Our Team
“In what ways do you think climbing can be a vehicle for personal growth?”
This was the question that started it all, as Remy slid his thoughtful inquiry over to Blake and Gaby. And so a conversation began…
In the midst of a magical Outwild 2019 event, three kindred spirits found each other and began building an outlet for two of their biggest passions: rock climbing and personal-growth. Like any fitting project, the creation of ClimbWell was not always pretty. Though living far apart, managing a pandemic, and altering their original intentions for a Spring 2020 event, they continued the playful work of articulating and discovering what that intersection could mean.
Climbing well means different things to each of us. For these three special people, what launched that day in September 2019 was equally about other’s climbing as well as their own.
Blake Cason
Blake’s journey in rock climbing started as a flirtation, grew through struggle, and has evolved into a harmonious obsession. Ultimately, has been as much about the sport as what it has taught her about herself and living a life she loves.
After 10 years of travel in a dozen countries, Blake landed in Salt Lake City, UT in 2012 with goals of refining her career with a Master’s degree. What began as a casual interest in rock climbing became the expansion her life needed. Little did she know that "the perfect excuse to get outside" would redefine health and happiness as she knew it. Now, with a dozen years of wellness and behavior change under her belt, Blake continues to expand her wellness coaching practice, Pivot Wellness, around her sport and passion-driven life.
Blake is a lot of energy in a small package. Her superpower is enthusiasm and if you were to hear her thoughts while she climbed, it would mostly be “How can I weight my feet…”, because she’s a climber that knows her strengths.
Learn more about her and Pivot at www.startyourpivot.com
Gaby Colletta
Gaby is a Meditation + Yoga Instructor and Ayurvedic Health Counselor with over 12 years of practice in integrative wellness. She facilitates transformational nature-based retreats, guides mind-body courses and coaches individuals on how to create an ecosystem of internal resources that bring forth one’s greater potential.
You could say her love for climbing began in the concrete jungle, disappearing into the night to scale bridges and shoot photography. This was the seed. In 2014, Gaby quit her corporate job as a strategist, accepted a ride across the US from two strangers in an ’85 chevy and fell in love with the mountains.
Eventually she landed in Northern California where her relationship with rock climbing truly began. With Tahoe and Yosemite as her backyard, Gaby found herself not only exploring the vertical landscape of the Sierras but the internal, wilderness of her mind. This was the gift: climbing became a mirror for understanding. If you ask Gaby advice on the wall, she’ll tell you to quit being an asshole to yourself, befriend your body, trust its capacity, oh and don’t forget to breathe.
Beyond climbing, her expertise lies in the nuanced understanding of the mind-body connection. Gaby brings a robust toolkit of Eastern wisdom traditions, modern-day neuroscience and somatic psychology, to guide others into deeper intimacy and understanding of their body’s intrinsic strengths and their mind’s expanded capacities.
Learn more about Gaby’s offerings at: www.gabycolletta.com
Remy Franklin
Remy is a life coach, college educator, and rock climber passionate about the interaction of personal transformation and social change. As a coach, Remy helps climbers and mountain athletes build lifestyles that balance their stoke for adventure with meaningful work that’s in service of a higher purpose. He sees climbing as a personal practice that can help us become more aware, more courageous, and more joyfully connected to the world and people around us.
Remy started climbing in 2010 and quickly became an accomplished sport and big wall free climber. He has sent 5.14 test pieces in Cuba, raced for big wall first ascents in West Africa, and climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan in a day. Remy’s climbing partners usually give him the scary pitches, and he loves coaching others to discover their own mental superpowers.
Learn more about Remy’s coaching and climbing at www.remyfranklin.com
