Angela Hawse
Angela has been climbing since 1983 and has 24 years of experience working full-time as a guide. She grew up in a small mountain town in West Virginia and literally took the state’s motto to heart, “Mountaineers are always free”. Her passion for climbing, mountains and mountain culture fueled a wanderlust that has taken her to remote corners of the world and inspired her to do numerous service projects and good things for others.
Angela is one of just a few women in the U.S. and the world to complete her IFMGA Mountain Guide certification, an internationally recognized standard that is the highest available to mountain guides worldwide. The process involved over 100 days of intensive guide training and exams in three disciplines, alpine, rock, and ski mountaineering through the American Mountain Guides Association. Angela completed her Rock Guide exam in 2005 and her Alpine Guide exam in 2008. In 2010, she passed her Ski Mountaineering exam, along with Caroline George to become the 6th and 7th women in the U.S. to become IFMGA Mountain Guides.
Angela has and continues to work for some of the country’s most respected organizations; Exum Mountain Guides, Mountain Madness, the American Alpine Institute, Prescott College’s Adventure Education Program, and Outward Bound among others. An advocate for women’s programs, she has guided for Chicks with Picks since 2001, Women that Rock, Chicks on Cracks and Women’s Clinics at events for her sponsors. Angela was the first woman to work for the American Mountain Guides Association training and examining aspiring guides, which she continues to do.
She’s led 20+ high altitude expeditions, including 5 on Denali, and her endeavors have taken her from ski traverses of Lapland in Scandinavia to the second highest point on earth, the South Summit of Mt. Everest, at 28,875ft. She has climbed and guided throughout the Himalayas, Karakoram, the Andes, Canada, Alaska, and extensively throughout the U.S.
A specialist at wedding service with adventure, Angela earned a Master of Arts degree in 2001, for her work in International Mountain Conservation. With her leadership as part of an Everest expedition in 1998, she organized her Sherpa team to carry out a major clean-up high on the mountain, removing over 1,000 kilos of garbage and over 100 discarded oxygen cylinders. Also as part of that expedition, she organized and ran an 18-credit semester course for a small group of Prescott College students who carried out various service projects in the Khumbu Valley for more than two months. In 2001, she put together another successful clean-up expedition on Aconcagua that removed over 2,000 kilos of trash from above 21,000ft.
Many of Angela’s service endeavors have been carried out in the Nepal Himalaya, where she has worked to protect the Mountain Porter, trained Nepali women to work as guides and led expeditions to high peaks with service components. In 2003, she guided an all women’s ascent of Ama Dablam, 22,545’, without the support of high-altitude Sherpa, to the top of this technical peak while at the same time raising $23,000 for the dZi Foundation to start a safe house for girls in Sikkim.
Angela is versed in all disciplines of climbing, skiing and mountain fun, four seasons of the year. In addition to guiding she gives back to the guiding profession and served for 6 years as a Director for American Mountain Guides Association, part of that time as the organization’s Vice President. She works as a product tester, athlete and ambassador for her sponsors, Marmot, SCARPA, Sterling Rope, Metolius Climbing and Dynafit Skis and has been a Panelist for Alpinist Magazine’s Mountain Standards Program since its inception.
When not guiding or enjoying her backyard the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, Angela does some motivational speaking and technical rigging to help pay the mortgage. Angela has been happily committed to her partner MonkE for over two decades and they have the cutest dog in the world, Chile.
Website:
http://www.alpinist007.com/
Sponsors:
Marmot: http://www.marmot.com
SCARPA: http://scarpa.com
Sterling Rope: http://sterlingrope.com
Metolius Climbing: http://metoliusclimbing.com
Dynafit: http://www.dynafit.de/uk/4/800/home.html
Mountain Athlete: http://www.mtnathlete.com
ProTech Skincare: http://www.protechskincare.com/index.html
Years Guided for CWP: 9 years
