Cardiac nurse and elite climber, Reno's Libby Sauter featured in book celebrating women

There’s a certain sort of inner calm Libby Sauter needs when working in the pediatric intensive care unit, caring for babies recovering from heart surgery. It’s the same type of measured focus she’s honed over years of elite-level rock climbing around the world.

In 2014, Sauter set the women’s speed-climbing record for “The Nose” route on Yosemite’s El Capitan with climbing partner Mayan Smith-Gobat; in 2017, at age 31, she became the youngest person inducted into the American Alpine Club hall of fame. 

She’s also traveled the world treating children who suffer from heart disease in low-income countries.

“Rock climbing and nursing can both be highly intense, high-stress problems that require lots of intricate problem solving and knowledge, but they’re also really rewarding,” said Sauter, a native Nevadan who calls Reno home. “Your ability to work though hard situations to get to a good ending is present in both.”

Sauter is one of dozens of female rock climbers featured in “Valley of Giants,” a new book celebrating the contributions women have made in Yosemite National Park, the mecca of North American rock climbing.

The collection of essays and short stories looks at feats by women over the past century, a history that, until now, has primarily focused on the accomplishments of men.

Making it to the top 

Sauter, 37, grew up in Las Vegas, a naturally athletic child who was walking at five months old. She first rock climbed at a sixth-grade nature camp, eventually joining a climbing team at her local gym.

Before going to college, Sauter wasn’t sure what she wanted to study. Her mom, a nurse who worked in the intensive care unit, told her nursing “offers you enough time and enough money to pursue what you want once you really know.”

The intricacy of working in the cardiac unit was exciting to Sauter, and after graduating from the University of Las Vegas in 2006, she moved to California, working at Stanford Medical Center’s pediatric heart intensive care unit. By now an avid rock climber, she also joined the elite Yosemite Search and Rescue team, a position that pushed her mentally and physically.

In 2014, she and Smith-Gobat set the all-women’s speed record for climbing the famed “Nose” route on Yosemite’s El Capitan, blasting up the nearly 3,000-foot route in four hours and 43 minutes. It takes most people who attempt the route multiple days. That same year, she and Quinn Brett climbed two routes on El Capitan in less than 22 hours, the first all-female team to do so.

After several years working at Stanford and Yosemite Search and Rescue, she left to work with the William Novick Global Cardiac Alliance, a position that has taken her to low-income countries around the world.

She watched the fall of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Libya as rockets and later celebrations, filled Benghazi; just weeks ago she was in Ukraine, working with doctors and nurses she’s known for years, because “no child should have to die because of where they are born.”

A sense of community

Sauter has seen her fair share of death, both at work and personally.

In 2017, a close friend and climbing partner took a 100-foot fall on El Capitan that left her paralyzed. Shortly after, another friend died rappelling in Yosemite.

“I now associate every corner of that park with a fatality. And I didn’t like that,” Sauter said. She stepped away from big-name sponsorships such as Adidas, which required her to always be at the top of her game. “I realized climbing is amazing, the mountains are beautiful, but the most important thing, the thing that keeps it worthwhile, is that it gives you life through the community.”

That sense of community is what keeps climbing an integral part of her life, but at a more measured level.

In 2018, Sauter returned to work at Stanford, commuting from Reno twice a month; she’s studying to become a nurse practitioner, and starting this fall, she’ll be working full-time at Community Health Alliance, building off her work abroad.

A strong network of climbing friends and a sense of community is also what she chose to write for her excerpt in “Valley of Giants.”

The book is a preservation of oral history also aimed to “make women feel they belong within in the sport, and they belong in Yosemite,” said editor Lauren DeLaunay Miller, another former Yosemite search-and-rescue team member who compiled the collection of essays. “If we’re looking for examples of people that look like us, that make us feel like we can do that too, we get to see that, and I think that’s really cool.”

Sauter wrote, “My success in Yosemite was born of inner grit and a desire to fit in, but in the end, it was made possible by strong partners and good friends … to truly reach your potential, you must dig into the community.” 

Libby Sauter and Lauren DeLaunay Miller will present a slideshow and read excerpts from the book at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Mesa Rim Climbing Center in Reno. DeLaunay Miller will also present at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Alpenglow Sports in Tahoe City.

Amy Alonzo covers the outdoors, recreation and environment for Nevada and Lake Tahoe. Reach her at aalonzo@gannett.com. Here's how you can support ongoing coverage and local journalism.