Introducing Chloe-Anne Swink and The Swell Media + Marketing
The outdoor world is full of large spaces, tall mountains, and endless trails. Those large natural arena can also be very small places where friendships can build on every trek. I met Chloe about a year ago at the Outdoor Retailer show and we have kept in touch. We even share a favorite state park in Colorado, Staunton State Park. I have been impressed with her love of the outdoors and her way of showcasing environmental issues with her new website, The Swell Media + Marketing. Now it is time for all of you to meet Chloe-Anne Swink, Outdoor Adventurer as well. Chloe will also be helping me with some product reviews and other writing from a woman’s point of view so I wanted to give a proper welcome!
Getting Outdoors
FatMan: Chloe thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. Let’s start with the basics, what type of outdoor activities do you like and can you give me your top two most epic outdoor adventures?
Chloe-Anne Swink: I’ll try to keep the list as succinct as possible! Climbing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, freediving, hiking, and camping are my go-to outdoor activities. I also have a lifelong love for shooting photos of wildlife and wild landscapes.
I’ve had some real epics out there, but the first two wild adventures that come to mind are sleeping in a marshy field way off-trail that I immediately deemed as “moose territory” when backpacking with my now husband to Lone Eagle Peak in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. We started our hike late in the afternoon and didn’t make it to our destination by sundown, so we pitched our tent in a very un-trafficked area. That night, I woke up to a bear sniffing around outside the tent just a couple of feet from where my head was! He then proceeded to grunt and groan in frustration as he tried to get to our food stash hung from a nearby tree. That was a fun night. In the end, we made it to Lone Eagle Peak, which is where my husband proposed to me. I didn’t know that was coming when I was wanting to turn back the morning after the bear encounter!
More Adventures
Secondly, I was near Moab camping out on BLM land in March 2020 when everything shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. What a weird experience returning to town after being off the grid to find that hotels in the tourist hub of Moab were being evacuated by law enforcement and misdemeanors were being given to folks (like myself) found camping out on public land! Prior to that strange reality check, though, we followed obscure Mountain Project directions off-road to discover rad climbing destinations in a canyon where we didn’t see another soul for days, endured some seriously inclement weather, and I established a first ascent on a super aesthetic highball boulder with zero protection. It was an otherwordly adventure.
Colorado Roots
FM: You are also born and raised in the great state of Colorado. I was born in the flatlands of the midwest and it took me a while to get into the outdoors after I moved here. How do you think your upbringing in Colorado has formed your love of the outdoors?
CAS: I have both my parents and the great state of Colorado to thank for my indoctrination into the great outdoors. To be honest, I’m not sure it started out as a love of the outdoors. . . It’s just what we did. I knew nothing else. My great-grandfather had been a boy scout troop leader, and some of my earliest memories are of camping in Guanella Pass with my parents, grandparents, and cousins. I did certainly love Guanella Pass from early on! However, whether it was sleeping in a tent in 15-degree weather with a 40-degree sleeping bag from Walmart, or snowboarding through fresh powder in soaked Sorel boots, I have a TON of memories of being wet and cold!
That said, I’m grateful that I grew up learning how to make the most of Type 2 fun. And I’ve only grown more appreciative of my parents and this amazing state for the love of the natural world they both fostered in me since day one.
Conservation
FM: With your outdoor adventures, you also have developed a love for nature as well as the outdoors. Can you explain a bit about why you think keeping nature natural and using techniques like Leave No Trace are important?
CAS: Ugh, I’m gonna bring this back to Guanella Pass for a minute. The changes I’ve seen up there over the 25-ish years I’ve been camping there break my heart. The road over the pass used to be a rutted-out dirt road that was rarely trafficked. Now it’s paved, popular, and easy to access–-which is great—but, I go up there and find trash and toilet paper littered everywhere I hike. On summer weekends cars are parallel parked up and down the pass. Far more people are getting outside and discovering a love for the outdoors than ever before. With such massive increases in participation in outdoor activities and recreation, it’s absolutely critical that we take personal responsibility when we go out in nature. Otherwise, these ecosystems won’t be able to support the amount of traffic they’re experiencing and we’ll destroy the amazing wild places we love so much. Even something as seemingly harmless as walking off-trail can be detrimental to the landscape and plant life when thousands of people do it over time. That’s the compounding effect we all need to keep in mind.
The Swell Media + Marketing
FatMan: That love of adventure has led you to create a new company, The Swell Media + Marketing. Tell us a little bit about the Swell and its mission with the outdoors?
