KAREN MCNEILL
 Karen McNeill, aka “Curly”
April 15, 1969 – 2006.
Chicks with Picks guide Karen McNeill had a wildly fun teaching style and the stories of her antics are legendary-she often taught Maori warrior songs to novices to help drive away their fears. It worked! Another famous story includes her anointing glitter make-up on everybody in her group. Then, as each chick reached the top of her climb, Karen would yell, “Are you a Goddess?” and wait patiently for the correct answer which had to be delivered with a full belly shout: “YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I AM!”
Originally from Taihapi, New Zealand, a small farming community on New Zealand’s north island, Karen started climbing with her college outdoor club in about 1988.
 Almost immediately she was hooked on the mountains and turned her farm-girl work ethic to climbing on every available day for the rest of her life. In particular, Karen applied her ruddy Kiwi attitude and endurance to high mountains and expeditions. Much of her success came not purely from her climbing skills, but because she excelled at the sometimes-tedious business of organizing, researching, and leading trips to remote mountain regions.
Her climbing took her all over the world--see Karen’s resume for a complete list of her expeditions and accomplishments--but most significantly her climbing took her to Canada, where she eventually became a citizen. Canada is also the place were she met and lived with the love of her life, Brad Bennet. In the end, the small town of Canmore, AB became her hometown.
Throughout her years of climbing Karen naturally leaned towards climbing with women. From the beginning she climbed predominantly with female partners and organized and led expeditions with all-female teams. This was not something she did purposefully. It was the way that made sense to her. Women were the people—with like minds, bodies, and souls—that made sense to her in the mountains.
Karen, her friends, and her climbing partners were “Queenly Cuntesses.” She used the word “cunt” often and proudly with a glint in her eye and a cheeky smile. Karen had a penchant for reminding her friends that they were Goddesses and that there were rules for Goddesses: a Goddess does not apologize—the word “sorry” must be eradicated from a Goddess’s vocabulary. Further, and in the same spirit of helping women think about what they were saying, a Goddess must accept and take compliments graciously rather than deny them. Karen was like an unruly angel on a crusade to shake up woman-kind. Dressed in glitter and armed with sparkles and shine, Karen sprinkled confidence and esteem amongst women wherever she went.
There is no better example of Karen’s influence on women than her impact as a guide at Chicks with Picks. Karen came to Chicks with no guiding experience and almost no experience in teaching climbing, but she immediately established herself as a top instructor. The teaching part came easily because she had honed her skills teaching the worst of Alberta’s criminal youth at Enviros Wilderness School, and then later through one of her great loves: the Nakoda children of the Morley reserve school where she taught as a full-time substitute teacher when not away on expeditions.
On May 14, 2006, Karen and climbing partner Sue Knott started up what has been called Alaska’s “ultimate” climbing test piece, the aptly named Infinite Spur on the south face of Mount Foraker. By May 31st Karen and Sue had not returned to base camp and an extensive search and rescue effort ensued. What are believed to be their tracks were photographed 200 feet below Foraker’s south summit. The searchers believe that during the time Karen and Sue would have been making these tracks a severe wind storm raged across the mountain. It is believed that Karen and Sue either climbed into a hole to seek cover where they eventually died of exposure or that they were blown off the mountain. Their bodies were not found.
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