No Barriers

Abby Holcombe, Team USA Freestyle Kayaker

Episode Summary

During the recording of this episode the term McNasty was used. A quick search revealed some of its family members… the Sasquatch, lunar orbit, blunt, and a favorite… the tricki woo. These are all terms used to describe freestyle kayak tricks and is the world in which our guest, Abby Holcombe, operates. Abby is 3x Jr. National Champion and on the Team USA Freestyle Kayak squad. She’s 17, lives in a van with her parents, and is home-schooled… Correction, road-schooled and recently graduated high school. She’s a pro at living with uncertainty (some kids might move a few times in a year, she moves almost daily) and as she spends a bit of time underwater in fast moving rivers, has some ideas about managing fear. She’s certainly living an alternative lifestyle and one of which, by the looks of the images and videos that she shares on social media, invoke a degree of jealousy in any outdoor enthusiast. Our regular host Erik Weihenmayer is back from his climbing expedition to Ecuador and is joined by guest-host Antoinette Lee Toscano. As you might know Erik kayaked all 277 miles of the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon. Antoinette is an all-around adventure sports woman who came to whitewater kayaking to recover from a TBI and spinal cord injury resulting from her military service.

Episode Notes

Abby on Insta. https://www.instagram.com/adventurous.miss/

Abby's website.  https://www.abbyholcombe.com/

USA Freestyle fundraiser for World Championships. https://www.gofundme.com/f/usa-freestyle-fundraiser-for-world-championships