Not all the women here are foreign: Ally Rainey tours the region, working on her Bouldering for Beginners guidebook. Rainey, who writes and competes and occasionally guides to survive, stumbled unaware into the Gunks in the midst of the invasion. Her personality is contagiously all smiles. Whether she’s aware of it or not, Rainey is a role model for other girls hoping to live a climbing life — spitting the gimmick to make ends meet.

Colete McInerny tells me about how she’s going to pack up an old Civic and drive to Squamish after she finishes her last semester at Fordham University just outside of NYC. Taking a drag from her menthol cigarette, her highlighted-blonde hair masking half her face, she asks me if I think she can exist on the road. Obe Carrion jumps in, “Do you have the desire, the heart? ’Cause that’s all you need!” Obe’s been living life on the road for several years, specializing in competitions. Carrion is gregarious — at times excessively — such that he has earned the moniker “50/50,” “Because half the people love me and the other half are haters.”