Jaclyn Walles
Primary Outdoor Sports: Trail Running, Skiing, Snowboarding, & Mountain Biking
Favorite Beverage: Lemonade
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunrise
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Reading
Favorite Season: Fall
Go-To Trail Snack: Sour Patch Kids
Hot Take: Taking your helmet and goggles off feels better than taking your boots off.
Book Recommendation: Where the Crawdads Sing
Three Words to Describe You: Happy, Goofy, and Hungry
“I ran track and cross country in college and I was on the rowing team. I've always been really competitive. When you finish whatever your career ends up being, for me it was college, you have this void of competitiveness in you. You're just like, ‘I've been an athlete. Now, what am I? I'm just a regular person.’ And, that is really hard to digest.
My career filled that void for a long time. But, I wasn't getting the same physical gratification out of it. I wasn't exercising, so I didn't get those endorphins.
Growing up in a big city, mountains are such a metaphor for life. It's like, ‘Okay, there's this big mountain that you have to climb. You're at the bottom looking up. What do you have to do to get up there?’ It’s this uphill battle. You get to the top and like, then you get to go down. So for the longest time, I thought of my life as climbing this mountain of life and getting to the top.
Then, I moved to Bend and it became literally climbing mountains. I fell in love with the challenge of that and just the beauty of it. When I'm having a rough day, I can literally go out and climb a mountain and that makes me feel so good inside. I think that's what really got me into it, quite literally succeeding in terms of climbing a mountain.”
“Growing up in Los Angeles, my life was drawn out for me. You work really hard in middle school and high school to get into a good college.You work really hard in college to be able to get a good job. Then, you just work your entire life so that you can save enough money to retire comfortably. I saw that plan and I was blindly following along with it. Feeling like it wasn't right, but doing it because it's what everyone around me was doing and it seemed like the only path.
But then when I thought about it, it’s like ‘Okay, I'm working until I can barely do anything anymore and that's when I finally can enjoy my life. But, will I be able to walk at that point? Will I have my memory? Will I have my eyesight?’ I was just like, ‘This doesn't really make sense to me, but okay.’
I moved to Oregon and I was in close proximity to Bend. I’d watch people on a Tuesday floating the river, and I was just like, ‘What is happening? What’s going on? There’s people going for bike rides, biking up Skyliners.’I just kind of had this revelation that there's a whole different world out there that I didn't know existed.
It was this realization that my entire life I had done what everyone else wanted and I never asked myself what I wanted or what was important to me. I had this pivotal moment where I'm like, ‘If I stay on this course, I will be unhappy for the rest of my life.’
I had nothing that was bringing me joy so I was just like, ‘You know what? I think I need to start over. And, I see all these people around me in Bend, choosing a different path for their life. I want to try that and see if I can make it work.’
I made a conscious decision that if I'm gonna blow up my life and literally start over because I'm unhappy, I am going to make every decision based on things that make me happy. It was the first time in my life I did what I wanted to do and not what anyone else told me to do. Then, all of this incredible stuff started happening. I manifested the beginnings of this life that I had always dreamed of.
I met this girl, Shirley, and we became really close friends. We started to grow this group of women that wanted to do stuff together. That is where it all started. They got me into mountain biking. They wanted to go for all of these hikes. I started to become friends with these people that were on the same path as me and wanted something different.”
“I fell in love with being in the mountains. It makes me really sad that there's some people that will never experience the feeling of being on top of a mountain and looking down. It's like, ‘Oh, look at everyone down in town that couldn't care less about what we've done. It just puts into perspective how insignificant we are.
It just reassures me that I'm on the right path. Nobody cares if I work my butt off my entire life in a job that I hate. But, I'll care if I do the opposite and live a life that I love. That what being in the mountains continues to remind me.”
“My friends and family think I have this complex, that I have to conquer these mountains and do all this stuff. They just don't quite get that it's not about that at all.It's almost the opposite.
If I’m feeling like I'm not in a good mental headspace, I need to get into a place that's going to humble me. The feeling that I have right now will carry with me for a week. Going somewhere I've never been before, being in a scary place, getting out of it safely, having good conversations about how to get through it safely, and accomplishing those goals. That's a high that you ride for a really long time.I need that feeling of being humble.”
