By the Finish of a Mountain climbing Journey, Their Relationship Was Elevated

Dr. Alyssa Rebecca Levine and Dr. Liam Whelan Gallagher met in 2010 once they each joined the Williams College swim group of their freshman yr.

“Aly was in a different league than I was,” mentioned Gallagher, now 34, who had come to the game comparatively late, at 12, whereas rising up in Baltimore.

Levine, 33, was raised in a swimming household in Berkeley, Calif., and began swimming whereas she was nonetheless in diapers. Her mom, Susan Helmrich, was the primary feminine swimmer to be awarded a university scholarship at Syracuse University in 1975.

“Aly swam superfast and was the team captain, so I admired her from afar,” Gallagher mentioned.

What Gallagher didn’t know then was that the admiration was mutual.

“Our team was competitive, and Liam fit right in it,” mentioned Levine, noting that Gallagher routinely downplayed his achievements. “Yet I was also intimidated. Liam was doing lots of interesting things besides swimming and had a much more well-rounded life than I did.”

During their 4 years of school in Williamstown, Mass., the 2 shared numerous hours within the pool, but their friendship remained informal. Gallagher graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in English and chemistry; Levine has a bachelor’s diploma in sociology.

After school, they took related paths however in numerous instructions. Both labored in health-related consulting earlier than heading to medical faculty. Gallagher enrolled at Columbia University, the place he obtained a medical diploma in 2022. Levine, after a stint as a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, earned a medical diploma from Emory University in 2020.

In June 2021, Levine, then a first-year resident on the Department of Pediatrics on the University of California, San Francisco, reached out to former members of the swim group for a bunch hike up Mount Shasta in Northern California. Gallagher, an avid outdoorsman, was nonetheless in New York however had a quick break from his research, so he jumped on the alternative.

Neither Levine nor Gallagher was sure of the opposite’s relationship standing, however in the course of the ascent of Mount Shasta, they felt a rising connection. The group of 5 started climbing at dawn, enchanted by the magic of the mountain. By the descent, Levine and Gallagher had an inkling that one thing was occurring between them.

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Gallagher was the primary to acknowledge the spark. Several days after the hike — the 2 had decamped with one different buddy to Bend, Ore. — they had been purchasing for provisions when Gallagher turned to Levine and mentioned, “We should always grocery shop together.”

“I was smitten,” Levine mentioned. The two organized a day by themselves in San Francisco earlier than Gallagher flew again to New York.

Despite their robust connection, Levine couldn’t see a transparent path to being collectively. They lived on reverse coasts, and every had years of medical coaching forward in but unknown areas over which that they had little management. Levine was upfront about her worry of heartbreak. Gallagher assured her that “nothing bad is going to happen.”

Levine took the danger, and the 2 began a relationship.

While making use of for his residency in 2021, Gallagher moved to Reno, Nev., just some hours’ drive from Levine’s residency in San Francisco. When time allowed, the 2 spent weekends snowboarding, biking and having fun with the outside. They held their collective breath, hoping for his residency to land him in California, however Gallagher matched to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis, the place he’s now in his fourth yr as a resident in otolaryngology.

Levine hatched a plan to get herself to Minneapolis, going all in to get matched for her personal fellowship there, a calculated gamble. “We were planning our future before we had even celebrated a year together,” Levine mentioned. She was nonetheless apprehensive about becoming a member of her profession path to Gallagher’s so quickly of their relationship.

“Nothing is scary with you,” Gallagher informed her.

By Thanksgiving 2024, any doubt about their future collectively had lengthy vanished, and simply after the primary snow of that yr, Gallagher proposed to Levine by the sting of Lake of the Isles.

On April 18, underneath a vibrant blue spring sky, the couple wed on the Presidio Yacht Club in Sausalito, Calif., with 130 friends in attendance. Christopher Greeno, a detailed buddy and fellow alumnus of the Williams College swim group, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church for the occasion, officiated.

“How lucky we are,” Levine mentioned in her vows. “I am certain that we can do anything together.”