Women in Wild Places

Julie Bacon, founder of the Mothership Collective, joins Gabriella to talk about building one of the outdoor adventure world's most beloved communities for active moms, and the real journey that sparked it all. Julie was a mountain biker, bikepacker, and adventure-lover who rode the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and explored the world before becoming a mom. When she got pregnant with her da...

I went solo to Utah for the first time since becoming a mom and came back with bruised hands, a summit, and a renewed sense of self. In this solo episode, I recap my whirlwind trip through Moab and Indian Creek: racing the Thelma & Louise 15K through the Behind the Rocks desert, diving into a women's crack climbing clinic, and topping out on Ancient Art at Fisher Towers (the same area where I...

Claire and Emma of Salmon Sisters join us to pull back the curtain on what it takes to get wild Alaskan salmon from the water to your plate. Growing up on a remote off-grid homestead at the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula, fishing commercially with their father, and building a women-owned small business over the last decade, these two sisters have become some of Alaska's most compelling voices fo...

Julie McGuire is a South Bronx high school English teacher, backcountry skier, and the first woman to ski all 33 of the Catskills High Peaks — mountains that top out at 4,200 feet and are far more rugged, technical, and unforgiving than most people realize. In this episode, Julie joins host Gabriella in a conversation that's as much about inner wilderness as outer wilderness. She shares how th...

In this episode of Women in Wild Places, host Gabriella sits down with Steph Davis — professional climber, base jumper, wingsuit pilot, and one of the most accomplished female alpinists in the world. Steoh has freed El Cap in a day and the Salathe Wall, free soloed the Longs Peak Diamond and put up first ascents in Patagonia, Pakistan, and the Arctic. What makes this conversation so compelling is...

In this episode of Women in Wild Places , host Gabriella sits down with Dr. Iva Njunjić , a cave biologist, National Geographic Explorer, and co-founder of Taxon Expeditions, to explore the hidden worlds beneath our feet. Dr. Iva studies life in extreme underground environments, focusing on cave-dwelling insects and biodiversity in some of the most remote places on Earth. Her work has taken her to...

What does it mean to hunt as a deeply embodied, emotional, and relational practice? In this episode of Women in Wild Places , I sit down with writer and landscape architect Christie Green to explore hunting as a path to connection: to food, to place, to the animal world, and to our own bodies. Christie shares her journey of beginning to hunt later in life after growing up in Alaska, and how what s...

In this episode of Women in Wild Places , I’m joined by Amanda Monthei, a former hotshot wildland firefighter, writer, and the creator of the Life With Fire podcast, for a deep, thoughtful conversation about wildfire, creativity, and what it means to live and work inside powerful & uncontrollable landscapes. Amanda spent multiple seasons working on fire crews and hotshotting, witnessing massiv...

Performing aerial acrobatics suspended over glaciers sounds like a scene from a dream. For aerial artist and climate advocate Sasha Galitzki , it’s home. In frozen landscapes where ice shifts and snow falls, Sasha brings movement to places that are disappearing faster than we can comprehend, using art to help us feel what we can’t ignore. In this episode, we talk about how Sasha stumbled into pole...

Kristy and Anna are twin mushers who race sled dogs across Alaska’s most remote wilderness. Racing sled dogs across Alaska’s vast wilderness is one of the most physically demanding and logistically complex endurance sports in the world. It means weeks of preparation, months of training, and days spent moving through snow, wind, darkness, and isolation alongside a team that cannot speak, but commun...

Speed climbing the Yosemite Triple Crown, El Capitan, Half Dome, and Mount Watkins in under 24 hours, has always lived in the realm of legendary, and until recently, it was something dominated entirely by men. In this episode, I sit down with speed climber and designer Kate Kelleghan , who, along with her partner Laura Pineau, became the first women to complete the Yosemite Triple Crown in under 2...

Adventure photographer Abbi Hearne joins me to talk about what it means to photograph love in landscapes that are literally changing beneath our feet. We get into her early years building a life off the traditional path, her deep connection to Alaska’s glaciers, and how climate grief and her father’s terminal illness became intertwined. We also talk about raising her daughter in wild places, retur...

Staying adventurous after having a baby is one of the questions I get asked most so in this solo episode, I’m sharing my honest take: The emotional + physical realities of returning to running, climbing, and mountain objectives How pregnancy and postpartum reshaped, but didn’t erase, my adventurous identity The exhaustion, healing, and breastfeeding logistics no one warned me about Micro-adventure...

In this episode of Women in Wild Places , I talk with alpinist and adaptive athlete Kimber Cross —a kindergarten teacher turned ice climber who built her own prosthetic tool and is now taking on major alpine routes like the Moose’s Tooth. We get into her journey from hiding her limb difference to becoming her own representation, the story behind her ice tool prosthetic, unconscious bias in adaptiv...

If you’ve ever looked at mountain biking and thought, that looks incredible, but also terrifying, this episode is for you. This week on Women in Wild Places, I talk with Emily Jordan, mountain biker, mom, brand leader, and Beacon, NY local, about what it means to find flow, community, and courage on the trail and in motherhood. Emily grew up in Portland, Oregon, hating the outdoors. A stolen commu...

River runner Jess Parks has rowed the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon 14 times, but she didn’t start out “outdoorsy.” Once a NYC crew rower surrounded by skyscrapers, a single road trip west changed her trajectory. In this episode, we talk about how she went from rowing in city rivers to guiding whitewater in Colorado, finding her home in Alaska, and building a life around big water, commu...

Trail runners Sam Cash (@cruzoutside) and Kristi Confortin (@kristialexiis) join Gabriella to talk about courage, community, and finding belonging through movement. As leaders of Trail Sisters Catskills , they share how running together builds sisterhood and confidence in the mountains they call home. Trail Sisters is a nationwide organization. To learn more, follow @trailsisterscatskills and visi...

In this first episode of Women in Wild Places , I share my journey of climbing Denali and what it taught me about strength, self-doubt, and belonging. From months of training and gear challenges to moments of awe high above the clouds, this experience reminded me how much growth comes from stepping outside your comfort zone. I talk about what it’s like to be part of the 19% of women who climb Dena...