Black Diamond Global Athlete
CARLA PEREZ
Carla’s father introduced her to the mountains at the age of 4, when he took her to the top of a 14,000-foot volcano near their home in Quito, Ecuador. That trip inspired a passion for high places and set the trajectory of her life. As a teenager she started seriously hiking and climbing at her country. Carla’s love of the mountains took her to the French Alps, where she studied geology and got a masters’ research degree in Solid Earth in the University Joseph Fourier at Grenoble. But her passion for mountaineering push her to pursue a career as a mountain guide. Now she is a certified member of the Ecuadorian Association of Mountain Guides and is on her way to earning her IFMGA certification. Her big-mountain accomplishments include summits of five 8000ers without supplemental oxygen (Everest, K2, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Manaslu), first women of the Americas(North, Central and South) to climb and descend Everest and K2 without supplemental oxygen, and first women in the world to climb both in the same year, the south face of Aconcagua and a bunch of new routes and first ascents around the world. Carla has become a role model for women and girls throughout South America and around the world. At home in Ecuador, she directs a social project, Mas Allá De Una Cima (“Beyond the summit”), that helps people with mental disabilities or limited means to participate in outdoor activities in the Ecuadorian Andes.
