SheJumps: Finishing School

After an amazing road trip from Kirkwood, CA to Revelstoke, BC I was about ready to curl up into a ball and have some quiet time for a day or two.

However, that was not why I was in Revelstoke, Canada. This year SheJumps together with Anne Keller and Selkirk Lodge put on a one week pilot program to help encourage and inform ladies like myself about the mountains and how to get up, down and around them- I believe it is called ski mountaineering. The SheJumps Finishing School was born.

The program is the brain child of Anne Keller ( a certified AMGA & ACMG ski mountaineering guide) and Claire Smallwood (one of the backbones of SheJumps and a total badass). Along with eight other girls, I got to test out this program as well as get to know the amazing ladies who fuel and run the Selkirk Lodge.

It is hard to compress the experience into one blogpost. All the ladies on the program were amazing and taught me so much- a lot of the time not about skiing. It was huge melting pot of experiences and backgrounds and I feel so happy and proud to have been a part of it.

We did so many things, from learning about navigation, to self arrest, crevasse rescue and negotiating glaciated terrain. I have had previous experiences with a lot of these skills, however having the time and atmosphere to practice and build upon them was priceless. I'm not going to try and tell the whole story here but check out the photos from the week, they give a little bit of an idea of what 14 women did for a week in the backcountry. Keep your eyes open for some more write-ups and fun things coming out of this trip!

A special thanks to our guides: Anne Keller, Michelle Smallman and Kate Devine for safely taking us through some pretty extreme skills. Another to Grania and Reinet for putting us up in the Selkirk Lodge and not treating us like royalty. To Claire Smallwood and SheJumps for backing and organizing this program as well as catering for 14 ravenous ladies.
Thank-you Meghan Kelly, Sandra Lahnsteiner, Mckenna Peterson, Lynsey Dyer, Hannah Whitney, Emily Polar, Ashley Magnuson and Claire Smallwood for being the raddest bunch of ladies.!!
Finally thank you so much to all the companies that supported the trip: Black Diamond, Patagonia, Beyond Costal Sunscreen, Arcade, Chums, Taos Bar, Luna Bar, Ambler, Smith Optics, Discrete Headwear and Flylow Gear.