THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR HIKING

“I come from the Andes, I’ve never been a hiker,” says Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, the first gay woman to conquer the famed Seven Summits.

But an ayahuasca-fueled trip to her fraught childhood with her mom and dad in the early aughts had her envisioning mountains. Soon after that and following an outing to Sports Basement for some climbing equipment in 2005, she began the journey that would take her to the highest peak on each of the seven continents — an adventure that culminated in 2018 with her glorious climb to the top of Denali in North America. It was there