Tag: bozeman

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Enormocast 321: Katie McKinstry Stylos – Reaching Further

Photos: Joe Stylos, Joe Stylos, Cooper Shuman
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On Episode 321 of the Enormocast, I sit down at the Michigan Ice Fest with dry tooling maven, Katie McKinstry Stylos. Katie spent her entire youth as a “horse girl”: training horses, caring for horses, and competing. But when she lost her beloved horse to complications of an injury, her enthusiasm was dashed and burnout set in. Katie had started to gym climb simply as a way to take a break from all things horse, but it was a memory of a day of ice climbing near Boise, ID that would set her path to her next obsession: dry tooling. In the years since, and under the tutelage of Kevin Lindlau, Katie has emerged as one of the world’s best sport dry toolers. Pilgrimages to the late Tom Ballard‘s dry tooling mecca Tomorrow’s World has racked up some records for Katie including her becoming the first woman to climb D15+/D16 on the route Parallel World. Along with Katie’s dramatic story, this ep is ripe with terms, secret beta, and rivalries that introduce us to the enigma wrapped in a mystery that is dry tooling.

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Enormocast 225: Manoah Ainuu – Life’s Sustenance

On Episode 225 of the Enormocast, I sit down in a yard with goats with ice climber, Manoah Ainuu. Manoah popped up on a lot of climbers’ radars in the film Black Ice from last year’s Reel Rock, but he’s been a North Face Athlete for 3 years and getting it done in Bozeman for longer. As a brown-skin climber and sporting long dreads, Manoah knows that he stands out in the ice climbing world, but that’s fine with him. His participation is his own statement about diversity. Above all, Manoah is trying to find a life balance that is a bit against the grain in the world of hard climbing and 20 something men: family, health, spirituality, climbing, in that order.

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Episode 209: Natalie Afonina – The Innumerable Paths.

On Episode 209, I sit down on home turf in Carbondale, Colorado with climber and engineer, Natalie Afonina. Natalie grew up in the States but with a strong connection to her parents homeland, mother Russia. Fluent in Russian and holder of dual citizenship, Natalie has used that pedigree to her advantage as she’s travelled the world into far away places rarely accessed by Americans. Along the line, she was inspired by her mountaineer father to seek the cold and wild. A chance encounter with the North Face Team in Nepal set her on a path to climbing, though she also maintained a career in robotics software including stints at Tesla and Uber. Now on a sabbatical to cut her teeth as a full time ice climber before the next phase of her life, Natalie is ready for whatever adventure drops in her lap.

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