Alternative Outdoor Careers: Emma Harrison mixes Mountain Leader, Life Coach and Disability Advocate
Stereotypical outdoor career paths do not suit everyone – so there are individuals forging their own paths, adapting jobs and creating alternative ways of working outdoors.
Emma Harrison is one of these people. After a spinal-cord injury, Emma noticed how difficult it was to access the mountains with a physical disability, and decided to work on solutions. She’s combined her experience of disability with a Mountain Leader qualification and her training as a life coach to create her business Echo Outdoors, which offers slow paced walks – in the mountains, but also other locations.
ATE’s Francesca Turauskis spoke with Emma about how she realised this career was an option for her, the difficulties she has found during the standard mountain training options, and how her life coaching skills bring an extra level to her guided walks.
Emma Harrison starts our interview by telling me she’s not the person you would go to and say ‘I want to get to the top of X in three hours and I want you to guide me down X, Y, Z route’. Part of the reason she doesn’t run those types of hikes is because she can't guarantee that she'll always be able to do them herself.
“I have a disability…I don't really do stuff like that. I can't guarantee that I'll be capable of doing a specific route at a certain time.”
Having that first hand experience of disability means that Emma is able to work symbiotically with clients who might find such regimented hiking undesirable, often because they are disabled themselves.
“Often they're actually glad that it's coming from the front [Emma as the walk leader] because I think a lot of the time people are, unfortunately, scared to say they need a break, want to turn back or get halfway through a day and decide they don't want to keep challenging themselves. They just want to slowly amble back down.
I always talk to someone before I go out with them and make it really clear that it's a constant evaluation when we're out. That's how the day's going to go – there's no certainty. To be fair, all Mountain Leaders have that to a certain extent, with risk of weather and things like that. But I think I'd probably do a lot more due to the people I work with and my own injury, and making sure that I'm capable of looking after both myself and whoever I'm with.”
The slower pace of her walks is not the only thing that differentiates Emma as a Mountain Leader. She’s also a Life Coach and part of walking with her is the focus on connecting with the environment – and making sure that connection can continue if people can’t get to those environments.
“[Most Mountain Leaders] have good knowledge of flora and fauna and geology and stuff like that. But I might say, ‘Ookay, let's connect you with this environment. Let's use a guided meditation or think of some exercises that you can do now and replicate at home when you can't access the mountains. That will hopefully make you feel better and make that link between real life and one-off experiences’. And obviously not all Mountain Leaders operate like that.”
Emma emphasises that it is a “light touch” rather than wilderness therapy she’s offering. Since her spinal cord injury, she says she found speaking to coaches and mentors at charities useful, and she wanted to give back to others.
“If you acquire a disability, I think that it’s quite natural to have that complete loss of identity, loss of ability to function in society the way you're used to and needing that crutch, which in my case, and I think for a lot of people, is provided by charities. But then you get to that point where you start to piece the bits together yourself and the first thing [I felt like I] ought to do is give back to them and help the people coming through in the next ‘cohort’, as such. I think it's something that you can feel really called to do because you can use your experience to connect with people so easily. If you've got that opportunity, why not use it?
Emma is being support to scrabble over rocks by Wyn Lloyd, one of the physios who helped her up the first few mountains post injury. 2019.
It’s a similar story with her Mountain Leader qualification, which she was inspired to think about after going out in the mountains with various charities.
“There's this really cool charity called Adaptive Grandslam who have helped me an awful lot. The first time I went out with them, Martin [Hewitt], who runs it, said: ‘Look, if you want to do half a mile, that's absolutely fine. You've got two MLs [qualified Mountain Leaders] and a medic who are going to stay with you all day’. Which was maybe overkill, but I still remember it so strongly – being like, ‘wow, it can work, I can go out in a group again’. It wasn't the point at which I thought I could be a Mountain Leader, but it was the point that led me to thinking, ‘well, I think I can just keep going’.
Whilst it took a few years before Emma considered Mountain Leader training, as she grew more confident on these group hikes she started passing on her learning, and other walkers would point out how valuable her experience was.
“I would have other participants [on group walks] turn around to me and say, ‘I really like to walk with you within a large group because you pace very well’ and a lot of other people with neurological injuries would say, ‘I can step in your exact steps because you're not taking these huge steps.’ And that little bell is going off – these are all skills that I'm developing that I'm maybe not even noticing myself, but other people are pointing out to me, that could be really valuable to someone at the start of that journey.
Then I needed a new career as well. Being out in nature was something that I knew made me feel good when I was able to do it and it was something that I knew I would enjoy.”
Making steps into that new career, Emma started training as a Mountain Leader and a life coach. However, whilst she was studying both at the same time, combining the two wasn’t something she had initially planned to do. It was the encouragement from others that showed her it was needed.
“I was saying I want to become a Mountain Leader and I want to see if I can get this qualification with my injury. And a lot of the coaches operating within those charities were saying to me ‘have you thought about actually combining it with the coaching element?’ I think the personal experience that I've been through and the way I can use that to help people, it's not really a Mountain Leader’s job. It really came from a little bit of direction from other people saying ‘to just be a Mountain Leader would almost be a bit of a disservice from your experience and learnings’.”
Emma trained as a Mountain Leader by taking part in a six-day course. She found that the training course itself would be doable for her, but there was a lot of pre-planning and finding adaptations before she even arrived.
“I would advise anyone else with the type of physical disability that is going to struggle, potentially, with certain elements [of a course] to go out with someone that does assessments on a one-to-one basis and iron out the bits that could be the hiccups. That was what Martin had suggested to me.
