Kaitlyn Farrington on PEOPLE.com for her #AlmostFamousVolcanoTour with Maria Debari

#AlmostFamousVolcanoTour

“I don’t even know where to begin….

Maria DeBari asked me in March if I wanted to be apart of this Volcano Tour through the Cascade mountain range, not really knowing what it was all about I instantly said “Yeah i could be into that!”  Then as it started coming closer to our departure (April 8) I was getting the emails with what I needed to bring… cramp-on (never used those before) , Ski cramp-on for my splitboard (didn’t even know that was a thing), and ice ax.  Along with that email were the words, “We are going to spend a lot of time walking uphill, most days will be 8-12 hours on average.” At this point I am psyching myself out like holy sh*t this is gonna be the real deal! 

volcano-tour

Maria and Kaitlyn on top of Mt Adams with their GNU Beauty Splitsboards

We started in Northern California at Lassen and just worked our way back up to Bellingham. Our timeline we had was till May 21 and then we all had to go back to real life and not just be climbing volcanos and camping. Ha! Lassen was volcano #1… at that time I was like “awesome this is such an accomplishment, I climbed the first volcano no problem, I got this!” and oh boy was I soon biting my words!  Shasta was #2 and one of the our tallest summits at just above 14000 ft. When i got probably 2000 ft from the top was when I had a little bit of a break down… my shoulders where hurting so bad it felt like a knife was being stabbed and twisted into them.  I’m not gonna lie, I even shedded a tear because I was feeling sorry for myself, but I couldn’t give up, I just needed that moment. Then, when i was only about 15 minutes from the top I had another moment and the main thought I was thinking was “Oh my god what did I just sign up for this is only number 2 and I have 23 more to go…!” 

Good news, I made it through that struggle and in the end realized my shoulder pain was a little self induced… I needed to tighten ALL my straps up on my backpack!  I was wearing my pack like I was in middle school…SAGGIN! From there the tour seemed so easy or lets just say I got into a routine of just climbing volcanoes.  The tour continued with Pelican Butte, Mt McLoughlin, Crater Lake, Mt Bailey, Thielsen, Diamond Peak, Paulina, Mt Bachelor, the 3 Sisters (all 3 in one day, 15 hours), Broken Top, Mt Washington, 3 Finger Jack ( I have only one finger to give that one), Jefferson, Mt Hood, Adams, Mt St. Helens, Glacier Peak (had to turn back the next day and try again later) Mt Garibaldi, Goat Rocks, Glacier Peak, and last but not least the final ender Mt. Baker!

Along this journey of Volcano summiting we encountered fellow hikers/campers and got to tell our story.  The reactions, we would have to repeat ourselves and tell them again about the #almostfamousvolcanotour and we would get a lot of “how do you girls know each other, college?” . Then we would explain Maria was the one that knew us all and brought us all together to go on the Volcano tour.  the more people we told the more crazy I realized it sounded.  I guess its not everyday you meet a group of bad bitches summiting volcanoes, and that plan on summiting 25 in 6 weeks!

Throughout the entire journey I collected rocks from each summit so I earned the nickname “Rock Hunter”… not only because of my rock collection but because of all the song remakes I sang while on the trails… its not something i can really put into words, more like maybe someday we can go on a hike and you’ll hear for yourself! Lets also just say I am NO next American Idol…” 

Kaitlyn Farrington 

Click HERE to see a video from Kaitlyn’s journey @ People Mag

Categories | Gnu Girls, Kaitlyn Farrington, Maria DeBari, Media, Uncategorized