things happen later on down the line you look back at it and see the lessons learned. It helps me hold my head up when things are hard to be like, ‘I’m sure there’s a reason this is happening that I might not know now but it’s going to help me become a better person down the road.’

  3. A life like this boils down to your simple needs. There’s definitely been moments where I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck, but I feel like there’s always a way to make it work. I feel like the times that I’ve had plenty of money, like when I had the operations manager job, I would just spend it on people and when I don’t I feel like I get taken care of somehow. Life just happens.

  4. Don’t be scared to just get your toe in the door. I did all the hiring at AWA and everyone wants to start out as guides, and that’s hard because everyone’s looking for people with guiding experience. I found if people could just get in there to work in the office, work in hospitality, or whatever job, you’re gaining great experience while the payoff down the road is really big. If you’re going to a ski town don’t be afraid to be a barista, a server, or anything that is going to get you a ski pass and put you out on the mountain. A lot of summer lodges have room and board so you don’t have to make a ton of money, but then it gets you in and meeting people. You can learn a lot just scrubbing toilets about how to become a raft guide for the next year. You just have to take the risk and go for it.

  5. My goals are ever-evolving. I feel like the older I get the more I trust in that go-with-the-flow approach. I feel like if I just keep living my passion it will keep unfolding.

Don't Walk Dance

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditlinkedin

Brooke Edwards, pt. 2

 Success in Leadership, Not Management

Brooke and her penguin in Antarctica

Brooke and her penguin in Antarctica

 

  • Guide in Alaska and Antarctica
  • AK Rep for RAMP and Fly Low     
  • All around badass   

Alaska is one big small town. “It’s a big place but tourism is such a small industry, so once word got out I was on the job market people started coming to me. It’s just neat to be at a place in my life where that is happening.” For many, however, success living seasonally is elusive at best.

The seasonal lifestyle is easy to burn out in. Countless workers lose faith in their first few seasons and the tourism industry makes an easy scapegoat by providing unsustainable, low-paying jobs. Conversely, however, few people are bold enough to chase their passion toward an unmapped outcome. Such career paths aren’t as straightforward as climbing a corporate ladder and are often financially risky. Brooke, however, is an example of how seasonal work can be elevated to a professional level. In her case, she weaved her passion for skiing with additional talents—such as inspiring others to push their boundaries—and developed a way to make the ski industry profitable for her. Through dedication and flexibility she’s built a professional lifestyle-resume that has put her in demand.

Case in point, Chugach Powder Guides (CPG) hired her without a position in mind, because they knew they had to snag her while she was available. Essentially, she became Brooke, the Jill of All Trades, which was perfect for her. “I’m ADD, I love variety. I just really appreciate them going out on a limb, like, ‘we don’t know what we want you to do but we want you on our team.’ ” In a better snow year, Brooke aspires to heli-guide, something she will undoubtedly accomplish. Before Brooke began at CPG, however, the door opened to another great adventure.

After stepping down from managing Alaska Wildland Adventures (AWA), Brooke had no idea what she would do next. Within two weeks she’d secured the position with CPG and was also invited to guide in Antarctica with G Adventures. The previous guide was unable to go last minute, was scrambling to fill his own spot. and hoped Brooke might be able to help. “He called to see if any of the guides [at AWA] would qualify to do that position. I was like, I’m not telling any of them. I’ll take it!” she laughs unabashedly. “I applied for it and threw my name in the hat. His boss had told him he had to find his replacement for ditching out late in the game and he was like, ‘I have her! Hire her, hire her, hire her!’”

