Ep. 10 - All In Ice Fest: Making Ice Climbing Accessible with Liz Sahagún

Ep. 10 - All In Ice Fest: Making Ice Climbing Accessible with Liz Sahagún

All In was started to help make ice climbing more accessible.

🧊 About the episode

It takes a village to raise an ice festival, and for Liz Sahagún and her co-organizers, it’s all hands on deck for the All In Ice Fest — which will take place from January 5th to the 7th of 2024. Entering their third year, the mission of the fest is to create a space where folks from historically marginalized communities can simply have fun ice climbing without having to feel like they’re checking a box that defines their identity. 

As a first generation Mexican-American and woman in neuroscience, Liz has spent a lot of time straddling cultures, navigating concepts of identity, and trying to find community in activities she enjoys. 

To help make ice climbing more accessible, Liz, Claire, Mari, Christina, and the rest of the team started All In to help reduce barriers to the sport — they do this by offering low-cost clinics and programs to develop as guides, cater to people of all physical abilities, and fostering a culture where folks can simply show up and feel welcome.

Listen on to hear how Liz first fell in love with the mountains, her Journey to 30 ice climbing road trip, and how she’s developed her self-care toolbox.Water in its frozen state is for sure the element which inspired and challenged me the most in my life.

All In Ice Fest is an ice climbing festival designed to support people of historically marginalized groups. We want to create a space where we can celebrate our own accomplishments because we don't really see ourselves reflected in a lot of major programs. And so it's like, well, let's just make our own.

If you’re interested in attending or volunteering, you can register at allinicefest.com. And if you’d like to support the organization, you can donate here.

Want to learn more about what affinity spaces are and why they are important? The AMGA helps explain in an article by Monserrat Alvarez.

You can connect with Liz:

📸 @eliz_sahagun | 🔗 allinicefest.com

🧊 Credits

Cover photo by Louis Arevalo.

Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).

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Written by

Aaron Gerry

Aaron Gerry

Ljubljana, Slovenia
Aaron is the host of Ice Ice Beta and one of the Online Editors of The Cooler.