2021 Stewards

Marina
I first moved from New York City to Yosemite in January of 2019 to work as an outdoor educator. I fell so hard for the magnificent granite walls and for the incredible community. Learning to climb here has been an amazing experience of personal growth and exploration. I love how climbing pushes us physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually. It is also a beautiful way to explore nature and build relationships with the people we care about and those we want to get to know better. It is an honor to be a climbing steward here in Yosemite this season– to be able to help care for this place that is so special to me and to be able to contribute to the sport of climbing. I look forward to all the adventures to come and for the inevitable changes and surprises that come with living and working in such a dynamic place. When I’m not climbing I love to trail run, read historical fiction, write, draw, peep the flowers, identify bugs (shoutout to the John Muir Laws field guide), lie in the river like a whale, sleep later than all the other climbing stewards, listen to the bats at night, watch the headlamps on el cap that look like stars, and stare at the walls and dream of cracks. Wishing everyone a fun, safe, sendy (metaphorically) season in the big ditch.

Gus

Hello! My name is Gus Landefeld and I hail from the dampness that is Western Washington.  I learned to climb as a student on a NOLS course when I was 18, which in turn changed the course of my life.  Throughout college I balanced school and a need for outdoor adventure in a way that enabled me to get the best of both worlds.  Adventuring in the North Cascades gave me a taste for alpine choss, which satiated my desires until I realized that I wanted to become a better rock climber.  The summer after graduating I moved to Truckee and got my first taste of Sierra granite.  Since that summer I have been fortunate enough to spend significant chunks of time chasing snow, rocks, and glory lighting around the Cascades, Sierra, and my favorite, the Wind River Range.

 

I am lucky to live and volunteer in Yosemite as a climber steward.  I love having the opportunity to share my passion for rock climbing and Yosemite with all visitors to the park, climbers and non-climbers alike.  Between all the different ways we donate our time as climber stewards and chasing personal climbing dreams, I feel as though I barely have enough time to do everything I want in Yosemite, making me think that this will hopefully become home base for the foreseeable future.  I hope to see you all out on the rocks and trails!

 

Alison

My name is Alison and my favorite climb under 5.5 is the Hermaphrodite Flake. I grew up in San Luis Obispo but have been living in the Yosemite area for seven summers. After graduating from the esteemed Jr. Stew program in 2019 I knew that stew life was the life for me, so I spent the last couple years working for various environmental non-profits, saving up just enough money to quit my job and make a bold career change to unpaid intern for the U.S. government. Highlights of my stew season so far have included blowing people’s minds at Ask a Climber, working on climber trails, catching a Chihuahua that was lost in the Yosemite wilderness for ten days, and patrolling climbs with my friends (ensuring to always follow our team motto, “send or take”). My goals for the future are to send Generator Crack in my uggs and to spend every summer in the Sierra forever.

 

Chris

Chris Trainor began outdoor rock climbing The Gunks in upstate New York during college and quickly learned that old-school 5.9 is the hardest grade on Earth. He spent most of his 20’s drinking, wearing suits and working an office job 60-70 hours a week to pay his $900/month student loan payments – and not rock climbing or doing any physical activity at all. In 2015, at the age of 30, he took a trip to Yosemite where his friend spent 10 minutes convincing Chris he could climb El Cap while they polished off a bottle of Buffalo Trace whiskey. Chris drunkenly declared he would climb El Cap and woke up the next morning with a vague recollection of the declaration. Within 9 months, he’d purchased aid gear, began dating his very fit redheaded neighbor, and dropped the roughly 25 pounds of weight he’d gained in the 6 years of strictly working, drinking and eating poorly. Chris turned his life around and spent 2.5 years training to do El Cap in good style and completed his mission in the fall of 2018. Chris has now scaled El Cap five times. He’s currently working on becoming the best 5.9 rock climber on the face of the Earth and pursuing a career as a full time professional Freddie Mercury impersonator. He’s nearly paid off his $90,000 in student loan debt and enjoys wearing very torn up jorts, when permitted. 

