Boulder Daily Camera, Chris Weidner column, 02/20/2008, click here.

Boulder Daily Camera, 09/20/2009, Nonprofit Spotlight, click here.

Lyons Recorder, 10/22/2009, click here.

Rock & Ice magazine, Climbing Rock Stars to be Auctioned Off, click here.

Mountain Flyer magazine, Girls Education International Hosts Beats for Books, click here.

Mountain Athlete Profile: Heidi Wirtz, Crested Butte Magazine, Summer 2008
By Luke Mehall

    Heidi Wirtz has traveled far and wide as a professional rock climber; a career that started here in the Gunnison Valley.  At the age of 37 Heidi has done climbs at the highest level of difficulty, ranging from the walls of the nearby Black Canyon to the Middle East.  She’s been featured in the most famous modern climbing films like First Ascent and a flip through a climbing or outdoor magazine will often show a picture of her.   Now at the top of her game she’s spending her time and energy to humanitarian causes; helping the people she’s met while traveling the world and climbing. 
    Heidi first moved to Crested Butte when she was nineteen years old.  She was at a Grateful Dead show in Arizona and met some people from Gunnison.  “They squeezed me into the back of their hatchback and took me up to CB.  We went for a bike ride in the snow.  I fell in love instantly.”
    Heidi quickly immersed herself in the lifestyle that many young adventurers do in CB: recreating, camping and working whatever job would enable her to sustain that life.  However, when winter rolled around she didn’t seek shelter indoors like most do; she decided to pitch a tent up Gibson’s ridge.  “I figured it would be better than paying rent,” she jokes.  “I had a zero degree sleeping bag and thought that it was awesome.”
    For work Heidi did many different things to support herself.  “What didn’t I do?  Dish diving, baking, cleaning homes, masonry, construction, catering, working for a kids program, instructing climbing.”
    Local area Taylor Canyon was one place where Heidi spent a lot of time climbing.  “Taylor is truly inspiring.  Interesting body movement, gear placements, and just a beautiful place to be.” 
    One vivid memory that has stuck with her is of Jill Laggis leading a notorious crack climb called Left Hand.  “I thought wow she is super amazing.  I am going to get as strong as her someday.” 
    Heidi ended up climbing with her and her husband Matt and learning Ashtanga Yoga from Jill.  Practicing yoga ended up helping her climbing a great deal and she credits her practice with helping her on big climbs like the Nose of El Capitan, a three thousand foot plus route in Yosemite.  Recently Heidi was interviewed for Backpacker magazine on the postures she recommends for climbers, and breathing techniques that she uses while climbing.
    Another person that had a big influence on her was Joe Melley, who took Heidi to the Black Canyon for the first time.   It was a quiet place when she started climbing there, before it was a national park.  “I was super psyched on it from the moment I laid on my belly and peered over the rim.”
    The rim she is referring to hangs over a two thousand foot drop looking over two thousand foot broken grey steep rock walls, which rise above the roaring Gunnison River.  Describing her first time climbing there she says, “I was hanging on for my life, because I didn’t trust all the gear we were using.  But I loved it.  After that trip I would go down there alone and just hang on the rim and camping by myself.”
    “Between Taylor, the Black and Indian Creek, those are the three places I called home in my early days of climbing.” 
          Indian Creek, which is southwest of Moab, near the Canyonlands National Park, is now one of the most popular areas to climb in the entire country.  When Heidi started climbing there in the early and mid-nineties it was “quiet and empty,” as she describes it.  “After the ski area would close in the spring I would go down by myself and camp.”
    Sometimes she would wait days to find a partner to climb with.  “I would just do yoga and go running.”
    Today the red rocked Indian Creek attracts hundreds of climbers during the late spring.  “It was sad when it started getting crowed,” she says. 
    Since Heidi spent a lot of time ‘living’ in climbing areas she did, what she calls going through the grades; progressing through the levels of climbing thoroughly.  Today, in the realm of climbing she excels at, big walls and traditional gear climbs, she is one of the best in the country.  She holds speed records in Yosemite, and has first ascents in several countries. She is sponsored by: North Face, Black Diamond, La Sportiva, Julbo and Cliff Bar.  How did the sponsorship process start?  “Someone offered me a pair of shoes to take my picture.”
    Heidi also has a passion to travel and has ventured out beyond the borders of the United States many times.  Asking her where she has traveled reveals many experiences, “Well it was the Bugaboos in Canada first, South America a couple times, India, Siberia, Thailand a few times, Spain, Great Britain, Nepal.” 
    In Nepal she has spent a considerable amount of time volunteering with the Khumbu Climbing School; teaching basic skills to sherpas.  In addition to this she’s helped raise funds through slideshows for the DZI Foundation, based out of Telluride.  This group does eye clinics, water sanitation and helps build schools.  Heidi did a slide show tour to raise money for a solar system. 
In the summer of 2006 Heidi traveled to Pakistan with her close friend Lizzy Scully.  Their goal was to attempt an unclimbed rock tower off of the Biafo Glacier.  It took three days to hike in, and they had fifteen porters.  When Scully suffered an injury on the glacier the two were unable to attempt their goal.  Instead their head sherpa Ghulam Abbas invited them to visit his home village of Khane, in the Hushe Valley of Northern Pakistan.  During their stay Heidi says, “They treated us like we were members of their family.” 
Something that bothered the women however was the condition of the schoolhouse for the girls.  “The boy’s school was really nice, but the girl’s school was terrible,” Heidi says. 
This led the pair to want to help out and they ended up starting a non-profit called Girls Education International (GEI).  Their group aims to expand and support educational opportunities for women and girls, specifically those living in the mountainous regions of the world.  A specific element, included in their mission statement is to promote local ownership to ensuring that the projects are sustainable.  Currently the GEI is sending two girls from a remote village in Nepal to school in Kathmandu.  Their major project is to build a school for girls in Khane.   
      After this trip Heidi has continued to travel the world, most recently she’s been in Morocco and Jordan.  In Morocco she climbed a twenty-five hundred foot first ascent, put a roof on a local school, and helped restore trails, which were built into steep cliff sides.   In Jordan she made another first ascent on desert sandstone near the ancient city of Petra; where the movie Temples of Doom was shot.  The trip and the climb were filmed and produced into a film, The Wadi Rum Expedition.
    Heidi Wirtz has had a wildly successful and adventurous climbing career.  As her friend Lizzy Scully says, “It is her life.  She’s really inspired people.” 
    However, talking to Heidi reveals that the activism she’s done she is the most proud of.  “The satisfaction of climbing is usually gone immediately.  These projects I’m working on are something that is more permanent, and it makes me feel better than anything I’ve ever done.”   
    To contact Girls Education International check out their website www.girlsed.org