⛏️ Building a Career in the Mountains on Her Own Terms: Guiding, Bodywork, and Moving through Trauma with Kat Schaumberg

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 coworkersWhat it meant to be a "marketable female guide": the pressure to be strong, charismatic, likable, and professional all at once — while suppressing her personal selfA trifecta of traumas that ended her full-time guiding career and sent her toward healingBringing bodywork and somatic awareness into expedition guidingThe menstrual cycle and outdoor adventureCo-founding a forest school and completing a two-year, 10,000-mile sailing journey: "always lead with the lungs, follow with the feet"Check out these resources:🌐 Kat's massage therapy website🎬 Kat and her fiancé's sailing vlog on YouTube📱 Kat on IG: @alpine_kat➡️ The Cairn Project on IG✨ The Cairn Project's newsletter🥾 Become a Trailblazer📅 Summit Scholarship FoundationLike this episode? Leave a 5-star rating and review on your podcast app!You can help us close the gender gap outdoors and beyond:Become a Trailblazer. Your Adventure Fundraiser makes wilderness experiences possible for girls and women.Check out the Summit Scholarship Foundation.Share this episode with a friend or family member.Make sure you subscribe to the See Her Outside Podcast so you don't miss a story!Follow on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsListen on: Amazon, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, other platformsBrought to you by the Alliance for Gender Equity in Outdoor Adventure (GEA Alliance). Hosted by Angie Lake and edited by Alyson Castonguay.