Picture this: You’re walking 75 feet across a flat webbing that is 1.5 inches thick. You’re 200 feet above the ground at Red Rock Canyons in Moab, Utah. You have lots of climbing experience, but you’ve never done something like this before. And here’s the kicker — you’re 60 years old.

Sound crazy? Not to Laurie Watt, an adventurer who has spent her life taking on new challenges, testing her limits.

Laurie spent her last two years of high school at Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts. She loved playing the defensive position of stopper in soccer.

“When I told my coach I wanted to play soccer in college, he said, ‘You’ll never play in college.’” She went to Colby College in Maine, trained hard, made the varsity and served as the team captain her senior year, while making the NESCAC All-Conference team. Take that, coach.

A psychology major at Colby, Laurie jokes that her top three priorities at Colby were social life, soccer and academics, in that order. One can’t fault her honest self-reflection.

After Colby, Laurie earned her master’s degree in physical therapy at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

“I wanted a job where I could be physically active and not just sit behind a desk.”

She worked in physical therapy at various locations while living with her husband, Chris, and starting a family, The family moved to Zurich, where her son and daughter started school. Ever the adventurer. Laurie would hike in the Swiss Alps after dropping her kids off at school.

After spending three years in Zurich, the family moved to London.

“I didn’t like living in the city, so I spent a lot of time walking in the English countryside,” Laurie said.

Two years later, they returned to Needham, Massachusetts, where Laurie started a private practice in physical therapy.

Bitten by the mountain-climbing bug, Laurie began taking guided trips to exotic locations, such as Mount Kilimanjaro, Patagonia and Alaska. Anxious to improve her technical skills, she began taking courses in rock climbing and ice climbing offered by Mooney Mountain Guides, based in Rumney, New Hampshire. While still living in Massachusetts, she would do her climbing trips on weekends.

She asked Alex Texeira, the owner of Mooney Mountain Guides, if he thought she could become a mountain guide.

“He said I could do it if I worked hard and offered to be my mentor.”

She took up the challenge and became certified in 2017. She decided to stop her physical therapy practice, move to New Hampshire and become a full-time mountain guide. Her always-supportive husband joined her on weekends.

She has led rock climbing, ice climbing, winter mountaineering, hiking and backpacking trips in the White Mountains, as well as glacier travel and skills courses on Mount Baker in Washington. She now serves as director of women’s programs at Mooney Mountain Guides. Moreover, she is the climbing coach at the Holderness School and an instructor in rock climbing at Plymouth State University.

When asked about the challenges of being a mountain guide, Laurie immediately said, “The weather. You have to determine what you can do and where. You also have to work hard to stay fit. Actually, I’m in better shape now than I was as a soccer player at Colby.”

And the rewards?

“You help people get out of their comfort zones. You get them to the point where they see a cliff or a piece of ice and say, ‘I can do that.’ That renewed sense of self confidence carries over into all parts of their lives.”

To succeed as a mountain guide, one needs not just essential skills, but also the ability to motivate people, to help them overcome their fears. As Laurie says, “Most mountain guides are men who are younger than I am. I may not be the fittest athlete, but I do know how to support people and help them succeed.”

Because of her tremendous ability as a teacher and motivator, Laurie was recently named Guide of the Year by the American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA). When asked who makes that decision, she said, “Other mountain guides.”

When asked how she succeeded in her slack-lining adventure in Utah, Laurie said, “I had to totally focus on what I was doing to overcome my fear. I refused to fall.”

Today, Laurie’s husband, now retired and living in New Hampshire, is an adventurer in his own right. He takes magnificent underwater photos while scuba diving around the world. Their son, Ryan, works for a small start-up in Denver, and their daughter, Abby, just started out on her veterinary career.

Laurie believes that our culture has done a disservice to senior citizens.

“Older people are more capable than they’ve been led to believe. You just have to keep moving, keep trying new things.”

Good point, Laurie, but don’t expect this old writer to try slack lining or ice climbing anytime soon. My hands get sweaty just looking at the photo of you on the line. I’ll settle for tamer new challenges like taking piano lessons, thank you very much.

That said, thanks for the terrific example you set for anyone at any stage of life. You rock.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future Just a Little Old columns at [email protected].