Across the Andes

Gregg Treinish and Deia Schlosberg

Gregg is a 24 year old outdoor enthusiast who has lived and played in the Colorado mountains for the past 6 years.  During this time he has worked as  a whitewater guide, a ski instructor, a preschool teacher, and a senior  field instructor for the Trailhead Wilderness School (now Monarch Center For  Family Healing).  In 2004 Gregg completed the 2174 mile Appalachian Trail under the trailname Skibum.  He is a 2002 graduate of the University of Colorado-Boulder in sociology.  Gregg left Leadville, CO to begin this journey.

"I am doing this to embrace an opportunity to learn.  I want to explore the land, and more importantly the cultures of the world.  South America presents a challenge unrivaled by most mountain chains of the world, and at the same time allows for the chance to learn from some of the most interesting and remote cultures that still exist on earth today.  On the AT I learned a lot about who I am and what I am capable of, I can't wait to further both of those understandings."

Deia grew up in the woods of Upstate New York. Since then she has earned degrees in Earth & Planetary Science and Illustration at Washington University in St. Louis, volunteered in Europe and Africa, worked as an environmental educator in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and most recently as a senior field instructor for Monarch Center for Family Healing, a wilderness therapy school in the Colorado Rockies. She is also a  published illustrator, photographer, designer and writer. Deia is beyond elated and grateful to be making this little South American hike her next chapter.

"I am embarking on this trek for the same reason that motivates every major life decision for me: to learn more about myself and about the world that I am part of. I know that I gain the most understanding of myself and how I operate when I am pushed to new levels--physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually. Exploring, on foot, a large part of the world that I've been interested in for years, is for me the perfect way to do that. I also feel a very strong need to understand how people in other parts of the world live, in terms of the cultures they have developed and especially how those cultures have been affected by their local environments. Coming from a society of far-from-sustainable lifestyles, I want to gain and bring back as much knowledge as I can of how entire communities manage to thrive for thousands of years, limiting their resources and respecting the natural world."

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