 

Antarctic migration

We know of only two animals that migrate between Alaska and Antarctica: the arctic tern and the seasonal nomad. To take on the longest migrational path in existence, experts say the tern must be able to adapt to almost every condition to survive. Similarly, the seasonal worker needs a vast quiver of skills to succeed in both latitudinal extremes. Brooke jokes that her role in the Antarctic expeditions was “camp mistress” (camp master). She coordinated big logistics with extensive equipment, learned to drive a zodiac, took people sea kayaking, and facilitated camping in a highly regulated area for 60 people at a time. “It was light all night so we’d get there, set up camp, go for a hike up a mountain and then be out all night with the penguins singing.” The tern migrates to maximize sustenance options, while the seasonal nomad is galvanized by a propensity for wonderment. “Penguins have these different songs,” she laughs. “The gentoos purr.” The nuances of a landscape, such as the sound of penguins purring, is the nomad’s sustenance.

Penguin-viewing in Antarctica

Penguin-viewing in Antarctica

Surprisingly, although these were multi-thousand dollar trips, the clientele wasn’t necessarily exclusive. There were deep discounts for last minute sign-ups ($4000 trips discounted to $2000) which invited a younger, adventure-based crowd to participate, including Australians on their gap year and many solo women travelers. “I was so impressed with how many women of different ages had decided it was their dream to go to Antarctica to be on all seven continents. They didn’t want to wait for anybody to go with them so they just did it. That was super inspiring to me.”

One of the trips she guided followed Shackleton’s route. Sir Ernest Shackleton was the leader of perhaps the most harrowing survival story in human history. He captained the 27-man crew of the Endurance to Antarctica with the intention to traverse the continent via dog sled. Before it arrived at its intended point, however, the ship became trapped in a drifting ice floe that froze around the hull. Over the next year, the crew floated helplessly for several months, eventually became forced to abandon ship as the the Endurance was slowly crushed by the thickening ice floe, and ultimately watched their ship sink all together from the second ice floe camp they were forced to erect.

Beautiful light over the Weddell Sea

Beautiful light over the Weddell Sea

The desolation of a failed mission, impending darkness, and seemingly infinite ice entrapping them would be enough to crush any crew’s morale and invite doom. Yet, miraculously Shackleton kept every single man alive and eventually they escaped on three small boats, an impossible feat in itself. Unsurprisingly, Brooke was was drawn to this historical character and through onboard lectures gained deep respect for him as a leader.

“The human history was just mind-blowing. Shackleton had incredible foresight to manage the human element. He kept his men always preoccupied with tasks; he kept them engaged and he kept them mentally alive more than anything. Physically alive he knew he could do but the reason people would die is they would mentally give in to the bleakness and the despair and he did a great job of piecing the positive people with the negative people, and giving negative people certain jobs to be proud of and all that. So I went to his grave in South Georgia and poured whiskey on it and did a shot and cried,” a sweet yet sorrowful laugh breaks her lips. “He was an amazing human being.” Beyond the facts of how Shackleton kept his men alive, Brooke absorbed the underlying leadership values that governed Shackleton’s decisions, and tries to implement them in her own life—albeit on a far less harrowing scale.

Brooke sea kayaking with penguins  (photo credit Jonathan Green)

Brooke sea kayaking with penguins
(photo credit Jonathan Green)

“He really spoke to me in the human understanding of leadership and that it isn’t just about being a charismatic person it’s about really reading your audience, reading your people, and bringing out the best in each person; making them shine making them proud of who they are. To me that’s what makes the best leader. It’s not that person being in the limelight, it’s about making others shine.”

That philosophy has produced great rewards for her in return, as well, including involvement in the first all-female skier movie.

 

More than just a Pretty Face

Pretty Faces, premiering this fall, is the female response to male dominated ski movies.  Every year, a slew of ski porn is produced to stoke the rad for the upcoming snow season, yet very few women ever make it beyond the cutting room floor. Conversations with the few women who have made it to the silver screen reveal a deeper issue. “What I learned from Ingrid Backstrom and powerhouses like Rachael Burks is that they had spent quite a bit of their own money and their whole winter just to get that 30 seconds on the screen. This floored me.” Brooke hoped to gain access to the discarded footage and supplement it with her own. She purchased film equipment and aimed to capture the women who inspired her out in their element.

