Laura Cortez is a trail runner born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Despite being born into a Mexican-American family, she was never able to fully discover her Mexican cultural identity as her father, Richard Cortez, steered her towards embracing her American roots.
Richard’s passing in 2022 led Laura down a path of self-exploration that included a flurry of trips to Amecameca, the mountain town her father grew up in and home to two of the highest peaks in North America, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl. In an effort to further discover the land and culture that shaped the generations before her, Laura set out to establish an FKT on a route from the city of Amecameca to the summit of Iztaccíhuatl — 17,129-feet above sea level. Her journey towards the peak led her in a direction she had always wanted to go but never knew which path to follow until she immersed herself within her family’s history.

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