 

Emily

Hi. I’m Emily, my middle name is Blanche. I enjoy spending my time collecting Knick knacks, aggressively loving plants & animals, crack climbing and baking flawless loaves of sourdough bread. I’m lucky to call Ketchum, Idaho, Indian Creek, Utah and Yosemite National Park my homes. My winters are spent in relative domestication living in a real building with electricity and working full time as a bartender, skiing a little over 100 days a year. Once spring comes I return to my true trash panda form, moving back into my van and the great outdoors. I’m passionate about nature, conservation, bubbly water, the whirlypool, snow, rocks and my rad community. My favorite snack is avocado toast or panda puffs, my favorite rock climb in Yosemite is Serenity Crack into Sons of Yesterday and my favorite flavor of La Croix is Passionfruit.

2021 Rangers

 

Jesse

I grew up in North Carolina Appalachia where I learned to climb in Linville Gorge and Looking Glass Rock. In September 2000 I was 22 years old and full of aspirations to be a doctor…then I met Yosemite and my plans went up in smoke. After finishing my last credits for undergrad at Emory University in Atlanta and receiving my diploma I jumped in my Nissan Sentra heading west for my “gap year”. I made it to Russell Kansas before my engine blew. After selling the car for parts I hitchhiked the rest of the way. Arriving in the Valley in late September I moved into Camp 4 (for my 30 days of legal camping of course!) and immediately fell in love with Yosemite—the walls, the boulders, and most of all the community and all the characters! That fall Chongo taught me to slackline and Alex Huber showed me how to do Midnight Lightning (still can’t send it though!), I had my first forays on Yosemite Walls, and learned that dirt-bagging was probably way more fun than medical school.

Since 2004 I found myself with a career as a Park Ranger. I’ve spent 11 of those years leading the climbing ranger program. When I started in 2006 there was just one of us (me) as a seasonal. Now we have grown to have my permanent position plus all these other rangers and stewards. I couldn’t be prouder of all the work this team has accomplished from building bridges between the NPS and climbers, working members of YOSAR, to building climbing access trails. We continue to work with climbers to preserve the vertical wilderness in its natural condition while encouraging climbers that safety and low impact style are just as important as getting to the top.

Mathew
 I first traveled to Yosemite in 2007 when I hiked 90 miles of the John Muir Trail and fell in love with Yosemite’s trout filled creeks. Although I was years from learning to climb, I was impressed with the scale and quantity of the Park’s granite walls. Mostly I was just excited to learn how to fish, and caught my first rainbow trout, which was about 2 inches long, on the way to Tuolumne Meadows.

When I first rock climbed in 2012 I was terrified. I was toproping a 5.9 sport route on Chuckanut Sandstone in Northwest Washington and was skeptical that the anchor bolts would hold body weight in such friable choss. In 2014, I tried leading the same route and took a whipper onto the first bolt when a hold ripped out of the wall. In 2015 I moved into a 2-door Toyota Yaris and have been climbing full time for the last four years. I have spent most of those years climbing in the Utah desert where I fell in love with the vast, quiet landscape and laser cut sandstone cracks. In October 2017, I managed to make it up my first El Cap route, The Salathé, and have been obsessed with climbing El Cap ever since. I am very stoked to talk with Yosemite visitors about climbing in the park and particularly enjoy educating non-climbers about what a big wall climber experiences during a multi-day ascent. One of my goals for this season is to stop avoiding slab climbs.

KC

This is my 3rd season as a climbing ranger in Yosemite National Park, 7th season total with Yosemite. Before becoming a climbing ranger I was on trail crew for 3 seasons and a Climber Steward for 1. Working with the climbing program has been very amazing and rewarding for me. My main duty as a climbing ranger is doing trail work on climbing access routes (technical name for climbing trails). I get to work with volunteers and trail crews to maintain and restore trails in Yosemite’s wilderness. It truly is a rad job! Working on climbing access routes with volunteers yields a very rewarding sense of accomplishment. I love watching people learn techniques that they can apply to their home crags. After being a climbing steward (Volunteer for NPS) I believe that volunteers are a critical part of society. I want to make sure that whenever volunteers are working with me that they are having a good time and get to do work that is fulfilling.
 
