Kristoffer Erickson and Cloe Medina Erickson combined their passions for exploration, art and architecture, and community development to create Atlas Cultural Adventures (ACA). Kris develops and guides ACA’s pure adventure programs, consisting of backcountry skiing, alpine and rock climbing, and trekking. Cloe is an architect and historic preservationist, and the founder of the Atlas Cultural Foundation. Cloe develops and leads ACA’s community engagement programs. Kris and Cloe and their daughter Noor Amina split their time between Zawiya Ahansal, Morocco and Chamonix, France.
Cloe Medina Erickson has over a decade of experience in historic preservation and community development, both in the States and abroad. Cloe holds a Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Environmental Design from Montana State University, Bozeman. Serving four years as a volunteer member and co-chair on the City of Livingston’s Historic Preservation Commission Cloe gained extensive experience collaborating with local, state, and federal governments, and citizens to accomplish sustainable community development projects. In 2005 Cloe took this experience across the Atlantic, combined it with her ability to speak Arabic and Berber and has since focused her efforts on sustainable community development in Zawiya Ahansal, a remote region in Morocco’s Central High Atlas Mountains. In 2009, Cloe founded the Atlas Cultural Foundation, a non profit organization that collaborates with rural Moroccans in order to improve their quality of life in the fields of cultural preservation, public health, and community education. Cloe has an exclusive partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Cultural to restore all of the historic structures in the region of Zawiya Ahansal. Since 2009, Cloe has developed and led international service learning and community engagement programs in Zawiya Ahansal in partnership with American universities and the Atlas Cultural Foundation. To learn more about Cloe and her community development work in Morocco, go to www.atlasculturalfoundation.org. To contact Cloe send an email to medinamorocco@gmail.com
Kristoffer Erickson, IFMGA Mountain Guide, represents a different breed. Although a photographer by trade, (Bachelor of Arts from Montana State University, Bozeman), for over a decade Kris has combined his passions for climbing, skiing and photography to document exploration throughout the greater mountain ranges of the world. His unique skill set has provided him the opportunity to work with the most accomplished athletes and for the most prestigious editorial and commercial clients. Kris is usually the one behind the camera lens, on the chin scraping slope, ready to capture the action before it happens. An accomplished ski-mountaineer and alpinist himself, Kris is a sponsored athlete for The North Face and holds first ascents and descents from the Antarctic Peninsula to the Himalaya, including the first ski descent of an 8,000 meter peak by an American male (Cho Oyu, 8201m, 2002). Throughout his travels, Kris has developed a passion for the people of the mountains and has committed to investing a significant amount of his time to philanthropic endeavors that increase the quality of life in remote mountain regions or further opportunities for climbing and exploration in his own community. Kris’ humanitarian efforts include the Khumbu Climbing Center, the Himalayan Cataract Project, the Hans Saari Memorial Fund, the Atlas Cultural Foundation, and the Southwest Montana Climbers’ Coalition. To learn more about Kris and see his photography work, go to www.kristoffererickson.com. To contact Kris send an email to kristofferjerickson@gmail.com