While filming a freeskiing comp at Revelstoke she met Lynsey Dyer, one of her biggest idols, who had the same idea. Both girls lived in Jackson at the time and they grew a friendship rooted in their shared dream. Lynsey is the one who was finally able to bring the concept into fruition by founding the production company Unicorn Picnic, getting SheJumps involved, tapping into industry connections, and using Kickstarter to exceed their financial goal. “Her motivation, drive, and experience launched this into a real production.” Brooke couldn’t be more excited, as she sees this as the beginning of a new era. “From here forward, girls and women will no longer be regarded as the token female for a 30 second shot in a film, we will be respected for the unique power and beauty we bring to this sport that we are all passionate about.” It isn’t about men or women being better, but rather embracing the strengths and differences of each sex.

Slaying it Brooke-style  (Photo from Pretty Faces)

Slaying it Brooke-style
(Photo from Pretty Faces)

Lynsey kept Brooke involved along the way. “My favorite moment was getting to film with one of the all-time greats, Rachael Burks. Lynsey and the other girls decked Burks and I out in glow in the dark LED lighting and Alyeska patrol allowed us to film after night skiing. Rachael and I laughed to the point of tears as we raced around in the dark, throwing spread eagles and crashing in powder piles we couldn’t see dressed as light-up aliens. We all ended up post-shoot in the Sitzmark with Lynsey and the girls dancing in our tutus and lights and long johns with ski pants around our ankles. Pants-off dance-off. My dream at that point had already come true.”

That dream began for Brooke at 20. Now at 42, Brooke continues to evolve her relationship with the outdoors. She is currently co-teaching a one-month course on expedition leadership with Heather Thamm at Alaska Pacific University. The course comprises one week in the classroom and three weeks backpacking 150 miles in the Talkeetna Mountains.

Perhaps at this point in her career it’s easy to see that Brooke is on her destined path. Early on, however—before this was all mapped out, when she was just a wandering soul drawn to the dramatic oceanside mountains of Alaska—it would have been easy for anyone to advise her to seek the financial security of a “real job.” Thankfully, no one close to her ever did. “It’s funny, my mom and my grandmother came on one of my trips when I was guiding for Alaska Wildland Adventures. My Grandma was 87 and somebody asked, ‘Aren’t you concerned that Brooke is never going to grow up?’ My grandmother was like, “No, I’m proud of her,” It was great because my grandmother was so conservative. She was a surgeon’s wife and really never understood my lifestyle until that trip and then she got it; she totally got that I was doing what I was set out to do in this life.” Although carving an unconventional path can be daunting, Brooke continues to prove that if you follow your passion you’ll never be lost.

Continue to Brooke’s Five Tips for Seasonal Success!

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditlinkedin

Brooke Edwards, pt. 1

  • Guide in Alaska and Antarctica
  • AK Rep for RAMP and Fly Low     
  • All around badass   

    Brooke earning her turns in the backcountry

    Brooke earning her turns in the backcountry

“My mom told me when I was young once, ‘you need to grow up and be a ski bum because I never did that.’” To reduce Brooke Edward’s life to being just a ski bum, however, cheapens her vivacious existence. True, Brooke did take one winter to live out of a van with her boyfriend and dog during which time they rafted, mountain biked, and skied the country. However, “bumming” has never been her way. That winter, among other things, she learned the value of the karmic couch. Her motto seems to be: put good into the universe, work hard and play hard and life will pay out in dividends.

 

Hands-on education

As a kid, Brooke’s parents took her and her sister backpacking on the Olympic Coast where they’d find a wild beach and become spellbound by winter storms. “It wasn’t your normal beach vacation where you’d even touch the ocean. It was, like, pouring down rain sideways and huge surfs and crazy storms, but we would rent a little cabin on a bluff and just walk the beach and look for rocks and driftwood and clay and it was great. I think [my mom] inspired me with just falling in love with wild energy and all its elements no matter what the weather.”

