Through special events and written and audio media, Broad Beta – a new media outlet – empowers, inspires and creates belonging for a diverse, underserved outdoor community. Conceived by Jeannie Wall and Leslie Gains-Germain while climbing the Nose on El Capitan, Broad Beta is a space for women and genderqueer climbers and skiers to share their mountain adventures and lives with full disclosure.
Broad Beta is a growing community for those on the margins of the climbing and skiing communities, designed to connect and embolden them to follow their true nature. The Broad Beta podcast features in-depth, moving interviews. The website contains written stories along with audio versions read by the authors.
In addition, technical tips paired with gender-specific gear reviews provide tangible, practical advice for everyone from first-timers to seasoned adventurers. Soon to come is an addition focused on food, filled with health information around fueling our bodies, including recipes for the front and backcountry.
“We empower women and genderqueer folks to embrace wild ideas, wild experiences and the preservation of wildness,” Wall said. “These stories express raw experiences of our travels in wild places with great partners: from the comic to the tragic. The profound effect that wild spaces have on our psyche is a lens from which we see our community and our world. We believe in Thoreau’s wisdom, ‘In wildness is the preservation of the world.’ And the equality of all life.”
Broad Beta also offers live storytelling nights, called The BROADcast. This year’s Bozeman Ice Festival held a live BROADcast event with heartfelt presentations, pizza, beer, a raffle and time to connect and meet a diverse and inclusive group of women and genderqueer folks. Visit broadbeta.com for the video of the six events’ presenters.
Gains-Germain added, “Broad Beta is an interactive space for people to grow and share each other’s wisdom, challenges and epiphanies from our quests in wilderness. Our purpose is to cultivate a space to learn and inspire us to reach beyond what we thought possible. In doing so, we hope to bring more inclusion, compassion and gratitude to the world.”
