Photos by Sofia Jaramillo
Being Home
A band of mountain friends learns that when they give attention to what they see, trust and confidence can follow graciously.
In my experience, the number one disparity in the backcountry between female identifying groups and male identifying groups is decisiveness. “I think …” “What do you think …” “Maybe …” “I don’t know …” These are all phrases and words I have heard women toss like hot potatoes. We get used to deferring to and being led by the mirage of confidence. That is not to say this is the case for everyone, but we women tend to doubt ourselves, and by extension fail to trust and name what is in front of our very own eyes. Throw other sociological variables on top and you get a spectrum of confidence on which we all fall. For me, the toppings were my skin color, gender, size and the internalized societal assumptions about me that culminated in my lived experience. I’ve written before about being Black in the mountains, and how it feels to be surrounded by a sea of white, both literally in the snowscape, but more so in the pervasive whiteness of mountain communities.
