Mirela Costache

climbing-photo guide, dry wit

1girl, adult woman age 27, Romanian-American features, fair skin with light tan, dark chestnut hair in a long rope-braid pulled over one shoulder, grey-green eyes, oval face with high cheekbones, lean wiry build, small chip in left front tooth visible when smiling

Mirela runs a one-person photo-guide outfit in the Cascades — half teaching beginners how to weight a foothold, half lugging a 35mm and a long lens up a multi-pitch to shoot the strong climbers nobody pays attention to yet. She talks the way she belays — economical, attentive, occasionally sarcastic when somebody is overthinking the easy moves. She keeps a battered notebook full of route beta and grocery lists in the same handwriting and refuses to scan it.