Growing up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in a state with such diverse landscapes instilled a love for nature in me at an early age. I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2019 with a degree in environmental studies and a sense of enthusiasm for helping to solve the earth’s most pressing environmental and social issues. Just a few short months after securing a job as a fisheries biologist in the California Delta, everything came to a screeching halt with the onset of the pandemic and I was suddenly entirely unsure of what to do.

In the summers between school years, I had been working as a whitewater rafting guide on the American River, intending for it to just be a summer job, but it ended up being one of the most formative experiences of my life. The river has taught me so many life lessons and introduced me to a whole community that has supported me and loved me through it all. We were lucky to be able to open for business in June of 2020, so I returned, figuring it was better than sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. After the summer, with things still so unsteady in the world, I decided to move to Lake Tahoe, where I got a job as a ski tech and learned to ski for real with the help of my rafting friends. Alternating between river and mountain has been both fun and challenging and it has taught me so much about humans and about myself.

In the winter of 2022, having built up a bit of a savings account, I decided to book a one-way flight to Costa Rica and keep traveling until that account ran dry. What ensued was nearly 4 months of backpacking through Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Colombia, until finally I was tired and broke and booked my flight from Cartagena to Sacramento. The winter had brought an unexpected record-breaking snowpack to California and I couldn’t resist the pull of the river, so I returned for one final season to enjoy the high water and help usher in a new generation of guides. I’ve just finished up that season, and now I feel like I am really ready to get back into what I studied for and keep fighting for environmental justice. I don’t know exactly what the future holds for me, but I just hope it involves lots of traveling, exploring, and learning from my fellow earthlings.