Wild energy captivated Brooke’s imagination throughout her life and perhaps as early as sixth grade Brooke realized her calling. At environmental camp she saw people living her dream life. “[Guiding] just blew my mind. I couldn’t believe that you could get paid to take people into the wilderness.” From then on, Brooke’s plans were inlaid with a desire to pursue the wildly unknown and share it with others—an abstract desire that gestated into something tangible as an adult. Brooke landed her first guiding job cow-girling in Jackson Hole for a summer after college before leaving the country. Whatever she was searching for in life, she needed to go somewhere in the world where it could smack her in the face. She hoped to find that volunteering abroad. “My only criteria were to not put in any money and not get out any money, have it be non religious and be about a year.” Through research she homed in on the Peace Corps.

23 yr-old Brooke during the Peace Corps in the village of Bawade, West Africa

In the Peace Corps, Brooke worked in a small village in West Africa in a program dedicated to staving off the expansion of the Sahara. Techniques are being developed that maximize resource efficiency yet work harmoniously with local culture, and Brooke’s role was to disseminate these methods. “We took super duper simple technology that they already had the tools for and just taught them [different techniques]. I had this little youth group of eight to twelve year-olds that I would teach all that stuff to and they would teach their family so it wasn’t a crazy white lady coming in who doesn’t know anything about carrying water or growing millet.” One method she taught involved planting a thorny species called Acacia that grows into a living fence instead of chopping down wood to fulfill the same need. She also introduced an insulating mud stove that burned far less wood than their current method, as well as various counter-erosion techniques. In Africa, Brooke “got the bug of learning from travel and it only increased that desire to want to show people those kind of places.” She found satisfaction in teaching others as well as in expanding her own worldly understanding through hands-on participation.

 

Twins Brooke helped deliver. She saved the second from a breach birth helped to deliver and got to even save the second one from a breach birth by "massaging it's head around until it faced the birth canal, then caught it in a mud hut and cut the umbilical cord with a raw razor blade."

Twins Brooke helped deliver. She saved the second from a breech birth by “massaging it’s head around until it faced the birth canal, then caught it in a mud hut and cut the umbilical cord with a raw razor blade.”

After the Peace Corps, Brooke returned to the States, did a year of Americorps at her old college and subsequently pursued her masters in environmental education in an unusual way. “It was a traveling school bus called the Audubon Expedition Institute and each semester was in a different region. It was all outdoors and all experiential, so in the Northwest semester you studied all environmental issues that were relevant to the Northwest—logging, dams, nuclear energy, salmon—and you spent the whole time camping. Instead of reading about an issue you learned about logging by meeting with Weyerhaeuser, meeting with the Earth First! activists, meeting with the Forest Service, and camping with loggers on their land for a week. It was really a cool spectrum.” She wanted to apply what she was learning to guiding and so she centered her special projects on how she could continue to combine her passions in ecotourism. “Environmental education did seem like it had a home in guiding. Essentially, lots of people choosing a vacation now want to learn as you go.”

Soon Brooke found her way up to Alaska and found her home—not an address, per se, but her landscape. “The second I stepped off the plane in Alaska I was like Oh! This is it! It was like Washington times a thousand. Bigger mountains, and bigger waters, and less people and people living off the land.” Alaskan summers became a cornerstone in her migrational life and she soon developed a summer routine of guiding seven to twelve-day natural and cultural history trips deep into the wilderness for Alaska Wildland Adventures, based out of Cooper landing. She sandwiched that gig between teaching semesters for the Audubon in places like the Bahamas and the Southwest. “Travel is continuing education.  It keeps my mind engaged and constantly opening to new possibilities and fresh outlooks on life.  The challenges that are presented by logistics being constantly thwarted by acts of nature are a chance to solve an ever-evolving and pertinent life crossword puzzle.” Ecotourism, at least theoretically, promotes an organic appreciation for a place by finding an economic edge that works unobtrusively within the landscape. Regardless, Brooke unquestionably found such an edge in her own life, by pursuing a career that blends people and wilderness in harmony with her personal landscape. In the Peace Corps, she taught locals to use the tools they already had to improve the sustainability of their communities. In guiding, she does exactly the same thing on an individual level. Brooke encourages people to discover their own fertile nature and germinate that which already exists inside of them. From there, people may reap the rewards in unforeseen ways—even Brooke.

