AIR BORN 2.8

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Dear Reader,

“Turn the clocks back” It’s a phrase in the dictionary meaning to return to a situation that used to exist, usually because the present situation is unpleasant. Hmm... Interesting as we absorb daylight savings this week, turn our clocks back, and ponder change, in seasons and life...
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This week we peal beneath the surface and fixate on personal transformation, grinding, knowing when to change course, and the ever-elusive growth edge. This week's episode with the rugged, real, and loquacious Caite Zeliff, is a deep dive into it all — that edge where both excitement and fascination mix with fear and discomfort.
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All of us, from time-to-time, can inspire ourselves by pinpointing a specific growth edge of change we might be willing to jump-start. When I say growth edge, I am referring to something we may be afraid of or something we have wanted to try but haven’t. Maybe it is a specific activation we have procrastinated in completing. Is there a risk you could take that would make you better yourself? What is the edge of real change for you? Can you start a project you always wanted to do – or finish a project still left undone?
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We can go along with our routines, repeating old mistaken concepts about how to be. We can subscribe to antiquated habits that don’t serve us. Yet, every moment provides an opportunity to change things up. Let’s delineate a point of departure for making one change. Let’s select an item for improvement.
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​What is our growth edge? I challenge you to make one specific change in your life.​

This Week

​Episode 057: On Taking Risks and Personal Transformation with Backcountry Badass Caite Zeliff - Pro Skier, Paraglider and Twice Queen

This is the story of an athletic prodigy. It’s also the story of how setbacks become catalysts for change, how determination fuels a dream, and how a drive for adventure can evolve. And it is a story of risk-taking, mountain life, and personal reflection that characterize what it takes to ski and fly in the backcountry.
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For pro-skier Caite Zeliff, the derailing of her career as a ski racer was an opportunity to reconnect with herself and become the athlete she was always meant to be. At 12, Caite Zeliff has started a ski racing career that brought her all over the world. She ascended, she earned a scholarship to a boarding school, she won titles, she received an invitation to the US Ski Team – and she also was rejected, blew out her knee, and burned out – all by age 20.
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When the U.S. Ski Team invitation didn’t come, and she blew out her knee while racing for the University of New Hampshire, she left college and headed westward in search of big mountains and powder. It was in Jackson Hole, WY, where Caite found her true calling – freeskiing.
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Paragliding. Thanks to COVID, a probable paternal influence, and an idea inspired by a soaring raven, Caite decided to learn to paraglide. She continually pushes herself to the edge of her comfort zone. Paragliding is a wild sport, one that challenges Caite in all kinds of ways. It requires slowing down and a constant awareness of the situation. Caite is constantly looking for challenge and currently obsessed with understanding how to strengthen the relationship with the wing, moving air and gravity.
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This risk-taking mentality has built her a career as a professional freeskier. Beyond winning Jackson Hole’s Kings and Queens of Corbet’s twice, Caite has starred in films like Warren Miller’s Timeless (2019) and Teton Gravity Research's Make Believe (2020) and Stoke the Fire (2021). Check them out!​
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Encore Episode

​Episode 034: A Call to the Mountains and Other Reasons to Fly with Sarah Halas - Alpinist, Pilot, and Instructor

This is where I highlight an encore episode. It is always fun to imagine a cocktail party where the two guests meet. And what a time! This connection takes no stretch to make. Sarah Halas is first a mountain woman and deeply attuned with her sense of intuition who found flying as a means and an ends to extending her sense of adventure, search for solace in open spaces and her livelihood.
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The conversatioin with Sarah is about how can we stay true to ourselves when the neat boxes society organizes us in are stifling or unfit. What are dreams and passions if not our guide and confidant? What are the costs and the rewards of a passion-driven life?
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Sarah and I dive into what life as a flight instructor and mountain guide look like. Sarah shares her story of finding flying amongst other pursuits that would bring her deeper into mountains. Challenging assumptions and defying gender roles from the beginning, Sarah has built her life around a love for exploring and physically pushing limits of endurance, alongside a passion for travel, language, and culture. Sarah and Caite are not afraid of candor and we talk about trick issues and practicalities around valuing transience, crafting a life rid of preconceived notions of womanhood, trusting yourself to color outside the lines, and a lot more.
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Sarah Halas has been a professional pilot for over a decade. Hailing from Truckee, California, Sarah is the owner of Truckee Flight Training where she offers a full range of flight lessons from private pilot training to mountain flying courses and instrument training.
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What Caite and Sarah share: a childhood in New England, a call to the mountains, a passion for the backcountry, a willingness to be different, a comfort in solitude, and an urge to continually redefine their growing edge. Not to mention a lot of SKIIING!
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Why Are Women Still Missing at the Top Climate Table?

