Explorer Silvia Vasquez-Lavado: The Power of Healing in Nature

An accomplished mountaineer, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado is the first Peruvian woman to summit Mount Everest and the first openly queer woman to complete the Seven Summits, the tallest mountain on each continent. A win for diversity, she has held her own against the odds, and she is detailing it all in her new memoir, In the Shadow of the Mountain.

In addition to the book being framed around Vasquez-Lavado’s emotional, two-month trek up Everest, she also opens up about the decades of trauma that inspired her to begin her journey to the top of the world.

A survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a close family friend, and later of addiction as an adult, she confronts her painful past along with other heroic stories from a group of young survivors whom she first leads to the base of the mountain before the real climb begins. In the Shadow of the Mountain is a remarkable story of heroism and community, one which awakens a lust for adventure, gratitude for the strong women in our lives, and faith in our own resilience.

It is set for a film adaptation later this year, starring Selena Gomez.

Vasquez-Lavado is also a humanitarian and founder of Courageous Girls, a nonprofit dedicated to healing and empowering survivors of violence and abuse through adventures in nature. Their efforts have provided young women the opportunity to join a guided trek to base camp on Mount Everest, while proving to the world, and themselves, that nothing can hold them back.

OFM caught up with Vasquez-Lavado to talk more about the book and her incredible story.

Let me begin by asking, what inspired you to write your book, In the Shadow of the Mountain?

I was kind of feeling my mortality. On my anniversary of climbing Mount Everest, I was involved in a serious bike accident. I didn’t have my helmet on, and while coming down a hill, a truck got in my way, and I fell into a ditch trying to avoid it. I hit my head really hard, ended up in the ICU, and while I was in the ICU, they found a small brain tumor at the base of my brain. For the first night, they couldn’t tell me if it was cancerous or benign.

I remember being like, “Well, my mom died of cancer, so if it’s cancerous, it is what it is.” I always felt that I had lived an amazing journey, especially after Everest. Thinking about the beautiful views and the hardships of getting there, that’s something that’s stayed with me, and it’s very special. You’re on top of the mother of the world. I told myself if this was cancerous, I would quit my job and live out the rest of my life doing good work with young women, climbing as much as I can, and sharing the story, potentially writing the book. That was my impetus, and I put it out there.

This happened in 2017, and luckily, it was benign. However, what really drove me to write the book was the fear of, maybe I’m not going to be here for too much longer. I didn’t know what the book was going to look like in terms of the structure, and I still had to complete my last summit of the seven, which was Denali in Alaska. Also, because of my head injury, I still had to have brain surgery. It took me about a year and a half to get everything ready, but as I got my strength again and completed Denali, I felt it was time. Writing this book saved my life. It was kind of like a life-or-death decision for me.

Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from it?

I want readers to feel inspired. The book is a roller coaster ride because it’s thrilling, but it just goes up and down. I want readers to feel that even though this is my story, it is a story of all of us. There’s loss; there’s grief; there’s addiction; there’s shame—All of us have experienced some of this at one point in our lives. I know there might be parts in the book that will resonate with them. I want them to see the value of healing together. When we’re open to hear each other’s stories and work side by side with each other in nature, amazing, transformative things can happen.

After they’re done reading the book, I want them to be moved and be like, “OK, what’s my Everest?” This is such an amazing, entertaining story. It’s definitely going to make you laugh and cry, but I know people will be surprised by how we tackle all the various things that are talked about in the book. It comes across in a very unexpected way.

As a survivor of childhood sexual violence, alcoholism, and self-destructive tendencies, was it challenging to think back and write about these dark moments in your life, or was it therapeutic?

It was both. I say this in the book at one of the breaking points in my life, I did this retreat called Hoffman, and they were telling us, “OK, we’re going to take you and explore the mountains inside.” I literally feel writing this book has allowed me to explore those mountains inside. It was challenging. I had spoken about this before, but never really got into the details because it’s something that is always very personal, and I think one of the reasons why the book is receiving such acclaim is because I’m not afraid of bringing you in.