“It makes me emotional to even think about where my life would be without these outdoor sports. It's given me friendship. It's given me purpose. For the longest time, I was defined by my career. My introduction would be my job. Now, my career is the last thing on that list. That's what outdoor sports have given to me.
It's kept me young. Giggling with my friends. Wearing glitter. Jumping off things. Laughing. Feeling like a kid again. It’s allowed me to keep my body strong. It’s not that easy to find exercise that you enjoy.
For me, the biggest thing I think it's given me is female community. I’ve had this shift that the outdoor space and being feminine don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You aren't weak for liking pink, wearing glitter, or maybe having to take a second to breathe on a trail that's everyone's probably struggling on, but no one's saying anything. It's okay to be the one to say, ‘Hey, I need a second.’ It's changed my perspective on who I want to be and what I want to show to the world.”
“I have so much fun with my female friends. It's such an encouraging space. I led an all female thing at Mt. Bachelor for biking in the summer. The progression I saw in two hours was insane. This one woman, Marissa, she’s super great and an inspiration for me in the community. She was just like whipping the bike, which is not easy to do, kind of showing us all what we can do.
Then, one girl really wanted to try and do a no-hander which is crazy. Never in my life would I ever want to take my hands off of the handlebar on a bike in the air. And then, five of us just started doing no-handers.
I was leading the event. I brought all these people together and then was being inspired by them to do these things that I never in a million years imagined I would ever do in my whole lifetime. Within an hour, we were all doing these tricks, and it was because we were encouraging each other.”
“I'm very proud of being asked to co-lead this group called Girl Get After It. Growing up, I didn’t think I was able to have female friends. I thought, ‘Oh, I'm just one of the guys. I don't get along with girls.’ It was a narrative that I was telling myself that I was different and in reality, I just wasn't finding the right people.
It's ironic that now I run a group of just women and I have so many female friends. Seeing them all trying things they've never done before and just knowing the joy that they're feeling overcoming their fears. I'm so proud of everyone in the community that continually shows up and supports one another.
There's this movement of women empowering one another and coming together instead of tearing each other down. I'm proud to be a part of that movement. I just want to show women that this space is for us.”
“There's just something about women coming together where I see this progression. It's a safe space to fail which is so needed. You have to feel like, ‘Even if I don't do this and I fall and I embarrass myself, nobody's going to make fun of me. They're going to encourage me to get back up and do it again.’
When I go mountain biking, I'll see a feature on a trail and I don't want to slow down the guys that are already faster than me. I don't want to crash. I don't want them to feel like I'm ruining their ride or messing up their day. So, I'll just go around it. But when I'm with my girls, everyone wants to try and do it. So, we'll stop. We'll look at it. We'll talk about it. We'll try it and do it as many times as we need to. That's the main difference that I feel when I'm in all female groups. It's not about getting down the hill the fastest. It's about like making sure we all got something out of it and feel like we progressed a little bit on that day. It's just been really cool to see.”
“A big part of my inspiration is just internally competing with myself. Like, ‘How far can I go in this sport?’ But recently there's been this external shift. There's a lot of doubt in outdoor sports from men, thinking that women can do what they're doing. I’ve found myself wanting to prove them wrong. Never ever in a million years did I set out to be skiing for Mt. Bachelor. I don't feel like I deserve it. I don't feel good enough, but it came from this desire to say, ‘Well, he's going to huck that cliff, I can do that.’ I think a lot of that came from my dad growing up. He always told me whatever you want to do, you can do.
I see these women that are progressing in the sport and they're moving the sport forward. It's kind of opening the door for me. And I'm like, ‘Wow, if they can do it, I can do it.’ And, I've seen through the progress I've made in the sports, other women saying to me, ‘Well, I saw that you did that so I wanted to go do it.’
I think why not just keep pushing the boundaries if I can encourage women that there's space for them in the outdoor sports industry? Because It can be really scary sometimes. This is my fourth season biking and my fourth season skiing. It's not like I've been doing it my whole life. I'm 31. It's okay to start in your late 20s. It's okay to start in your 30s. It's okay to start in your 40s. I think it's so important just to find something in the outdoor world that you're passionate about.
I'm internally motivated to push myself, but I'm also externally motivated by the industry and proving to a lot of people that I can do these things.”
