Madi fell in love with the outdoors when she learned about the art of ultra-light backpacking in high school. After many summers spent wandering around the Sierras, she moved to the North Cascades in Washington state to pick up mountaineering and be closer to the jagged, granite faces. While pursuing her love for being above the treeline, Madi felt the call to combine her passion for rugged terrain with her true purpose for knowing and loving others well. She began her counseling journey at an adoption agency in the marketing world, hoping she was truly making a difference in the lives of the kiddos that passed through their doors. She felt she could have a larger impact by obtaining an advanced degree in counseling and by quitting her full-time job to pursue her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health at Prescott College.

Madi is in her final year of graduate school and feels honored to be working with Open Sky as an associate therapist. When researching her practicum and internship site, she felt drawn to Open Sky for its focus on family systems and its holistic approach. And, more truthfully, she is very excited to climb and explore the San Juans while she’s at it. Working with the Family Services team, she looks forward to drawing upon her many summers as a guide in the Sierras and Mount Shasta to bring about healing through the wondrous container of nature.

When she is not in the field with families, Madi spends most of her free time writing essays for her master’s program about the neurobiological connection between addiction, trauma, and family. She also loves early morning trail runs in Durango and has been scheming to climb her first summit in the Rockies. Madi is a seasoned ultra-runner and hopes to draw upon more connections between high levels of stress on the body and the brain while out in the mountains and how this could be useful as in her practice as a wilderness therapist. Madi has a very large malamute and is excited to teach him how to ski-jour in the winter.