Bolivian Mountain Women: Stories from the Glacier-Ceiling

Help please! I’m crowdfunding for a research trip to Bolivia in 2 weeks time!! In early June I travel out to meet and interview the amazing Cholita Climbers.

This collective of Aymara Indigenous women climb and guide the highest mountains in Bolivia, dressed in their signature pollera style: huge colourful skirts and petticoats.

The Cholitas have overcome many barriers to reach this freedom and power. For generations, they were targets for discrimination. (Their name comes from the Spanish word ‘chola’ – meaning mixed-race, ‘halfbreed’ or ‘civilised Indian’.)

Mountains are part of their journey towards empowerment. In 2019, five Cholitas defied expectations and climbed Aconcagua (6,961m) the highest mountain in South America! Now they are crowd-funding to climb Everest with a team of Sherpa women. Their aim is to be the first women to standing on top of the world wearing skirts!

In June I travel out to Bolivia to meet these amazing women. We will climb together and I will interview them to learn their inspiring story and understand their Indigenous mountain perspective.

Why do they climb in skirts and petticoats? What barriers have they overcome? What do the snowy mountains mean to them?

But to do this, I need to pay the Cholitas and a translator for their time.

I have applied for funding but since we will not 'conquer' a new mountain we cannot get expedition funding.

This is why I am turning to you - the people - and asking for your help!

• £2100 will enable me to pay the Cholitas plus a translator for 4 days (guiding, photographs and interviews).

Any contribution towards this would be amazing. If 100 people donate £20, then the target is reached!

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The Plan

Our plan is to meet in La Paz on 15 June and then travel out of the city to a special mountain area where the Cholitas will show me how they train for ice climbing on the glacier, then guide me up a 5000m+ peak. Through the activity and interviews, I will collect fascinating stories of native women’s empowerment, exploring rich cultural and spiritual connections to the mountains, as well as how their landscape is transforming through climate change. (Mountain glaciers across Bolivia and the Andes are rapidly retreating.)

Back in the UK I will share the Cholitas story as widely as possible. With social media, blog posts, articles for mainstream media and talks for the public, I will share the Cholita story of strength, resilience and feminine empowerment.

I intend to use this material in a new book celebrating women, mountains and nature. Following on from my prize-nominated book, Time on Rock, the new book will tell a wider story from mountains across the world. Through a series of journeys following in the footsteps of women explorers, climbers, scientists and artists, I will uncover a rich feminine mountain culture that has existed for the last 250 years. The stories will showcase women’s achievements across continents, inspiring new generations to gain confidence and access the heights.

Meeting the Cholita Climbers will kick-start this new project, bringing an amazing story of women’s empowerment to the wider world, offering radical, feminist, anti-colonial perspectives on the mountains. Theirs is a story that needs to be shared.

Please help me meet the Cholitas. Pledge your support and spread the word!

Thank you / diolch yn fawr / gracias amigas.