Staff

A spring backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in the US as a teenager firmly planted the seed for outdoor adventure and appreciation.  My joy for the outdoors led professionally into outdoor education. Later, I made the switch to guiding in the southwest, which eventually led me to guiding in the Alps. I’m now rooted in New England, though I’m lucky enough to get over to the Alps each summer, exploring old favorites and new locations for our trips, too!

I am an eager ultra and mountain runner, originally from Scotland. After spending many summer holidays exploring the Alps and realizing that the sky here can be blue for more than one consecutive day, I took the plunge in 2018 and quit my day job, moving to Chamonix, France to train for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. I’m still here, and the ore I spend in the Alps, the more I realize I have only just scratched the surface.

I grew up in the UK and always thought mountains were a “winter thing.” When my job moved me to Geneva, Switzerland, I realized how wrong I was. Now I see the mountains as an “all year thing.” I love a huge summer day out, as much as I love a powder day with friends, and the quietness of the interseasons.

I’ve been playing in the mountains since I was a kid growing up in the US, breaking wooden cross-country skis on remote peaks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains with my older brothers. The ensuing years have been filled with adventures from the Alps to the Andes. The thought of a warm chocolate croissant and a friendly dog at the next mountain hut can make me run for hours.

I grew up in the foothills of the North Cascades in Washington state and formed a love of exploring the mountains by foot at an early age. I moved east for college and graduated from Dartmouth in the early days of the pandemic, with a degree in environmental studies. In October 2020, I moved to Lyon, France to teach English at a university, but by a happy accident France’s Covid lockdowns brought me to the Chamonix valley for two months. Ever since, then I’ve been trying to find ways to come back to the stunning Chamonix area.

Native of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, Appalachian Mountain Club’s White Mountain huts alum, Middlebury College graduate, and Adirondack Mountains enthusiast. Since leaving the US in 2011, I’ve made my home in the village of Servoz, in the Chamonix valley. At the suggestion of my partner, Brad, my initial plan was to come to ski for a season in 2010 and then head home…but more than a decade later, we’re still here!

Having skied in the Alps when I was young, I have always had something of a fascination with mountains, but it’s only since moving to the region that this has developed into something much more involved!  I moved to the Alps with my family in 2017 and have since wondered why we took so long to make that decision. I have had a fantastic time throwing myself into everything that is on offer – skiing, hiking and a lot of trail running.

I started life in France’s Loire Valley, on a quiet farm with a wonderful human couple and six brothers and sisters. At eight weeks, I hitched my star to an American living in Chamonix. My professional trail running goal is to get out and meet all of our Run the Alps guests. If you’re coming on a trip, I hope to meet you on the trail!

I grew up in Northern California, where my backyard was just a few miles from a National Recreation Area. These days, I live in the Pacific Northwest with my partner, son, and German Shepherd, Kilo— short for Kilometer. I’m a recreational runner who considers the gift of smooth single track the epitome of good hospitality.

I grew up in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. We lived down a dirt road several miles outside of a small town, and my brother and I would pass the time wandering around in the woods. Eventually, this became more structured in the form of rock climbing and running, and I moved around the American West from Montana to Idaho to Colorado, finally landing in the Sierra Nevadas. Running, climbing, playing and racing in the mountains have provided me with some exceptional adventures exploring the globe.

For the last decade, I’ve been able to build my life around trail running and being in the mountains. That’s taken lots of crazy turns, but is always interesting. Running around the Alps led to co-authoring the Run the Alps Switzerland guidebook and partnering with PatitucciPhoto to create the online resource ALPSinsight. In 2022, I co-authored Sierra Trail Runs, the trail running guidebook to California’s Eastern Sierra, another chance to wander lots of trails.

Originally from Scotland, I found my love for exploring and running through career choices that took me around the world. Now exploring and running come first! Chamonix came into my life when I was lost and unsure about what I was doing. Now, I am lucky enough to call it my home – a place where I have found my tribe and my true inner self lives her best life.

I left a boring IT career in 2014 and I moved to Switzerland from the Netherlands, and have no regrets about it! Today, I’m a glorified stay-at-home dad, which means that as well as running our house and caring for three kids, I’m currently renovating and extending our house for ourselves and our guests. I also manage the rental of an apartment and studio that I renovated. I run a lot, and also do other sports like ski touring, cycling and nordic skiing. I love to be outside and try to make every day an adventure— you can often find me climbing trees or sledding in winter! My wife is the pediatrician in our village and I organize everything around her demanding job. Flexibility is a big part of my lifestyle, all of which seems to comes together with a lot of freedom, fun and yes, hard work.

I bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the proofreading job, including having plenty of spare time, being detail-oriented to the point of neurosis (and beyond), and being the brother-in-law of Run the Alps founder Doug Mayer.

Although my dad had run countless ultras, the sport never interested me until my senior year of college. Since then, I have completed numerous ultras and continue to be inspired by pushing myself physically and mentally. My husband Mike and I moved to Annecy, France in 2019 and spent three amazing years playing in the Alps! We’ve relocated to Colorado, but make frequent trips to the Alps. If you come in the summer, we’ll probably cross paths!

I’ve been passionate about helping others discover wild places for almost as long as I can remember. Growing up on Gloucester, Massachusetts rocky coast, one of my first jobs was working for an adventure camp taking kids hiking, climbing, rowing, and camping. After a handful of years as a sail-charter guide and a few years as a carpenter, I moved to Prescott, Arizona to finish my undergraduate degree in Adventure Education. From there I embarked on a six-year journey into guiding and teaching outdoors that led me through much of the southwestern U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico, and eventually to the Alps. After four seasons of Alps guiding, I moved into the planning end of the job!