You know it, this week, the buzz around the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, and the lack of women’s senior leadership in climate negotiations that has been raised as an issue of concern by activists. Gender and climate are profoundly intertwined.
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Women took the global stage on Tuesday to show that climate change isn’t gender neutral, and that climate action needs them: investing in women and girls creates ripple effects felt throughout entire communities and the frontline knowledge they possess is needed now more than ever, especially as new analysis has revealed that the announcements by world leaders at COP26 still leave our planet on the path to catastrophic global warming.
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Steps forward and much more to be done. Where there is space, there is possibility. Hugely positive that these issues are being talked about and action is being taken.
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​SHE Changes Climate, a campaign founded in 2020 to call for equal gender representation in climate negotiations, claims that men took up 10 of the 12 UK leadership team positions. “Lack of female leadership in climate decisions affects our economy, our social structure, our ability to innovate and create solutions,” said Antoinette Vermilye, Co-Founder of the campaign. They sent an open letter to the U.K. Government in 2020, calling on them for greater accountability and transparency on male/female parity on the U.K. COP26 leadership team.
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​So what now?

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Poetry anyone?

Mentioning "Amelia Earhart" conjures up a story of a famous and unknowable aviatrix, a public figure with grace and purpose ahead of her time, and a lost pilot, but there is more. She has a set writings and poems that give windows into intimate thoughts and a complex inner world. Did you know about the poetry?
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Although Earhart wrote three books about her flights, was the aviation editor for Cosmopolitan, and wrote numerous other pieces of journalism about everything from her experiences flying an autogiro to her musings on clouds, her love of poetry only shows up on rare occasions in her prose.
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A new book of poetry has just been on a whirlish tour - a book of poetry written by female pilots. Check it out! Beyond Haiku: Women Pilots Write Poetry, compiled by Captain Linda Pauwels.
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The editor, American Airlines captain Linda Pauwels, knew of my work as a journalist writing about aviation. Among the poems written across a century of flight are several previously unpublished pieces by the most famous aviatrix of them all, Amelia Earhart.
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“When I read Amelia Earhart’s poems, I knew right away she was one of us,” Pauwels said, noting that her poems addressed the same themes as other aviators: strength, endurance and a love of flight. “Our voices are speaking of similar things.” (Washington Post

Proceeds from the book series fund aviation scholarships.

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What do you want to hear more of? Email me at hello@whenwomenfly.com​

Be bold. Be brave. And FLY!

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See you next time,

Sylvia Winter, Founder & Podcast Host of When Women Fly

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LATEST EPISODES

​Ep. 057: On Taking Risks and Personal Transformation with Caite Zeliff - Pro Skier, Paraglider, and Twice Queen

​Ep. 056: On Land, Contemporary Indigenous Identity, and Recreation with Ashleigh Thompson - Trail Runner, Rock Climber, and Archaeologist

​Ep. 055: On Fear, Motherhood and Mindfulness with Professional Snowboarder Kimmy Fasani - Advocate for Gender Parity in Sports

​Ep. 054: Secrets to Getting and Staying Strong with Mandy Hoffman - Flight Attendant, Fitness Coach, and Mom

​Ep. 053: Sacrificing for Success and Setting Priorities with Olga Custodio - First Female Hispanic US Military Pilot

​Ep. 052: Flying On and Off the Court with Michelle Snow - Baller, Orator and Entrepreneur

​Ep. 051: Trauma, Resilience and Flying with Amberly Brown - Skydiver, Surfer and Airborne Ballerina

​Ep. 050: Why Everyone is Doing Handstands and You Can Too with Nathania Stambouli, Founder of Yogi Flight School

​Ep. 049: What Flying Can Teach You About Yourself and a New Season Aloft

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