
Sharon Birchfield
Operations Specialist
Sharon grew up in Northern California and moved to Seattle in 2003 to attend college. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in International Relations, focusing on International Development, History, and Middle Eastern Studies. Her goal in college was to travel as much as possible, which she did, spending semesters in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and studying multiple languages including French, Arabic, Spanish, and Italian. After graduation she spent several years in Seattle working for local non-profits and social service agencies. In 2010 she traveled to Buenos Aires to complete an immersive internship at a local non-profit focused on youth leadership development and education. It was here that she was introduced to mountains and rock climbing. She returned to Portland and continued to work in the non-profit sector, focused primarily in education, but the seed for a life outdoors was planted, and she spent most of her free time climbing and teaching with the local mountaineering club. In 2017 she uprooted her comfortable city life to pursue a career in mountain guiding. She spends part of her year guiding in the Pacific Northwest, Utah, and Wyoming, and part of the year working in the Mountain Madness office.