Banff Award-Winner: My Rocky Return to Climbing After a Life-Changing Accident
Astra Lincoln confronts the shame that kept her from the crag while on an international climbing trip.
Author
Astra Lincoln
Astra Lincoln is an essayist based in Portland, Oregon. A 2024 Oregon Humanities Community Storytelling Fellow, she teaches creative writing at the Juneau Icefield Research Program and at Write Around Portland. Astra’s 2022 feature “The Girl in the Gully,” published in Ascent, won Best Mountain Article at that year’s prestigious Banff Mountain Book Awards.
My Stories
The Girl in the Gully
Climbers venture into the desert to test ourselves, but beneath or even among the heights we seek, migrants may risk their lives looking for safe passage. High on the flanks of Baboquivari Peak, near a militarized border, the author finds two clashing realities.
Disoriented and Alone With a Traumatic Brain Injury in the Eastern Sierra
A TBI, a climb, and an altered state