I was also writing the kind of book that I wish I would have read during the time when I was having a lot of pain. I felt like I didn’t have to hold anything back. I needed to be as transparent and open as possible. It wasn’t easy revisiting these things, and it was quite challenging, but I was so lucky to receive a lot of help from my therapist, editors, my community supporting me—It was a combined effort to bring it out. It was hard, but I wasn’t alone.

Did you come across any new revelations about yourself throughout the writing process?

Definitely. There was a rape scene that I had totally forgotten about. I quote Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, and I’m now four years sober, so as I was starting my sobriety, I remember reading his book and being shocked about how much information our body carries. Especially during my drinking time, the damage I could have done to myself.  I was able to recall a lot of events that I had consciously shut down. That’s something that resonated with me, but what made me sad was realizing the amount of damage I was doing to myself and not willing to put an end to it.

Your mother suggested you try an ayahuasca retreat as a part of your recovery, and that’s where you kept envisioning mountains. Out of all the mountains in the world, what compelled you to choose Mount Everest as the first?

I come from a country full of mountains, but I was always scared of them. I didn’t grow up climbing, and the way everybody refers to mountaineering, you’re like, this is only for the toughest of the tough. I was always such a shy person, and I was like, “How would I be able to do this?” When I did ayahuasca with my parents—I think that’s comedic in itself. Who the hell does ayahuasca with their parents? (Laughs). But I remember the very first thing I saw was of me as a little girl in a corner shivering, with me as an adult reconnecting.

That vision was very significant because for decades, I had shunned images of me as a little girl. Every time I see photos of me as a kid, I tear up because I think of myself as weak. Like, how could you have let this happen to you? This vision came in very clearly, and then the little girl grabbed my hand and walked me into the mountains. When I got out of the ayahuasca session, I told myself, I need to take this massive pain that has created all these atrocities in my life, and I need to walk to the tallest mountain in the world.

I went in not knowing what to expect. I never felt like I was going to have this journey. I had never hiked or done anything like this before, but I was compelled because what I had seen shocked the hell out of me. I took myself to the base of Everest, and on the second day when I came across the Himalayas, that changed my life. It’s almost like the heavens are opening up to you, and even though I found myself so diminutive compared to it, there was a connection and protection of something allowing me to feel a sense of safety that I never had experienced before.

It was very inspiring and that gave me the courage to continue. Once I saw the sunrise, I felt gratitude and made a promise to come back under two conditions. I would come back with a social call and come back as a mountaineer. That was the birth of this crazy dream that has now been published!

Now, you are the first gay woman to complete the Seven Summits!

You know, I literally found that out the other day. A very sweet woman from Iowa pinged me, and I think she is the second gay woman to complete the Seven Summits, which I think is freaking amazing! Also, recently, I met the first trans woman who is halfway through her journey. I’m like, yes! This is what we need! It’s an honor, and inclusion like this is for all of us.

You turned hiking into a form of healing for yourself, but how did you also make it a channel to raise awareness for survivors of sexual abuse?

What really pulled me to the mountains was my little girl, and it was like, let’s heal from this abuse. That was such a compelling part to me. I didn’t know that I would be the first gay woman, and that wasn’t something I planned. I wanted to raise awareness of my child abuse because that is something that could paralyze most of my life. I also didn’t know what kind of shape or form it was going to take in terms of being more open about it.

When I summited Aconcagua, which I talk about towards the third part of the book, I had a massive meltdown and I talk very openly about vulnerability. I remember thinking the night before the summit how I wasn’t going to make it. I did, and later that night, something was clearly telling me to work with young women. You have to bring them to the base of Everest. You had a promise of a social cause, and this is it. You need to bring young women survivors of sexual abuse to the mountains for them to experience what you did.

