Sharon Birchfield

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.