Climbing is another big part of me (obviously). I started as a sport climber in the St. George, Utah area. For 2 years I clipped bolts and laughed at the thought of placing cams in cracks. But it was’t until I saw a photo of the North West face Half Dome that Trad climbing became a potential for my future. With that picture in my mind, and after watching Valley Uprising, I was psyched to go to Yosemite! After a spring break trip to Bishop, I witnessed the Sierra for the first time ever and knew that that mountain range would be in my future. One of my good buddies Max mentioned an idea that to me seemed so crazy: he said “Why don’t you go work in Yosemite?” I thought I would never be able to work in a place as amazing as Yosemite. But I still applied and got the opportunity to come and work in the park. I started to climb in the Valley and Tuolumne, and it was a humbling experience. Me and my climbing partner Will were so psyched! We climbed through lots of the easier classics, had mini epics, and built lots of character! When we climbed the East Buttress of El Cap, I had a piece rip and took a 30 footer on the 5.9+ pitch. We did our first wall the West Face of the Leaning Tower together. Both of us were so terrified from the bottom to top of that climb, but never mentioned it until we were back at the base. I love to look back at the past, and see how Yosemite shaped me as a climber and human. Yosemite changed my life forever: I have met some of the most amazing humans, experienced wild scenarios, and found the love of my life all in Yosemite National Park.

Christian
Growing up in Texas, I wasn’t exposed to rock climbing until my first year of college, where I joined an indoor climbing team and grew to love the sport and the community. Upon graduation, I took the opportunity to escape Texas for the summer and took a job working as a climbing and slacklining instructor for a small summer camp in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, which is where I obtained my beloved rainbow squid hat that accompanies me on all sorts of trips. That first summer climbing in the Sierra helped me hone skills as a budding trad climber and get used to scary runout granite climbing that was very much not-gym-climbing. With a season of hard work and scary climbs, I finally felt ready to take my skills to the walls of Yosemite Valley for the first time that fall.

The following summer I landed my first NPS job as an Interpretation Ranger in Kings Canyon National Park, and then spent the next two summer seasons on the Yosemite Search and Rescue team before becoming a Climbing Ranger here. While I’ll always be a climber, I also enjoy a variety of other things including mountain biking, trail running, highlining, skiing, paragliding, wearing my squid hat, and making crab poses when I don’t know what to do with my hands. The Sierra is a magical place that always draws me back, and Yosemite has been a cornerstone piece that has shaped me as a climber and person like no other place has. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work here amongst a passionate community and give back to a place which has given me so much in return. You can find me out and about crabbin’ throughout the Sierra.

Gena 

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I never knew rock climbing existed. I had no idea what a National Park was. However at the age of 18 I moved to southern California and stumbled across rock climbing and Joshua Tree National Park. My world view was completely shifted and I focused on creating a life focused on being outdoors. When I first moved to Yosemite in 2014, I accidently became an aid climber and spent a majority of my time on big walls. I’m currently retired from El Cap and like top roping hard single pitches. I also love foraging for mushrooms, dumpster diving (urban foraging), cinnamon rolls, and my new passion is rollerblading. Best life ever!

Eric

Climbing is a foundational aspect of my person. While my relationship to climbing is not simple, climbing has introduced me to many of my best friends, lead me to incredible locations around the US and the world, and through challenges and successes has shaped me as a person. I am forever grateful to this wonderful and creative activity and the vibrant community surrounding it. My origins as a climber began in the soggy NW. Growing up in Eugene, OR with a climber as a father, I was exposed to climbing at an early age. However, far from a natural fit, my early memories of climbing all involve crying because of the inherent challenge and discomfort. I continued to climb occasionally throughout my youth and was fortunate enough to take an annual climbing trip to the Sierra, Washington, Squamish, or another destination. These trips opened my eyes to the freedom and inspiration in the mountains and set the stage for the rest of my life. Yay mountains! Beyond climbing I enjoy many things. I run when my feet allow it, and bike when they don’t. Cooking is my main creative outlet, I enjoy exploring new recipes and perfecting older ones. But mostly I Macgyver tasty creations out of whatever is laying around. Birding, mushroom hunting, and whirlypooling are a few of my other passions. Getting to work as a climbing ranger is a dream job. I get to protect and play in a place I love with an amazing crew of Rangers and Stewards.