Kathie's Travels
Kathie Fowler
About Me
Camping, hiking and simply being out in nature has always provided spiritual sustenance to me, and I was extremely fortunate a few years ago to be accepted into the Sierra Club's leader training program to lead conservation-based wilderness trips in the U.S. as well as internationally. I came to this somewhat late in life -- most of the Sierra Club's international leaders have been leading for decades -- when in 2001 my daughter invited me to go to Nepal with her. She was working for the Sierra Club at the time and got a discount off the trip price, and Kathmandu was a destination that I had always longed to visit. The trip, led by Pepe Kochhar, surpassed my wildest expectations and gave my life new purpose and direction. The journal and photos from that trip are included on this website, as well as a trip I took to Tibet the next year, in 2002, with the fabulous Patrick Colgan as leader. Patrick has since retired from leading, but it was he who encouraged me to begin leading trips myself, and he has been my cherished friend and mentor ever since.
I returned once more on my own to the Himalayas in 2004, and the photos and journal from that trip describe Sikkim and Bhutan. However, a brush with altitude sickness on the way up to the Singalila Ridge in Sikkim motivated me to explore other countries at lower altitudes. Thus my first international trip as a Sierra Club leader was to Costa Rica, to which I joyfully returned twice more. In 2007 I was an assistant leader for a hiking trip in Ireland, which I led in 2008. While in Ireland, I scouted a literary hiking trip, and that one, described under "upcoming events," I will lead in June of 2009.