Audrey Kern writes:
From my earliest days as a bonafide tomboy, I have enjoyed a connection with the natural world. Much of my twenties was spent hiking, climbing and ice climbing throughout the U.S. A winter mountaineering course with Dartmouth Outward Bound School and my work as an instructor at The Wilderness School, an Outward Bound adaptive program, inspired me to take my first EMT and Wilderness First Responder courses during college, which in turn later inspired me to attend medical school and become an emergency physician.
Moving to New Hampshire in 1999 put all the White Mountains at my doorstep, where I have hiked year-round. I continue to enjoy hiking the 4,000 footers of the White Mountain National Forest. I consider there to be no better training than the White Mountains for some of the more rigorous treks I have undertaken in the last few years, including accents of Kilmanjaro in 2014 and 2018, and the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain in 2016.
In February of 2015 my fiancé Alan and I took a hiking trip to Patagonia. We were overwhelmed by the beauty and drama of the landscape at the Southern tip of the Americas, considered by some to be one of the last great wild places on earth. When Rebecca asked me recently for an idea for a new trip, I immediately said “Patagonia!” I am excited to be returning to this vast region of windswept plains and towering peaks springing up beside pristine glacial lakes. I hope you will join me in the endless beauty that is Patagonia.