Travel With Altitude started with two people who fell in love with the mountains and then fell in love with each other. Not long after Kim and Don met, they set off on a tough hike to Silver Dollar Lake, Colorado, and something clicked: the effort, the elevation, the views at 12,000 feet - it was the first time they really understood how much they loved being in the mountains together.
Friends and family started noticing, commenting on their social posts with questions about trip planning, gear and where to go next. That constant stream of “how do you do this?” planted the seed for something bigger. The idea took shape before they had booked a single flight, but it became real when they started planning their first international alpine adventure, a winter trip to Banff, Canada in 2024.
Somewhere in the process of documenting the planning and the fun they had filming their time in the Canadian Rockies, they made the call: let’s actually build this. What started as trip notes for friends turned into a new adventure.
And Silver Dollar Lake wasn’t done with them yet. Don chose to bring Kim back to that same trail and proposed at 12,000 feet, turning the spot that sparked a shared love of the mountains into the place that sealed a life together.
Today, Kim and Don live in Lakewood, Colorado, at 6,000’, spending 60+ days a year above 9,000’ and adding to a list of 50+ mountain destinations worldwide. Don shreds on a snowboard, Kim carves on skis, and together they’re sharing the mountain life with the world.
Kim is a Colorado native, with a few detours through Chicago and Montana along the way, who’s been strapping on skis since she was 8 years old. Camping and hiking were a way of life growing up, and she credits an amazing aunt - part second mom, part mountain historian - with teaching her the names of every wildflower and the stories behind Colorado’s ranges.
Kim’s also a lifelong live music fan, having grown up going to shows at Red Rocks, and there’s still nothing they both love more than an outdoor concert under the stars.
Creative to her core, Kim holds a BFA in graphic design and has a longtime love of photography - skills that show up in every trip TWA documents. By day, she leads a global sales team for a large tech company, which funds the mountain life and, let’s be honest, the occasional nicer hotel.
Because if Don’s motto is “tent at Oktoberfest to stretch the trip,” Kim’s is “I hiked 12 miles today, I’d like a real shower and a soft bed, please.” Somewhere between the two of them, they usually land right in the middle - though longtime followers know exactly whose idea it was to splurge on that one Airbnb.
Don was born in Frankfurt, Germany, but it didn’t take long for the mountains to call - he grew up camping and exploring the woods, beaches, and lakes of the East Coast, racking up weeks in the Great Smoky Mountains as a Boy Scout along the way. A lifelong surfer and skateboarder, Don didn’t discover snowboarding until his late 40s, on a very unassuming hill in Missouri of all places, and one taste of the Rockies was all it took to get him hooked.
In the early weeks of COVID, he packed up and moved to Colorado for good. By day, he’s a patent lawyer with an electrical engineering background - funding the mountain adventures one patent at a time. By weekend, and often weekdays - don’t tell the boss - he’s chasing altitude with Kim, one trail or run at a time.
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