It was the year 2006 when Evelyne Lizama Schmeisser entered the career of Pedagogy in Physical Education at the University of Concepción. His family was never linked to mountain sports. She practiced skating, running and athletics; In this last discipline she was part of the university team.
Unfortunately, an injury kept her from the slopes and she looked for a complementary sport, finding the Climbing Workshop at the University of Concepción, so she started climbing and realized that she liked adventure sports, contact with nature.
His path continued. He was in his third year of college. In 2009, specialties had to be chosen and they were chosen by ranking. “I got my act together and began preparing to apply for the swimming specialty and the recreational activities in nature specialty. The latter provided different knowledge to be able to develop outdoor sports, including climbing and mountaineering,” he said.
In the midst of these specialties, Evelyne realized that she loved the second and began to participate in national and international training that at that time began to be developed in Chile. “I did my first professional technical training course in the climbing area, finishing it in 2011 in parallel with my career,” she said.
13 years later, Lizama is a national level 2 climbing instructor and has also completed training to become an international mountaineering instructor guide with the UIMLA (Union of International Mountain Leader Associations) mention.
“During all these years I have never lost my motivation for teaching. I am currently working in Santiago for the San Sebastián University, specifically in the Engineering degree in Expedition Management and Ecotourism; I also do training for the new generations of instructors who are developing mountaineering and climbing in Chile,” he said.
Pioneer woman and her memories UdeC
From this month, Evelyne is the first woman to preside over the Chilean Association of Mountain and Climbing Guides/Instructors. In this regard, the former student of the UdeC Faculty of Education confessed that it is a challenge, in the sense that sometimes the paradigm in which the different organizations are located must be changed.
“When I started developing the activity I joined the RAUC Mountain Club, of which I was also president. I was also part of the first generation of international mountain guide training in Chile. “It is an activity with a very large volume of men, so a decision had to be made and paths opened,” she highlighted.
Among his favorite places to develop his great passion is the Garganta del Diablo in the Valle de las Trancas, one of the places where Physical Education students still take their mountain class, in addition to the Antuco Volcano.
When remembering her time at the University of Concepción, Evelyne mentioned with special affection Professor Gustavo San Juan Vargas, with whom she maintains contact to this day.
“He, with his motivation, always gives all his knowledge. He saw that I was very interested in outdoor activities. I didn’t have the technical boots that were needed, at that time I had a student budget. I made the efforts, I worked and I bought the footwear that I could afford at that time, which was not of such quality, but it served me well. At that time, Gustavo had very small boots that he had brought from Coyhaique, which were very difficult to find. He sold them to me almost as a symbolic act, because it was at a ridiculously low price,” he recalled. Once her complete equipment was purchased, Evelyne passed those boots on to another student who had the same dreams as hers.
Regarding his challenges at the head of the ACGM, Lizama considered that a very important one is to better professionalize everything related to the mountains in Chile, establish good links with government entities and create work links between people who are professionals in the mountain area. and people who want to go out to the mountains.
