Starting at a young age Kendyl Murakami has been immersed in the outdoors. Kendyl has ten siblings and her mother fostered in her children a love of the outdoors taking them camping as a cheap alternative to other activities.
“Ten siblings is a lot to do like cell phones and all that stuff… We did everything outside.”
Kendyl to this day spends a lot of her free time outside. She enjoys camping, going to lakes, snowshoeing, skiing, hiking, kayaking and rock climbing.
“There’s so much to do in Alaska!”
Kendyl in recent years has been an avid rock climber and climbing is now her sport of choice. Kendyl first become interested in rock climbing after her older sister Julia took a rock climbing course at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Julia took Kendyl out and ever since they have shared a passion for the sport and partner climb with one another frequently.
“We went rock climbing in Spain, free climbing without ropes. That’s like what roped me down to rock climbing because that was so crazy! We went to this place in Spain that’s like the biggest free climb that you can do because it overhangs water. So it was kind of crazy like just falling because you get so high and you fall that far, but it wasn’t life or death scary, but you felt like you were dying.”
Kendyl travels frequently with her sister Julia. Traveling and rock climbing are Kendyl’s biggest motivators to work. Kendyl spent a year working for Village Inn and Suite 100 just to save money up for her trip to Europe which included her visit to Spain where she rock climbed with her sister Julia. After Europe Kendyl returned to work at Village Inn to save money for a trip to Hawai’i in February. That was then followed by a stint at ORSO’s to save for a visit to Myrtle Beach this last March. Kendyl now works as CNA. Julia always told Kendyl that travel is important and the two go as often as they can afford.
Kendyl and Julia in addition to their trip to Spain have done trips to Washington to chase routes.
“We’ve done other bouldering stuff in the Washington area where you bring your own pads, you hike in. Then you climb up however far you want or however far you’re comfortable falling. You either land on your pads. You only go ten or so feet up, fifteen feet if you’re really comfortable.”
There was also some more classic rock climbing the two did on the trip.
“When we were in Washington, there’s a thing they call tread climbing. It was already carabineered, clipped, routed so we just did that, but it was a double par. So that means you anchor in like 25 feet up so you climb like 10 or 15 feet and then you anchor into the wall and then you continue climbing. It’s like two pitch. It’s really scary because when you’re trying to anchor in you’re not actually tied to anything. That was probably the most coolest part we rock climbed.”
The two also spent time backpacking through California. They used the Rideshare service to get around and met numerous strangers along the way that quickly became friends. While in Sacramento they met two guys named Damien and Abel using Rideshare and ended up hiking Donner Summit to the Peter Grubb Hut which sits just of the Pacific Crest Trail near Sacramento with them.
Despite her vagabond lifestyle and the numerous places Kendyl has traveled there’s many places she’s yet to visit. And much, much more routes she would still like to climb.
“Yosemite is the king of all rock climbing. It’s crazy. They have so many pitches and it’s hundreds of feet up in the air. I’ll definitely go there one time.”
While Yosemite is her dream climbing destination, Kendyl is currently working as a CNA to save up for next trip. It won’t be long, however, before Kendyl travels to the mecca of rock climbing to finally conquer the great walls where women rock climbing legends before her laid the foundation for women in the sport of rock climbing. Kendyl may not be setting new paths, but she is conquering all the paths she has taken.
North Exposure 