Jane Parnell: First Woman to Climb Colorado’s Highest 100 Peaks

Her name might not be familiar to you, but it should be. Jane Parnell is a mountaineer, writer and environmental activist. Inspired by family trips to the Colorado mountains every summer as a kid, Parnell could see her home-state of Kansas from Long's Peak back in the 1970's. Setting roots here in 1968 as one of the few women students at Colorado College, she lived, fittingly on the edge of a mountain in an historic house in Manitou Springs. 

Parnell completed climbing Colorado's highest 100 peaks in 1981 in her early 30s but kept on climbing and has bagged upwards of 8-900 more during her lifetime and all over the west.

Parnell has become a care-taker of our precious mountain ranges and a witness to climate change. As she and Mama Jill converse we hear how the mountains transformed Parnell over time and how she realized the gifts of healing that they provide. She shares precious encounters with wildlife and her vehement pledge to call awareness to the dwindling funding needed to protect our wilderness, how fire mitigation needs to happen better and how we must educate one another about fire safety and leaving less of a trace as our natural landscapes become more and more trodden. This is an episode that everyone should listen to.