mallorie estenson

You could say I’m exuberant when I get to talk about climbing. And you’d be right.

This weekend, I basically exploded my love of climbing and eagerness to pursue guiding all over a colleague at Mountain Madness. My social-awareness filter tried to flicker on a few times during that conversation, but my enormous stoke overpowered it. Oops.

You don’t feel that kind of excited all on your own, though. It takes input.

As we crept along the highway in afternoon ski resort traffic, I felt a part of my brain come on that’s been dimmed for a while now. Probably unknowingly, Ian validated a very deep, core part of me that I have shut down for the better part of the last year: I live to climb and I love to guide. I just barely broke out of my comfortable world in Bellingham before that light flickered out. I’m so glad I did.

Besides eagerly anticipating what’s ahead in 2019, I’m taking a moment to really savor that connection. It wasn’t any one thing that Ian said. It was a shared language and ambition that really resonated with me. It’s the type of feeling that I want to give to anyone interested in sharing a rope with me. C’mon. Let’s climb.

There’s something to be said about a moment in which everything makes sense; I think it’s when your calling is coming through, loud and clear.

I’m very excited to take that call.