I am really excited about this one as I first saw @scottandshayna present at @memphisroxclimbing Rox Fest and thought they would be perfect for our festival. Thanks to our friends and Gold Level Sponsor @mountainhardwear , Scott and Shayna will be at the Michigan Ice Fest!

Shayna Unger is a deaf woman, mountaineer, educator, and storyteller, born into a multigenerational deaf family and raised in the deaf community. Growing up, there wasn’t much deaf representation in the outdoors, nor access to outdoor education due to communication barriers. It wasn’t until after college that she began exploring the outdoors through backcountry hiking, bikepacking, sea kayaking, and mountain climbing.

Since climbing her first summit at Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015, she fell in love with climbing. Over the years, she has climbed some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest (where she became the first deaf woman to summit), Lhotse, Makalu, Manaslu, Denali, Aconcagua, and Kilimanjaro. 

Beyond the peaks, her passion lies in making the outdoors accessible for the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, spreading awareness, and changing global perceptions of deaf individuals. 

Scott Lehmann is a deaf mountaineer, educator, and storyteller, born into a multigenerational deaf family and raised in the deaf community. Growing up, there wasn’t much deaf representation in the outdoors, and he faced limited access to outdoor education due to communication barriers. It wasn’t after college that he taught himself to climb mountains by studying YouTube videos and asking other climbers on mountains using paper and pen to communicate.

Over the last ten years, Scott has climbed the world’s highest mountains like Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Denali, Mont Blanc, and Matterhorn. Most recently, Scott has become the first deaf American to reach Mount Everest and Lhotse. These climbs made him one of the first deaf individuals to achieve a double ascent of 8000m back-to-back in just 26 hours. 

Scott and his partner, Shayna Unger, launched a project, “Seeing Beyond: Seven Summits,” with the aim of becoming the first deaf individuals to reach the Seven Summits and to raise awareness, improve accessibility to information and education, increase deaf and disabled representation, and inspire their community to explore outdoors.