In the 1980s Blum smartly transformed mountaineering into a metaphor for facing life’s challenges, the centerpiece for leadership lectures and workshops she offers around the country. She has talked to Silicon Valley executives about teamwork, decision-making, and cultural communication—all as important for scaling corporate ladders as mountains.

“I think we all have mountains that we’re climbing,” she says. “And I like the idea of walking above the clouds—cloudwalking—to the summits of our dreams.”

She also stays busy with numerous side projects, from organizing Berkeley’s annual Himalayan Fair to working with the politically progressive website moveon.org. She still sells the notorious “A Woman’s Place” t-shirts at public appearances and on her website, arleneblum.com. And she’s hard at work finally finishing her long-anticipated memoir, Breaking Trail: My Path from Molecules to Mountains, to be published by Scribners.

Blum hasn’t risked her life on any dangerous climbs in 20 years. She’s lost too many friends to falls and avalanches over the years. But the outdoors still beckon. She leads annual tourist treks to Nepal and around the world. And on her visit to Reed, she spent an afternoon hiking in the Columbia Gorge with friends; her daughter, who, alas, has no interest in mountains, stayed behind. Blum longs to retrace her Himalayan trek with Annalise, but she isn’t holding her breath.

“It turns out she likes basketball more,” she says with a laugh.

At the moment, however, one of Blum’s major preoccupations is college-hunting with her daughter. She notes, mostly joking, that she can lead expeditions up mountains, but can’t control what college her daughter will choose.

Of course, she hopes Annalise picks Reed.

After all, it is the place where her mother’s life changed course, taking her on a detour to some very high places.