Stephanie Coates

How do you encompass a whole human being in a handful of paragraphs?

My friends and family call me Steph. I'm 30 years old, based in Colorado, and work as a software engineer. I'm intrigued by the human condition and spend a lot of my free time pursuing outdoor adventures—hiking, biking, climbing, padding, and skiing.

Throughout my 20s, I followed a winding path through different states, countries, and careers, trying on makeshift identities in search of a tidy box to fit myself in; on the hunt for belonging.

I began college as a nursing student, and three school transfers and six different majors later, ended up with a degree in Journalism and Outdoor Leadership from a small mountain college in Lake Tahoe. Post-graduation, I taught English in Thailand, guided wilderness therapy trips in Colorado, worked on a regenerative farm in Utah, taught myself to code, worked remotely for startups while living abroad in Latin America and later out of a teardrop RV trailer, and eventually set roots in Denver.

In the midst of throwing all of this spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck, time in nature provided a respite from the uncertainty and had an impact on my character, my resilience, and my confidence as a young adult. Getting outside regularly—especially on long, physically challenging trips—became a priority in my life.

At 19, I caught the bug while thru-hiking the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail solo. I completed the 160-mile Collegiate Peaks loop a few years later, as well as multi-week whitewater trips down the Rogue and Yampa Rivers. In the more recent years, I thru-hiked the ~500-mile Colorado Trail, canoed 100 miles down the Green River through Utah's Canyonlands, did 120 miles of granite scrambling on the Yosemite High Route, and finished 150 miles of punishing bushwhacking in Alaska's Brooks Range.

Let me level-set here. Adventure is a core part of my life, and it also serves as a paradoxical type of joy—spending a lot of time off-grid in the mountains sharpens my gratitude and appreciation for other pieces of myself and parts of life.

Small joys are amplified, like slow mornings watching the sunrise on my back patio, cooking in my kitchen with fresh herbs and spices, and frequenting local spots around Denver. And I return reenergized toward bigger priorities that benefit from consistency, like building a business, deepening my relationship to myself and to others, exploring spirituality, writing, practicing yoga, and learning piano.

I listened to entrepreneurship podcasts while hiking the Colorado Trail and read a book about cybersecurity while cleaning eggs on the regenerative farm. I am a curious, multifaceted person and a generalist at heart.

A fulfilling life requires tension between a variety of opposing forces: routine vs. structure, independence vs. community, novelty vs. familiarity. Indulging in one helps me appreciate and recognize a need for the other. No matter where I am on that teeter-totter, the recurring question I ask myself is am I listening to what by body is telling me and living a life that honors my true, core, most authentic self?

I explore that question through life experiments, time in wild places, reflection, and writing. The pull I feel toward wandering through nature's topography parallels my curiosity about our inner landscapes: how we relate to ourselves and each other, how we grow, and how we figure out what's actually meant for us in this life.