The Broad Beta Podcast

Anna Keeling is the ultimate experienced skier, climber and mountain guide. She has been a mountain guide for the IFMGA for over 20 years. She grew up skiing in the Craigieburn Range in New Zealand, and she has completed ski descents and climbing ascents from Northern India’s Kedarnath Dome to Denali’s West Rib as well as wins in international adventure races and New Zealand’s Coast to Coast. Base...

Jess Shade is a queer, cis woman and high altitude ski mountaineer. She is also a licensed clinical mental health counselor in Salt Lake City and Michigan. Jess works in private practice with individuals, couples, and organizations such as the Utah Avalanche Center, the American Alpine Club, and the LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapist Guild of Utah. She is also a 2023 ambassador for the She Sends C...

Meet the lovely Miranda Oakley - mother, professional climber, writer, and guide. She was the first female to rope solo the Nose of El Capitan in under 24 hours and has completed various impressive linkups in Yosemite as well as first ascents in Patagonia. She is a Mountain Hardwear athlete. She talks to us about balancing motherhood with a career as a high-level professional climber and guide. Sh...

Today you’ll hear Kelsey Sather and Claire Schaube read a story that they co-authored. Hard Moves was published on the Broad Beta website in March of 2023 - check it out to see photos of these ladies climbing hard and in their element. Hard Moves is a quick, day-in-the-life glimpse into a years-long mentorship and friendship between Kelsey and Claire. Kelsey began working with Claire through Bozem...

Lorna Illingworth joined us back in August of 2022 to read her story Reflections on a Big Wall Partnership . Now, the climbing phenom is back and we're picking her brain about all things YOSAR - how she got there and how it helped her unlock such huge potential as a climber. Lorna is a humble, quiet master of all rock types. She has ticked off 5.13 sport routes at Smith Rock, over 20 ascents...

Lauren Smith is an accomplished climber hailing from Bellingham, Washington, and now based in Bozeman, Montana. She grew up hiking, skiing, and biking with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She moved to Arizona for a year to pursue aeronautical science in hope of becoming a commercial pilot; that plan drastically changed when she was introduced to climbing. She moved back to Bellingham to pursu...

It's here. Broad Beta 's first interview. We couldn't be more excited to dive in with our story writers and  get to know them better. Our first guest - Amy Jordan - was featured in episode 10 reading her story Painting Myself Out of a Corner .  Why do we think Amy's so cool? She's a wicked smart hydrologist who also holds degrees in astrophysics and pours over scientific l...

Meet Amy Jordan. This phenom from New Mexico holds undergraduate and masters degrees in astrophysics and a doctorate in hydrology. Oh yeah, and in her spare time she climbs 5.13. Amy shares a unique twist on the common story of dealing with injury as a climber. The mechanism of her injury was anything but common and led to a dark period of hopelessness. Amy teaches us about a condition called SIRV...

Tune in to meet Lorna Illingworth, a climbing phenom who was the only woman on the Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) team when she began in 2006. Her time in Yosemite included 5 years of service on YOSAR and over 20 ascents of El Capitan via 16 different routes. In the early 2000s, she and her partner Holly were one of the only female teams climbing consistently on Yosemite's big walls. Lorn...

We are so excited to have Jewell Lund on this episode. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Jewell tells us about her path into climbing, the partnerships that impacted her life, and her decision to step away from climbing in recent years. She reads her story Polarchrome , which was published on the Broad Beta website in March of this year. Check it out to see the mind blowing pictures of her and...

Tune in to meet Sarah Hueniken, one of the world's greatest ice and mixed climbers. She was the first North American female to climb M11, M12, M13, and M14 - grades most winter climbers only dream of climbing. She and her partner, Will Gadd, became the first to climb Niagara Falls in 2015. She is an ACMG alpine climbing guide and lives and works in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. In this episode, S...

Today we have the pleasure of hearing from Ruby Zitzer - a Bozeman native and longtime mentee of our co-founder Jeannie Wall. Ruby grew up competing as a nordic skier, and she now lives in Sun Valley, Idaho. She spends her winters working for Sun Valley Heli Ski and teaching avalanche awareness courses through the Sawtooth Avalanche Center. In the summer she works as a road, mountain, and gravel b...

Lizzie Gill joins us today to share her story Skiing and Hunting : a reflection on growing up hunting, living in Paraguay, and the evolution of her relationship with eating animal protein. Lizzie grew up in Bozeman and nordic ski raced for the University of New Hampshire. She holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems and International Affairs. After college she...

Tune in to meet Cat Coe, Broad Beta's audio content producer. Cat lives in Lander, Wyoming, where she works full-time as a flight nurse. In this episode, Cat reflects on the quote, "Lesson from a mountain: It's our birthright to take up space and look f**king majestic." She remembers her time working as an ICU nurse during Covid, the grief it brought, and how she rediscovered h...

Tune in to meet Jeannie Wall, co-founder of Broad Beta. Jeannie epitomizes the term mountain athlete, with high-level accomplishments in a mind-boggling array of disciplines from nordic racing to mixed climbing. She is the ultimate mentor, sharing her knowledge and stoke with climbers of all levels. In this episode, Jeannie shares a story about climbing Lurking Fear, a route on Yosemite's El...

Leslie Gains-Germain is one of the co-founders of Broad Beta along with Jeannie Wall. An under-the-radar badass, Leslie is reserved, analytical, and humble while climbing at an impressively high level on both rock and ice. On the clock, she works for an environmental consulting agency modeling radioactive waste. In her spare time between that and recently sending her first 5.13, she works on finan...

Tune in to meet Anju Samuelson. Originally from Germany, Anju found her passion for climbing when she was 19 years old and traveling in Chile. She continues to love combining travel with climbing, and she now works as a mountain guide based in Bozeman, Montana. In this episode, Anju shares her unique perspective on climbing Lurking Fear, a route on El Cap, with Leslie Gains-Germain and Jeannie Wal...