My name is Jon Glassberg and I own a production company called Louder Than Eleven. I make movies about climbing and adventure based out of Boulder, Colorado.

About two years ago I teamed up with outdoor clothing company Marmot and professional climber Paige Claassen to produce a world tour that would combine high end rock climbing in remote places of the world while simultaneously raising money for women and children in the countries we visited.

The project is called “Lead Now” and our goal is simple: spend one month in each country trying to climb the hardest routes we can find while working with non-profit organizations to develop marketing materials that they could use to fundraise for themselves and through our project.

The catch was that we wouldn’t be coming home between each month’s adventure and we would be traveling from one country to the next for nine months learning as we go.

Stop #8: Ecuador

Eight months into our trip around the world and we had left the comfort of our vacation destination on the Mediterranean Sea and headed to our fourth continent on the tour, South America.

We had no idea what to expect in Ecuador but we assumed the worst and thought that we wouldn’t find good rock, the country would be hard to navigate, and we would have a hard time communicating. Turns out, we were very wrong.

Upon our arrival we worked with the tourism board to get comfortable and create some photo and video content to promote the tourism in the area. The locals showed us their climbing areas that lived up to our high American standards and the diversity of the country was staggering. One day you are bouldering in the Amazon Jungle, the next, sport climbing at 14,000 feet in an alpine environment, and if you wanted that evening you could relax with a drink on the beach. After weeks of work, Paige established a new 5.13+ sport climb at 13,000 feet, calling it, “Middle Earth.”

Check out the video for the full story and look here for more videos and information about the Lead Now Tour, follow our Instagram, or visit our Facebook page.

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: Video Still