Kathryn Mahan is pursuing a BS in Rangeland Ecology and Watershed Management with minors in Spanish, Honors, and Anthropology. Growing up in Kansas, she had never been hiking or backpacking until she moved to the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Northern New Mexico 4 years ago. There she was a wilderness student guide at the United World College of the American West, and has since spent hundreds of days (and nights) outside.

She transferred to UW in 2011 and currently leads backpacking, hiking, and snowshoeing trips for the OP. She also works as an SI for statistics, is part of Multicultural Affairs, the MSA, and SAFE project, and rides horses when she can. She likes dogs, traveling (so far she’s traveled in the US, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, and Australia, with plans to visit Malaysia and Maldives), hard work, wilderness medicine, good books, and spending time outside, particularly with her fiancé Ikhzaan. She hopes to share her love and passion for the outdoors with others, believing that “only when we come to understand ourselves as belonging to a place, rather than a place belonging to us, can we begin to take care of it.” (B.A.Bogart)