That is how the messaging came for me. I was doing it for myself, but when I had this thing in my head about bringing others, that’s when I realized how important this is.

In 2014, you founded the nonprofit Courageous Girls. For those who don’t know, can you tell us more about it?

After I had determined that I was going to work with young survivors, that’s what led me to find Courageous Girls. I figured, let me start something so I can raise money because it’s pretty expensive, so that was the impetus. This was like a guinea pig test. I didn’t know that healing in nature was going to work with survivors, and I had no idea what was going to happen. We kind of started very small, and that took us a couple of years until we got to Everest.

What we’re doing now, especially with the group of women I brought from Nepal to the U.S., they’ve become tracking guides, so we’ve been developing a tracking leadership academy for them to have that opportunity in the U.S. I am relaunching the U.S. side, which we’re going to be focusing on programs that are more like school. We’re trying to avoid the school-to-prison pipeline. I am working with three amazing women, and we are trying to find a program that is more scalable here in the U.S.

Can you talk a little bit more about the challenges you have faced being a woman in an avocation that is still very male dominated?

It’s interesting because whenever I’m on expeditions, a lot of the men see it as like, “I’m about to conquer this mountain!” Many of them take pride and ego in that, and I’m like, who the hell are we to think that we can conquer? Mountaineering has been in existence for hundreds of years, possibly millions of years, and we’re like little ants passing by. So, one, it’s the attitude. It’s very male dominated, but for me, this has always been a spiritual journey.

I write in the book about my relationship with my teammates, and when I first climbed Everest, I was the only woman with seven guys. Like, oh my God, really? But it was interesting because the men that were usually the ones being loudmouth were the ones who ended up leaving first. They got altitude sickness, this and that. The people that remained, we came together and I kind of had this part of making amends with men. Also, I understood that not everybody is a particular way. It works both ways.

We need more women, and usually all of us women who are in expeditions, we tend to think more of community. We tend to be more like, let’s work together. I think if more women show up, the more we’re going to kind of blend it in. Just like anything, it’s almost like a sense of representation. When I look at almost every single career, every single sport that has been very male driven, little by little, women are taking part and not being intimidated by it. We might not look as strong as men, but our perseverance has proven that we outlast men. It’s the resilience that we have.

In the Shadow of the Mountain will be turned into a movie with Selena Gomez playing you. Are you happy with this casting choice?

Oh my God, it’s a total dream come true. I’ve always had a massive admiration of her, and it’s interesting because what really resonated is how brave and courageous she’s been to open up about her life. If anything, that is what I really wanted, and the vulnerability and openness is why people are resonating with the book. You don’t see this as weakness. This is strength. I know she’s going to be fantastic. She will do an amazing job, and I am here to be supportive in any shape.

What are some future goals you would like to achieve as an explorer and mountaineer?

Go to Mars (laughs). I would love to go to space, but that will have to wait. Right now, I am in the process of completing the Explorers Grand Slam, which is going to the North and South Pole. I’ll be going to the North Pole in April, and the South Pole possibly towards the end of the year. I would love to continue climbing the Second Seven Summits, which are the second tallest mountains in the world, and I would love to go to the deepest point in each continent. My exploration is there, but the only challenge is timing.

Also, my focus is spreading the message. I know all of us have been through this surreal couple of years. It’s been challenging being locked in, the uncertainties, and it’s affected many of us. People have been depressed, so this is an uplifting story.

Before we wrap up, is there anything else you would like to mention or plug?

I am just thrilled that people are embracing the book, and I have received so many beautiful reviews. It was difficult to bring this story to life. When we were first trying to put the book up for sale, we were rejected left and right. It was heartbreaking, but to see people finally embrace this story, I’m honored to bring this message as far and wide as I can.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Vasquez-Lavado by following her on Twitter and Instagram @silviavasla, or visit her official website, silviavasla.com. In the Shadow of the Mountain is now available at all major booksellers and online.

Photos courtesy of Silvia Vasquez-Lavado