3#01 Steph McKenna: the award-winning mountain campaigner
“I get excited about something and I say yes, and then I do it. And I enjoy doing it, so I keep doing it.”
00:00 - Introduction
02:50 - Welcome, winning the Fort William Festival “Scottish Youth Award for Excellent in Mountain Culture” award… but not having a Fort William accent. Also, Utah.
08:38 - Volunteering and mentoring for Lochaber Hope, “teaching people that they have it in them to heal themselves”. Building a “garden of hope”. Using the landscape and green space.
14:37 - Lochaber Youth Theatre “a real sense of camaraderie, and place and purpose… and the positive changes in the kids involved… that made me want to study psychology”.
20:40 - Motivations for volunteer work: “I just get excited about something and I say yes, and then I do it. And I enjoy doing it, so I keep doing it … I just enjoy the vibrancy of meeting different people and opening up the dialogue about wellness”.
21:43 - It was Benjamin Franklin!
22:20 - Seasonal Ranger(ing) for the John Muir Trust on the Ben Nevis range. Spending days “absolutely covered in mud”. Sequestration. Water voles. Raptors.
28:38 - Mountain Biking, working with bikes and riding for pleasure - Fort William Foxes, “opening up a space for those just getting into biking, maybe being a little nervous, and just wanting to ride with some other ladies”.
33:30 - “It’s a little bit easier to be silly and embarrassed about some of the girly stuff… or simply beings scared… women’s spaces in the outdoors open up the conversation for women to be a bit goofier, or less formal, or just a bit gross!”.
35:00 - Pretending to be Frodo Baggins, with the dog.
36:20 - Discovering outdoor sports. Wild swimming (“I was always swimming in the river as a kid”), falling through ice.
39:00 - Hillwalking and mountaineering, an epic sunrise around Steall Falls. Ice climbing. Scotland as a “huge open space with limitless potential”.
43:10 - Greatest mountain memory: a childhood visit to the Steall Falls, remembered later in life.
45:35 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? Research into the effects of mountains on mental wellbeing.
47:25 - Gardening and putting the bumper back on the car.