Iceline Hiking at Stanley Mitchell

Nathalie Drotar

Nathalie came to Western Canada from her native Switzerland for the first time as a nanny when she was young and fell in love with the people here – their humor and kindness – the pace of life and what seemed to be a country with limitless opportunities. She came to visit every 3 years or so before deciding to emigrate and actually doing so in 2008.

By then besides following a career in the office world, she had always been sportively active and was finding balance in running (Nat’s ran 4 marathons) and mountain biking in the summer and skate-skiing in the Jura mountains and in ski-touring the Alps in the winter. After arriving in Western Canada she got in touch with the ACC – Alpine Club Canada – Calgary section to meet people who would help her discover the Canadian Rockies.

Fast forward to 2019 when Nathalie is now Canadian citizen (dual Swiss-Canadian citizen), an ACMG – Association of Canadian Mountain Guides – Hiking Guide with over 10 years’ experience as a volunteer leading back-country trips for the ACC Calgary section. In 2016, she was the recipient of the Eric Brooks Leader Award – alongside her husband! – and in 2019 the Silver Rope for Leadership Award. Nathalie loves giving back to the community by mentoring young women to become trip leaders and pursues her outdoorsy, multi-sports lifestyle any time of the year: in the summer you will find her mountain or road biking, hiking or backpacking, rock climbing or mountaineering. In the winter, you can find her cross-country or skate skiing, ski touring or ice climbing.. all of this with her active husband, friends or ACC members.

Lenora (Lenny) Carbonetto

ACMG Hiking Guide
CAA Active Member
Wilderness First Responder

Lenora grew up in Eastern Canada living in Montreal and Kingston where she was first exposed to the mountains on family hiking trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and skiing in the Laurentian’s. Her first exposure to the Canadian Rockies was a wide-eyed summer spent working as a housekeeper at the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge on the Icefields Parkway, where she spent all of her free time poking around the peaks near Bow Lake. It was a job transfer with a bank four years later that brought her back to the Rockies, this time for good
During an AST-2 course in the Kootenays, in 2012, she met her first ACMG Mountain Guide who piqued her curiosity in the guiding industry. Lenora has now been a member of the ACMG since 2015 and the CAA since 2017. For her, the Rockies continue to be a place of wonder, love, respect and exploration, as well as a place where she finds inspiration and her most genuine connections with others. Lenora is also currently working on her second undergraduate degree in Psychology.