 

The accidental professional

It was only a matter of time before Alaska engaged this energetic twenty-something year-round. “Alaska just made sense to me. There’s a whole field called eco-psychology and it’s, like, the places that speak to your soul and this is definitely it.” Soon Brooke traded Audubon for winters in the snowiest town in Alaska managing Valdez Heli Ski Guides. Surrounded by the founders of big mountain skiing, she was initially a self-described tomboy intimidated in a boy’s world. “I didn’t have those female mentors until later in life and especially coming to Alaska I’ve realized how important it was to me to be taken under the wing of, like, Kirsten Kramer, who was the only female guide at Valdez Heli Ski Guides when I moved there. She just showed me that I could do it, too, so I’ve really tried to pay that forward.” Although Brooke eventually resigned from Valdez Heli Ski Guides, she has continued to develop into a leader in the Alaskan ski industry. Not surprisingly, much of that is infused with women empowerment:

Huckin' it above the clouds

Huckin’ it above the clouds

“I feel like it’s become a super important piece of my passion to figure out how to pay that forward. Whether that’s being the cool auntie to little girls in town, or running the girls’ day off programs just to try to get girls out there in full force in tutus and fairy wings learning to ski backwards or do a spread eagle for the first time. It’s all really empowering. Women being goofballs together, being themselves, being strong, being powerful, and then helping others access those goods.”

 

One such inspiring program is Backcountry Babes, for which Brooke helps run steeps camps. “Women a lot of times have the ability within themselves but they don’t believe it. It’s really cool for me to be that person that’s really just coaching them there, making it okay for them to take that risk, and giving them a safe place to engage in their own abilities within that to dive right in. Then they just sing.”

chargeThrough her enthusiasm, Brooke has become a rep for two ski gear companies, RAMP (Riders Artists Musician Project), a Park City based company that designs bamboo skis, snowboards, and stand-up paddle boards, and Flylow, a Colorado-based activewear company that has grown exponentially since she first heard of them. “To get free stuff you don’t have to be good at something you have to talk about it a lot. I think I’m just one of those personalities that’s a cheerleader and if there’s something I believe in I rave about it, and I think companies recognize that.” Although Brooke has skied a plethora of planks, RAMP are hands-down her favorite.

As the seasons ticked on, Brooke “accidentally” worked her way up the ladder to managing Alaska Wildland Adventures. This position allowed her to flex-time her work in the winter and teach tele and alpine skiing at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska where she bought a “little hippie shack in the woods.” She had a year-round job, benefits, flexibility to ski, and a home; for many this is the seasonal grand slam. Despite the praiseworthy aspects of her life, however, she realized that more money wasn’t buying happiness. “It just made me sad that I’d gotten away from guiding. The further up the ladder I moved in traditional success the more I got away from the seasonal lifestyle. I opted to pass that baton off and go back to the living paycheck to paycheck and go back to more time and less money and guide.”

Most people’s fear about entering the seasonal lifestyle, especially when they have an established career, is about abandoning the known for the unknown. Similarly, Brooke was embarking on unstable ground with no idea of what to expect, but two weeks later she had a job guiding in Antarctica for three months followed up by a position with Chugach Powder Guides in her home ski town of Girdwood. Over time, Brooke has learned to “throw [myself] out there and trust the blank slate.” This unwavering trust was about to lead her on her greatest adventure.

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach

Read about Brooke’s growth in leadership and her segue into guiding in Antarctica in part 2!

Get notification when part 2 is published by clicking “Follow” in the bottom right-hand corner –>

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditlinkedin