Juliana Garcia started climbing the mountains of Ecuador at fifteen years old. Since then, she has climbed and guided many mountains and big walls throughout the Andes, Peru,Bolivia, Colombia, as well as in Pakistan, Alaska, United States and the Alps. She became the first female Latin American certified IFMGA mountain guide and served as the President of the Ecuadorian Association of guides for 6 years.

She is currently one of the instructors of the Ecuadorian guiding school ESGUIM. Juliana is also a Patagonia Brand Ambassador and an AIARE Avalanche Education Instructor and POW ambassador. She served as “board member” at the IFMGA for six years and became the first female and non-European to occupy that position. Recently she was recognized by the IFMGA as an “honorary member”.

Juliana got her “ski guide” diploma this spring 2025 in U.S by the AMGA. She became the first female Latin American to obtain this status as a full IFMGA. She is passionate aboutlearning and sharing.

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast,welcome back! I am your host, Ting Ting, from Las Vegas. Today’s guest is a true trailblazer in the international guiding community: Juliana Garcia.

Juliana is an Ecuadorian mountain guide whose career is a series of "firsts". She was the first woman to pass the rigorous aspirant exams in the Bolivian system and became the first female IFMGA-certified guide in all of Latin America.

Juliana’s influence extends far beyond the technical terrain of the Andes. She served two terms as the president of the Ecuadorian Mountain Guides Association, where she was instrumental in bringing their national school up to international standards. She also shattered glass ceilings at the highest level of the profession as the first woman ever to sit on the board of the IFMGA.

At the time of this interview, Juliana was based in Washington state and was in the final stages of a multi-year journey to become a certified ski guide—a discipline she picked upas an adult to bring high-level snow science and safety back to her home community in Ecuador. (And to no one's surprise, she passed!)

Now, let's dive into Juliana's inspiring life journey—her transition from volcanoes to the Cascades, the power of mentorship, and why she believes the most important tool a guide can have is the ability to listen.

Links:

• Her Place in the Mountains – Patagonia Stories
• Juliana’s Instagram page – julianagarciaguide

Quotes:

• I’m just a person that loves to be outside, loves to be in the mountains. yeah, that’s it, I think.
• When I became part of the board… I became the first female to sit at that board ever. That blew my mind. I was like, ‘You kidding me?
• I knew that that discipline exist… and I was like, what? I’m going to learn how to ski as an adult. I’m going to learn a lot of our snow science and I’m going to do it.
• I love sharing how people put themselves outside of their limits, sometimes and they do it and they found joy doing it. I love to be part of that journey of other people.
• I think we are really good on listening. I think we are really good on perceiving what is going on in our surroundings when we are guiding… and I think we’re really good on not being ashamed to turn around.
• I don’t care anymore. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody… I realized… I was pushing myself for no reason… no one is going to pushing me… I’m doing my own path.
• What we can do to help is just to choose to be uncomfortable for a moment in our daily life… We need to choose in our daily life things that we can do that support the energy overall.

Joanne Urioste is an American rock climber who was inducted into the elite group of Honorary Members of the American Alpine Club which includes 136 climbers worldwide “who have had a lasting and highly significant impact on the advancement of the climbing craft.” In the late 1970s and early 80s, she and her husband, Jorge, established many internationally-recognized long technical climbs in the Red Rocks of Southern Nevada. She was the first woman to publish the first guidebook—ever—to a major climbing area that was previously unknown. She also contributed to pioneering ultra-distance adventure running in the 1990s. She lives with Jorge in Las Vegas, NV, and continues to establish first ascents, even in her seventies.

Episode Intro:

Welcome back to the Female Guides Requested. Happy New Year! This is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas. Today’s guest is a legendary figure whose name is etched into the very sandstone of Red Rock Canyon. Joanne Urioste is a pioneering rock climber, author, and guide who re-imagined what was possible on the towering walls of the American Southwest.

Starting her climbing journey in the early 1970s—a time when female climbers were often sidelined—Joanne sought out the high-risk, death-defying situations that most would avoid to prove her independence and mastery. Alongside her husband Jorge, she established hundreds of first ascents that are now world-renowned classics, including Epinephrine, Crimson Chrysalis, and Levitation 29.

