Show Notes:

Emma’s Links:

• Emma Contaoe on MEC
• Climb Escapes (Website)
• Emma’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/emmacontaoe/

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast. Happy Wednesday. I am your host, Ting Ting. I finally returned from my home country Taiwan and now am delivering this episode in Las Vegas. This episode is about Emma Contaoe, who was highly recommended to me by a listener whose life was impacted by her. I reached out and recorded the beautiful life story of Emma, how she stayed curious and followed her intuition and eventually found she could combine her passions and work into a fulfilling life.

Emma is an avid climber and certified rock climbing instructor in Quebec. She is the founder of Climbing Escapes, where she gives outdoor climbing courses to all types of climbers, as well as offers climbing and yoga retreats. After eight years of teaching, she finds joy and fulfillment through her business by combining her love of climbing instruction and creating a wholesome community.

In this episode, we talked about how she eventually tried rock climbing in Australia, where she found space to strip the constraints of the environment and identity she lived during the first two decades of her life. She then followed this awakening to Nepal and brought all she learned back home in Montreal. Her business was her dream and her mission. To build her business was a slow and steady process. There was fear, imposter syndrome, tears, and grief of her best friend’s passing. She got reaffirmation from classes she taught and from the mutually empowering space she created with other women.

Please enjoy this episode with Emma Contaoe.

Things We Talked about:

• First time climbing, wanted to start at a place where she could be anyone
• Constraints from the native environment
• Transition from “not for me” to fully “embracing the outdoors”
• Start the business not focusing on “nobody like me had done something similar before” but on doing what she loved
• Always following what she is curious about then built the intuition of what felt right
• Solo travel – a 4-year journey
• An encounter with “3-sister guiding services” in Nepal
• Finding a purpose during the repetitive traveling of seeing different places
• Hands on with charity work from building a shelter in after-quake Nepal to finding volunteers for a school project
• Reflection on what’s for her and what’s sustainable
• Early days of Climbing Escapes
• Mission statement of her dream business
• What does the word “retreat” mean to Emma
• Any structure to facilitate the so-called “down time” between climbing and yoga? Or just let the magic happen?
• Proudest moments
• Want the audience to take away
• And more…

Show Notes:

Related resources:

• AMGA Single Pitch Instructor Page
• Spencer Huffman’s Instagram @shuffrocks
• Szu-ting Yi (Ting Ting)’s Instagram @szutingyi
• SPI handbook (2024)
• EP 20 – Everything SPI 01 – Professionalism and Risk Management

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday. This is your host Ting Ting, and I’m still in my home country Taiwan. Today my dear friend and colleague Spencer Huffman returned for the Everything SPI series. We tried our best to extract and organize important nuggets from our past experiences to help single pitch instructors and whoever wants to enter the field of guiding. In this episode, we focus on Site Selection and Group Management. If you would like to check out our first episode of the series, please visit episode 20 in which we talked about Professionalism and Risk Management.

Both Spencer and I are AMGA certified Rock Guides and SPI Providers. We co-taught an SPI course back in October 2023 and found that our teaching style was quite compatible and complimentary. Therefore, we decided to do this podcast series, Everything SPI, to create supplemental material related to the SPI programs.

Spencer and I both have deep roots in climbing education. We have over 20 years of field instructing experience and are confident that we can provide valuable insights. We also recognize that the field of climbing instruction is dynamic and we can’t possibly know everything. So, if you have any questions, feedback, please reach out to help us improve. Now please enjoy the second episode of Everything SPI with Spencer and Ting Ting.

Things We Talked about:

• How to plan the day
• How to actually run a climbing day
• Client Screening
• Course design
• Case Study
• Understand the sites
• Understand your clients – deliver a compelling experience
• Time Management
• Group Management
• … and more

Show Notes:

Margaret’s links:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/margaret_wheeler/
• Meet Margaret Wheeler (AMGA video)
• Among Mountain Guides, This Woman Is a Rarity – Ski Mag
• Why IFMGA-certified guide Margaret Wheeler believes that variety makes a difference in the mountains (backcountrymagazine.com)
• The Ultimate Guide | Dartmouth Alumni Magazine

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast. Happy Wednesday. This is your host Ting Ting delivering this wonderful new episode from my home country Taiwan. I am very excited about today’s guest, Margaret Wheeler. I still remember how amazed I was years ago, seeing her, very pregnant, teaching technical skills in an AMGA video. After I started this podcast I kept getting requests to have her on the show. I was fortunate to finally steal a couple hours from her busy life!

In the guiding world, Margaret needs little introduction. She is the second U.S. woman to earn the IFMGA mountain guide title. She is an instructor of guide training for the AMGA and serves on its board of directors and as president of the organization. She is involved in avalanche education through her work as an AIARE (American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) instructor and trainer. Right now Margaret and her husband Matt Farmer split their time between the Wood River Valley Idaho and Europe.

Margaret is a wonderful story teller and her life never has a dull moment. She started chasing her brothers around the ski slopes of New England which led to a stint ski bumming in Chamonix France right after college. She bounced back and forth between the so-called real life and wild adventures and eventually found her happy true identity in mountain guiding. She also shared so much wisdom and philosophy about guiding from years of experience and her analytical approach to problem solving. She provided a viewpoint on guiding as a career, her expectations towards guide education and how the guiding community can help each other navigate through various challenges. Margaret talked specifically about how to make guiding a sustainable career and how to balance that with having a family

Time flew by quickly and I didn’t even get to ask all of my questions. I hope I will soon have a chance to do another follow up interview with her. Listeners please enjoy this fantastic episode and let me know what other questions you might want to ask Margaret next time!