Join geologist, inventor, business owner, and climber Lauren Heerschap in exploring how rock type and other geological conditions dictate how that rock is climbed upon safely. Lauren will share first-hand accounts of iconic sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic climbing areas, digging into their geological stories that have made them unique and favored among rock climbers.
Image Licensed to Midwest GeoSciences Group
Expert Panelists
Source: Lauren Heerschap
Lauren Heerschap Owner and CEO of BRUNTON
Lauren has been climbing for 30 years, having been introduced to the sport on the basalt cliffs of the Rio Grande Rift in northern New Mexico as a teenager. Her experiences climbing rock, snow, and ice are one of the reasons she became a geologist, studying mountain building and active tectonics in Taiwan then in Colorado. Lauren has climbed all over the world, from high-altitude glaciated peaks to vertical ice, from multi-pitch trad climbing to bouldering. Her favorite form of climbing is currently sport climbing, and her favorite rock types to climb on are dolomite and conglomerate.
Professionally, Lauren has worked for the Colorado Geological Survey, a small oil & gas firm named Oso Energy, Fort Lewis College, then Brunton. During her "maternity leave", Lauren also ran the International Climbers' Festival and its associated non-profit organization in Lander, WY. She invented what is now the Brunton Axis Transit, which put her and her husband on the path to eventually purchase the entire company.
Organized By
Association for Women Geoscientists Lone Star Chapter