Joanne didn’t just climb; she literally wrote the book on the region, publishing the original Red Rock guidebook in 1984. After a ten-year hiatus to raise her children—a period where she channeled her drive into becoming an elite ultra-runner—she returned to the rock with a renewed passion. Today, we sit down in her home to discuss her ‘renegade’ early days, the evolution of climbing ethics, and why she believes that taking risks is the only way to truly stay alive.

Links:

• Book: Collages of Rock & Desire: Re-imagining Climbing in Red Rock, Risk in the Andes & Running into Dreams (amazon)

Quotes:

• On the spirit of climbing: “It doesn’t matter if you are physically disabled or not perfect. If you have the spirit and love of climbing, there are different ways that you can climb.”
• On her ‘renegade’ beginnings: “We were just absolute renegades, just you know, shooting from the hip. Boom, boom! Let’s do this! Let’s do that!”
• On the intensity of managing risk: “Calculation, risk assessment was the game… you had very strong consequences if you did not calculate correctly.”
• On the purpose of pushing limits: “This was not about enjoyment. This was about managing the risk in a way that was where you would survive. Pitting yourself against very strong elements and succeeding.”
• On the ‘Bolting Police’: “As we started putting up better and better routes that were like amazing, then people started recognizing that… they started having tremendous hatred for us. As a matter of fact, that type of hatred actually pushed us to do more outrageous things.”
• On climbing as a spiritual act: “I wanted to really put yourself out there so that you would calculate as humbly as you could with nature and lay yourself down… almost as a form of worship to the natural forces.”
• On the unique wisdom of female climbers: “The groups of men will absolutely plug their ears and not listen to my advice… it’s actually detrimental to the men because they would benefit from the wisdom that they’re not listening to.”
• On why she continues to seek risk: “Having some risk in everything that I do… just keeps me alive. It expands my humanity. Looking at my weakest points and trying to work on them a little bit… it’s just such a beautiful way to live.”

Episode Intro:

Happy Wednesday andwelcome back to the Female Guides Requested podcast, this is your host Ting Ting from Las Vegas.

Today, I’m thrilled to host Lisa Van Sciver, a renownedmountain guide based in the Tetons with nearly two decades of experience.

Lisa’s journey is one of passion, balance, and profound impact. She’ll share with us how she went from being a porter who thought guiding was "ridiculous" to one ofthe most respected figures in the industry, and how an early request for a female guide completely changed her career path.

We'll talk about her unique strategy for achieving career sustainability in a feast-or-famine industry, the power of female guide collaboration (or as her mentor, AmyBarnes, calls it, the "sisters of the rope"), and why interactingwith people, learning their stories, and witnessing their inner breakthrough is the most rewarding part of the job.

Lisa also shares with us her recent venture: an inspirational fundraising climb up Kilimanjaro.She'll walk us through her project, "Elevate Education," which is about creating an experience much "bigger than me"—using the mountains to provide educational opportunities for students in Kenya.

Get ready for an insightful conversation on climbing, career longevity, and finding purpose beyond the summit. Let's welcome Lisa Van Sciver.

Lisa's Links:

https://www.instagram.com/lisavansciver/

Kilimanjaro Climb — EducationFor All Children (EFAC)

Quotes:

"The big thing that pulled me into guiding instead ofthat was I really enjoy people. "

"We always have a lot of different things going on, butyou deep dive into one topic at a time."

"I think guiding can be a super long career, but youhave to be very dynamic with it."

"Where I've found sustainability for myself is I'vealways had a second career."

"As much as we're technical guides, were alsoentertainers. we are creating experiences for these people."

"It's shifted my own desires as far as I still have alot of desires of objectives I want to climb and things I want to accomplish in my life, but I think it just gave me more pause on a greater awareness of what people deal with in the world and how I can continue to look for ways to be compassionate and supportive."

"In some ways it's easier to get a job as a woman, butthen it's harder to get promoted. I think that's been from my own personal experience. everyone wants to add to their female roster, but then once you're there, you don't necessarily get the same treatment."