The [Mountain Training candidate] handbook is really clear and it's going through that with a fine tooth comb because the [Mountain] Training courses are really intense and what [the course providers] don't have time to do is sit with you to work out solutions. They have time to show you stereotypically the way it's done. They don't have time to go into the details of ‘let's change this [to adapt to your requirements]’. You need to go with that yourself.
I also needed to do a split course, which is where the training split over two weekends rather than six days in a chunk. Due to my disability, I can't be out for six days on the trot, no way. And that narrowed down the choices I had in terms of providers because those split courses are generally, for no reason, viewed as not being quite as good.”
Emma spent a lot of time and also a lot of her own money to make sure she was prepared for the course. She says there are many costs to having a disability that other people doing the course don't necessarily have to consider.
“A thing that society deems to be really easy, when you live with a disability – it isn't. But quite often there is a way that you can do that thing. It just takes time, effort, money, and extra resources to be funnelled into it. And I would say the same about the course.
I was paying a Mountain Leader for, I think, about five days in total over the course of one summer, for 1:1 days together. Then I spent the winter honing those skills and it was the next spring that I did the training course. That's a lot of time and effort on my behalf, but it made me go in [to the training course] confident that I knew I was capable. So in my view, it was worth it.
When you've got a disability and you're trying to do something, you are constantly proving yourself. You're constantly having to say, ‘look, these are the solutions’. You've got to find what works for you.”
Despite spending so much time and money to find solutions, Emma was frustratingly met with some pushback on the training course when she tried to adapt techniques to work for her.
“The course provider wasn't as amenable as I would've hoped. In the stereotypical Mountain Leader fashion, if you are on scrambling ground and going up, you don't have sticks out. You need your hands more than your sticks, in theory. But for me, that's not really true. I'm not going to lie – it is awkward sometimes and sometimes I have to throw the sticks out and it doesn't look great, but it's how I can move in that environment. I'd already told the course provider that really, really clearly, and yet still we get to that day and I'm told ‘you are not allowed to have sticks out today’. Which was difficult because it meant I was an awful lot slower than I could have been, I was using three times the amount of energy I needed to. And really it was completely preventable.”
There are no rules saying Emma needed to put her sticks away to pass the course and it also had huge health implications for Emma.
“I was really angry, actually. I was incredibly angry. The first thing I did when I got off the mountain, I re-read the book and I called Mountain Training and several other assessors and I couldn't find any evidence [that I needed to put my sticks away]. Adaptations are welcome, and that's what I'd gone in thinking. But equally, when you are halfway up a mountain being led by somebody else and they're saying, ‘Categorically no’, do you turn around and go back? Or do you say, ‘I've been preparing for about two years. I'm just going to have to get on with it’. I wasn't really in a position to do anything else.
Despite the bad experience with that course provider, other Mountain Leaders she spoke with afterwards were supportive. After the bad experience in her training, Emma changed course provider for the Mountain Leader assessment.
“The assessor was absolutely fantastic about working with some small adaptations. And he has been helping me since too.”
What’s noticeable in our conversation is that Emma spent her own money and time to find solutions, and self-advocated when she knew there was no reason things had to be done the conventional way. Now she’s hoping that she can share what she’s learned about qualifying as a Mountain Leader with a disability, and she wants to offer resources for others.
“I think it is underestimated how much extra resources it takes. Mountain Training do offer grants aimed towards people with disabilities for elements of the training courses and the assessments, so they're doing their part to help. But in terms of the skills and the consolidation and the extra working out of adaptations, also buying the things you need for the adaptations, some resources would be helpful to a lot of people.”
I asked Emma about her connection to All the Elements, and whether that community has been supportive during her journey to set up Echo Outdoors. She said something that's been really valuable is the Disability Campaigners’ Socials.
“I'm not going to aim to fill what every disabled person is seeking, but it allows me to open my mind and say, a) Maybe I haven't considered that and I should be considering that, or b) Who do I know that can help solve that problem as well?
And you hear a lot of struggles and actually just realising whilst we love being outdoors, it's always a struggle. Hearing that from other people is reassuring. Having that community of people that get it, that you don't have to explain why it's a struggle. They just get that it is.
In terms of doing my life coaching diploma, I actually reached out to some of the other disability advocates and disabled people and asked if any of them would like some pro bono coaching as another way of giving back, just as I was finishing my coaching training. It was a great experience for me, dealing with the complex issues that arise for disabled people who love to be active and I think from the response I had, helpful to them too. These people obviously have goals of building communities in the outdoors, that's what All The Elements is about, but there are also a lot of them who are disabled. So it's kind-of my perfect audience.”
You can follow Emma Harrison on Instagram @echocoach, and find out more about her walks at echooutdoors.co.uk/. Emma was also one of the panellists on our ‘Leading The Way: The Future of Outdoor Leadership’ talk at the All The Elements stage at Timber festival – we’ll be sharing some insights from that panel on our website soon!
If you identify as disabled or chronically ill, or if you're working on disability inclusion, you can join one of our Disability Campaigners’ Online Socials. Find out more and register on our events page.
Further resources:
Find out more about the different Mountain Leader qualifications, how to get qualified, and the reasonable adjustments during qualification in the Mountain Training website.
If you want to learn more about Emma’s experience working towards her Mountain Leader qualification, check out her interview on the Mountain Training YouTube.
Adaptive Grandslam supports members of the disabled community to get outside. You can learn about their Adaptive Gradslam project to get athletes to the seven continents, seven summits and the North and South poles, unsupported
Emma recommended Paul Poole Mountaineering as someone who runs very inclusive MT courses. “I often recommend him to people”.