Chloe-Anne Swink: Yes! The Swell Media + Marketing is an extension of Chloe-Anne Copy Agency, LLC – the outdoors and active lifestyle copywriting agency I’ve owned and operated for the last three years.
While I’ve focused on marketing for outdoor brands with Chloe-Anne Copy Agency, The Swell aims to be more of a media hub driven to tell stories centered around the rising swell of positive action and innovation that’s being drummed up in the outdoor space. Each story that I curate for The Swell relates back to questions like: What is it going to take to maintain a sustainable and ethical outdoor industry? How can we humans recreate more symbiotically with nature? Who are the innovators and thought leaders promoting positive action in the outdoor industry?
The Swell Media + Marketing and Collabs
FM: What are your main goals with the Swell, Who would be a dream collaborator with you on the Swell?
CAS: Through The Swell, I hope to highlight key factors that must be addressed from a conservation and sustainability standpoint and drive more positive action and awareness surrounding our impact and relationship with the natural places we love. I hope to help light a fire that drives other outdoor lovers and recreationists to minimize human impact and get passionate about standing up for our public lands and the natural world.
As for dream collaborators. . . Hmmm, I feel Patagonia is the easy and obvious choice. If conservation matters, then you’ve kind of got to look up to what they’ve stayed true to as a company. Also, the World Wildlife Fund. I admire their organization so deeply and working with them, to support causes surrounding nature, wildlife, communities, and healthy ecosystems would be a dream (that I’ve had since I was about 10 years old!) come true.
Outdoor Writing
FM: You also run a copywriting agency for outdoor brands, what type of work do you do for brands with your agency?
CAS: Oh boy, I’m all over the place in the work my agency does. I like to say my specialty is distilling highly technical products and practices down to digestible, desirable stories, marketing, and copy. That runs the gamut from writing science-backed content for holistic health practices like Origin Physical Therapy to producing highly technical product copy for legacy companies like SRAM/RockShox.
There’s also a branch of my work where I get to take all the knowledge of technical gear that I’ve amassed and put it to work in the field. I’ve worked with publications like InsideHook to produce expert gear reviews and product recommendation pieces based on personal experience and knowledge.
Rapid Fire
FatMan: Okay time to get back to the outdoors and finish this off with some rapid fire questions. What is still on your bucket list for outdoor adventures?
Chloe-Anne Swink: My two major objectives this summer are to summit Lone Eagle Peak after backpacking in and backpack the Coyote Gulch Trail to the Jacob Hamblin Arch in Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah.
FM: Would you rather fly or take a road trip?
CAS: Generally, fly. But I do enjoy a road trip if I have plenty of time to stop and enjoy the journey!
FM: What is your go to snack on a hike?
CAS: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Bobo’s Oat Bars — I think I’m their biggest fan ever.
FM: What is the first food/drink that you go to at the end of a long adventure?
CAS: A cold fruity, sour beer
FM: If you could be anywhere right now, would you rather be on a beach, in the woods, or on a mountain?
CAS: Well, I live up on a mountain and it’s snowing right now (AGAIN!), so I’m gonna have to say a beach. I learned how to surf (poorly) a couple of years ago in Costa Rica. It was an instant love affair.
More From Chloe
FatMan: And Finally, where can people find more info on you?
Chloe-Anne Swink: Send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn! I love to meet new faces.
Instagram: @chloe.anne.copy & @the.swell.media
LinkedIn: @Chloe-Anne (Swink) Hendricks
Find my website at chloeanne-copyagency.com – The Swell Media + Marketing will also be live online soon within the next month. In the meantime, you can follow The Swell on Instagram for updates.
Wrapping Up
Thank you so much Chloe! I am very excited to introduce you to the fans on the FatmanLittleTrail website and am really excited to have you helping out with some product reviews on women’s gear. To see more Chloe and to follow along on her journey check out The Swell, and you can follow her on social media at… Plus keep an eye out for some reviews and writing popping up on Fatmanlittletrail.com soon.
More from The Fatman
If you enjoyed this post you may enjoy more of the posts on my Fatman’s Rambling page. Blogs such as “Screw it, I’m Trying”, “Hiking Alone not Lonely Hiking“, “Winslow, Arizona” and “Lost in the Woods” as well as many others may interest you there. If you have any comments or topics you would like me to cover, feel free to email me at fatmanlittletrails@gmail.com. Or you can keep the conversation going by following me on any of the below social media platforms.
Nice interview. Thank you.