Laura Cortez: Letting Go at 15,000 Feet

At 15,000 feet, the world becomes a vortex of fog, ice, and impenetrable forest. As trail runner Laura Cortez emerged from a mile-long army crawl through dense brush in search of the trail to Mexico’s 17,000-foot volcanic summit of Iztaccíhuatl, she met the alpine sun and the clouds racing to obscure it.

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She scanned the Mars-like expanse before her, knowing the wrong turn she’d made earlier may have closed her window of opportunity to complete the city-to-summit FKT attempt she’d spent months training for. Every moment she hesitated, her situation grew more dire. As her ego screamed for her to push through and prove herself, a quieter voice grew stronger: her father’s.

“My dad was my ego check all the time,” Laura recalls. An athlete himself, Richard Cortez was Laura’s biggest fan and anchor to values deeper than winning, like sportsmanship and gratitude. As her trail running career took off, his guidance was impactful, if puzzling. “He’d always tell me to make sure I take a minute to thank the universe” – advice that seemed out of place from her conservative father, but ultimately, “he planted the seed in my head that sport is more than just [about winning].”

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Born a second-generation Mexican-American in South Texas, Richard often visited his parents’ hometown of Amecameca growing up. This deeply traditional town of about 50,000 sits 50 miles from Mexico City at the foot of two of the highest peaks in North America: the myth-shrouded volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, known affectionately as ‘Popo’ and ‘Izta.’

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While her father grew up in proximity to Mexico, Laura’s parents always discouraged her and her brother from visiting, citing safety concerns. Laura didn’t grow up speaking Spanish and recalls little emphasis on embracing their cultural identity due to stereotyping and prejudice against Latinos in the US. 

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Even so, Richard never shied away from helping Laura understand her heritage, which, over time, encouraged in her a deeper curiosity. “So much of what brought me comfort in my ties to Mexico stemmed from him. All my questions about childhood and culture were answered by him.” Without a direct relationship to Mexico, Richard was not only her athletic mentor, but her strongest link to her family’s heritage.

“He’d always tell me to make sure I take a minute to thank the universe. He planted the seed in my head that sport is more than just about winning.”

That’s why, when he passed away in 2022 after decades of smoke inhalation as a firefighter, she felt a void in her identity bigger than she’d expected. “I didn't realize that he was the tether to everything – from food to language to jokes to pop culture. It hadn't really occurred to me, and that was horrifying.” 

So began her journey to find the connection her father once brought her. When an opportunity arose to design a trail running project of her choosing, she knew she wanted to do it in Amecameca to finally explore her family’s roots. 

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She chose to take on the city-to-summit route from Amecameca to Izta, tracing the path archeological evidence suggests had been taken by Mesoamerican peoples for centuries. The goal was to complete the 12-mile, 9,000-foot elevation gain ascent to the summit in under four hours. This expedition is difficult, with glaciers, class 2-3 scrambles, and route-finding demands.

The challenge is exactly what drew her. Over her 9 years as a trail runner, 29-year-old Laura approached the sport with an intensity that fueled her to achieve ever more. 

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Then, right before her father passed away, she was accepted into the national athlete development program that sponsored the Izta summit trip. From the outside, it seemed everything was going right. But underneath, she was struggling with the weight of her own sky-high expectations.  “It used to be very often debilitating to consider going for a run, because what if it wasn't perfect?” she recalls. That relentless pressure to perform drove her to succeed, but also weighed heavily on her soul. 

Over the next few months after getting sponsored, she made trips to Amecameca to train for the summit attempt. During those first visits, Laura leaned into the love she’d always felt from her Mexican family to ease her anxiety and imposter syndrome. Even though her extended family had since moved to Mexico City, she felt her father’s presence there. Visiting the places he’d told her about and being embraced with warmth and acceptance by the locals made every day she spent there feel like “a welcoming hug.”

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Through a serendipitous meeting with a shaman and the witnessing of traditional mountain ceremonies, she saw the contrast between Western mountaineering’s conquest mentality, fixated on competition and winning, and the indigenous reverence for the land rooted in gratitude and community, so similar to her father’s values. 

Laura was beginning to see how Western ideals of performance had shaped her own approach to sport. The more she worked through her grief by learning about her father’s hometown and the volcano’s spiritual significance, the more doubt she felt about whether her heart was really ready for an endeavor so focused on individualistic achievement. Still, the self-imposed pressure to perform was strong, and she planned to move forward.

The morning of the attempt was clear and promising. She felt optimistic, and knew she had to summit by midday to beat the daily storms.

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For the first few hours, climbing from 8,000 to 15,000 feet, her progress was swift. Then she realized she’d taken a wrong turn and lost the trail. As she tried to recover the path, the weather gained on her. “[I had] reached my maximum capacity and ability to navigate the situation, and [I knew I had to] either meet my crew or get screwed out there.”

At first, her ego resisted, but her father’s humbling presence grew stronger. With his guidance in her heart, she was able to accept that attempting the last 2,000-foot pitch to the summit with no visibility would be too dangerous. She knew then that it was time to let go and get found. 

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The fog closing in didn’t cloud her mind with panic; rather, it served as a trigger for her expert reflexes. She pulled out her map and began navigating to the hut where her crew was tracking her. She barreled through ridgeline after ridgeline, powered by the knowledge that safety lay on the other side of her willingness to accept defeat. 

“I had reached my maximum capacity and ability to navigate the situation, and I knew I had to either meet my crew or get screwed out there.”

Eventually, voices calling her name and then silhouettes materialized through the mist, and her heart lifted knowing she’d crossed over into safety. 

Immediately following the attempt, Laura felt upset. “It was my first time failing in such a public way. My ego was humiliated.” 

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A couple of months later, though, she realized that the ego-driven nature of the attempt had prevented success from the beginning. Her feelings of failure eventually gave way to gratitude for the humility and connection the experience brought her. The day not going as planned turned out to be an unexpected gift that replaced her perfectionism with self-acceptance.

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Finally, all the wisdom her father had shared with her over the years fully clicked. While she jokes that the trip “killed my competitive spirit,” what she found on the other side was true liberation. 

These days, she pushes less and enjoys more. “Trail running is a spiritual discipline practice now, as opposed to something to conquer and win.” She is planning a return to the volcano to attempt the route again, this time in a way that feels true to her.

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“I still feel competitive, I want to do well. But now I want training to be more exploratory, and do the things that make me release my white-knuckle grip on this idea of what a perfect trail running life looks like – because ultimately I already have it.”