Rachel Kelsey Colenso, South African-born and Oxford educated, was South African National Climbing Champion in 1993, the first woman ever to go through British Special Forces 21 SAS Selection (1998-9) and was a member of the winning team in the 2000 Borneo Challenge. Rachel was involved in an expedition to Mount Everest to help a paraplegic man see the mountain with his own eyes (October 2003) and was a finalist in Superhuman, a UK TV programme broadcast in April 2004. She was one half of the first South African couple to climb the north face of the Half Dome at Yosemite National Park in the US (Hardest Climb for Charity, September 2005). Rachel organised and led the Girls Go Guyana 2006 all-woman expedition through a remote region of the Amazon jungle to promote sustainable development through eco-tourism. While she is not out climbing, exploring or competing (she was a member of the winning team in the 2006 Belize Challenge extreme endurance marathon), Rachel is a speaker listed in the top 100 speakers in the UK. She is represented by leading European and South African business and motivational speaking agencies. Rachel lives in Cape Town, and is co-founder and director of Kelsey Adventures, a small expedition company based in London. She is married to Jeremy Colenso and is a new mother with a baby daughter.
Click on the links below for various articles, interviews and features on Rachel and her adventures:
An interview with Jenny Murray of BBC Radio 4
An article in Sarie magazine, in the ‘Gewildste’ section, December 2008
An article for Gsport
Mention on forum of Getaway magazine
Health24.com
Outdoorsmagic.com
Superhuman contestant profile (Channel 4, UK TV)
Capetownalive.co.za - True Cape Town Heroines
