I started Like A Mountain Girl in 2016. I had recently moved from New York City (population ~8.5million) to Copper Mountain, CO (population of ~300). Prior to leaving the city, I was absolutely in love with my life there. It was thrilling in so many ways. I had worked my way up from being an unpaid intern at a small architecture firm to being the Director of Marketing at a prestigious firm that was edgy, sophisticated, and fun. Our office was very Mad-Men-like. We kept bottles of bourbon in our desks, had beer and cold-brew coffee on tap at any time, and all worked endless hours striving to create magic. In my last year in the city, I rented my own apartment in Chelsea. It was a huge achievement to be able to afford my own, adorable apartment in the city. I was single in the city, living out all of my Carrie Bradshaw dreams, and honestly, having the time of my life.

Until one day, I decided I wasn’t. After the loss of a childhood friend, I found myself questioning everything about the life I had built for myself in the city. What did any of it mean? Why was I giving all of my time away to a computer screen and meetings? Why was I climbing to make more money, just to spend it on the next apartment, pair of shoes, or $25 cocktail? Suddenly, the city that I had so confidently said I would never leave, felt foreign to me. The city still held all of its magic, but for the first time since I had arrived years ago, the magic wasn’t for me.

So I decided to leave, I had no idea where to go. The first things that popped into my head were Hawaii, a roadtrip through small towns in the South (trading out Sex And The City for Sweet Home Alabama), or Colorado. I was born in Colorado, but raised in Michigan. We went to Colorado and the west to ski and visit family when I was little. I hated skiing. I was terrified of it. I have 3 older brothers and my mom didn’t ski. All of my memories of skiing were crying on the mountain and my dad and brothers saying “there’s only one way down.” I stopped skiing when I was 12, until I was 24 and took a trip with my then boyfriend’s family to Salt Lake City, Utah. Skiing immediately put me back in my 12 year old boots. I cried on the mountain. There I was, a “tough” city-girl, crying about a hill of snow being too steep and too icy for me to go down the “one way down.” So 2 years later, when I decided to leave the city in November, I chose to go to the mountains and “beat” skiing, the thing that seemed to have a lurking power over me and could break me down in one chairlift ride.

I chose Copper Mountain because I had known a friend who had moved there. She was supposed to go back to grad school after a winter at Copper and then never left. I called her up and asked why she loved it, she said it was a homey mountain. That was all I needed to hear, I had my answer, Copper Mountain, Colorado. I found a few roommates and a condo to live in on Craigslist, bought a car to drive out of the city with, shoved all of my belongings in the car and set my sights West. I figured I could spend a winter up in the mountains, then head down to Denver and figure out real life again.

I picked up one of my brothers in Michigan on the way and he drove with me the rest of the way out to Colorado. I will never forget the drive “up” to the mountains from Denver. I was too terrified to drive and made my brother drive. After 5 years of living in the city and never driving, I was not ready to drive on 65mph wintery-mountain roads. From my passenger seat, I was in complete awe. I couldn’t believe I was about to live IN the mountains. Even through the windshield of I-70, the mountains around me were the most beautiful place I had ever remembered being. The entire drive up I had a stomach full of butterflies, I was excited and nervous. I was about to restart my adult life surrounded by the exact opposite world I had been living in for the last 5 years. Even with the nerves, there was something that immediately felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

On another day I will share my story of skiing and how I went from the bunny hill to double black diamonds, without tears; why I decided to stay in the mountains; and how I met my now husband, even though NYC-me never wanted to get married. Today’s post is for why I started Like A Mountain Girl.

I started Like A Mountain Girl about two years after moving to Copper. For two years, I never once lost the feeling of awe that I felt on that first drive up to my new home. Every walk, hike, and even drive, brought an incredible sense of peace to me. It’s a feeling that I can’t adequately describe, but will forever cherish. I started Like A Mountain Girl for my city-self. The girl who spent years in an office, missing entire seasons, and honestly years, giving all of my time to a computer screen where I created my work. I wanted to share the feeling of the mountains through my words and photos of the mountains with that exact girl, in hopes that one day she would say, I need to go to the mountains. Maybe she would stay, maybe she would only visit, but she would get a taste of what it felt like to be in the presence and awe of nature, and find a new sense of home within herself.

For those of you who have been here since the beginning, you know that I used to share my own words, with images from others. I also used to post daily, even twice a day for a while. For a while, I sold mountain necklaces and apparel, donating the profits to charity. At other times, I had a blog where I collaborated with badass women who shared their stories. When I began Like A Mountain girl, my hashtag #likeamountaingirl had zero tags, growing steadily over the years to close to 400,000 tags. All of you, sharing your adventures, whether you have heard of my page or not. I'm in awe with how patient some of you have been with me, and feel so connected to each of you who have decided to stay.

Over the last 9 years, my life has shifted in ways I couldn't have ever anticipated. I have struggled with some of my deepest grief, darkest emotional times, and most intense physical obstacles (which coming from a cancer survivor, is saying a lot). I have also experienced some of my greatest joys and most profound growth. During my shifting and falling, and growing, my Instagram page for Like A Mountain Girl has changed its look more times than I can count. I decided to no longer feature images from others, but to keep the page entirely my own, focusing on what meant the most to me, my words. I have posted and deleted a hundred times over. Within all of the change, one thing has remained true, and that is what this page means to me. It will always be a place where the feeling of coming home to yourself is celebrated.

After crawling through some of my lowest lows, I have learned so much about health, life, and finding your way through life. That feeling I found in the mountains needed more than beautiful scenery to be grounded within myself. Over the last few years I have built a new foundation for myself that has completely changed the course of my life. In many ways I have now built the life I knew I needed when I left New York.

I am bringing you guys along for the ride of my evolution, which is a scary thing in the world of social media. Even though the new era of Like A Mountain Girl is my most vulnerable and raw, it is the version I am most excited about. It has been years in the making and is fueled by my passion for helping others find their way through life to do more than live, but to really thrive. In this blog, I will let you learn from my wins, but also my failures, sharing the lessons and practices that have guided me through them all. It will be a journey, but I promise you will learn something about yourself along the way.

I hope you are excited as I am.

Until next time,
Susan