Alpine Climbing Camp

Sinixt, Ktunaxa and Secwepemc peoples’ territory
Bugaboo Provincial Park

This program is a five day alpine climbing camp centered around providing barrier-free access to climbing in the alpine environment. We desire to dismantle financial, experiential, mental and emotional barriers present for women-identifying, gender non-conforming, and trans folks in alpine climbing. Our focus is on developing skills through teaching and mentorship from ACMG certified guides and expert facilitators with backgrounds in clinical counselling and adventure-based therapy.

We facilitate discussion and reflection to address the unique barriers present for each individual participant. We create safe spaces to invite all folks to show up with the aim of growing personally and relationally while in the mountains. We strive to foster the development of technical and interpersonal skills so participants can confidently alpine climb in the future. We prioritize serving participants who have experienced barriers and/or marginalization in the mountains.

Over five days, our group moves through a progression of glacier travel, route finding and gaining general comfort in the alpine environment. This leads to two days of alpine climbing matched to each participant's comfort level and ability. Time is carved out daily to explore our internal experience both individually and within the group.

Participants are supported by the facilitation team through a series of virtual calls both before and after the camp. Beforehand, we explore our values as people and how this translates to climbing. Each participant is supported to create an intention for the camp as a mechanism to overcoming challenge and encourage change. Afterwards, the group debriefs participants’ experiences to transition learnings and growth back to their home environment.

Next Alpine Climbing Camp:
Summer 2025

Exact dates to be announced

A collaboration with Open Mountains Project, sponsored by Arcteryx

Timeline

Past programs, events and how it all came to fruition.

July 2022

We ran our first Alpine Climbing Camp in Bugaboo Provincial Park. This five day program had six participants, 2 guides, 2 program facilitators and 1 filmmaker/photographer. This progam served as a pilot for future alpine climbing camps with a focus on therapeutically framed experiences in combination with technical skill development. Our objective was to offer an opportunity for women and women-identifying individuals with previous climbing experience to enter the alpine environment, receiving instruction and mentorship from alpine guides. In addition to addressing financial and experiential barriers to alpine climbing, our expert leadership team facilitated conversational opportunities to address the mental and emotional barriers expressed by participants during the intake process. We received financial support for this event through Arcteryx, Columbia Basin Trust grant, crowdfunding (Go Fund Me), local sponsorship and in-kind donations.

September 2021

We were successful recipients of the Arcteryx Outer Peace Grant ($2500) which funded our three day Cultural Climbing Camp. The purpose of this camp was to offer culturally informed programming for Indigenous women, provide climbing instruction and mentorship, build relationships amongst participants and foster self-reflection. The leadership team was made up of Blackfood Elder Alvine Wolfleg, a Blackfoot community representative (Cassie Ayoungman), ACMG climbing guide, two program facilitators and one filmmaker. We produced a short film with the goal of contributing to shifting the barrier of lack of representation of Indigenous women in climbing.

July 2021

We participated on Arcteryx Alberta’s speaker panel. This virtual event was centered on the topic of transitioning from indoor to outdoor climbing. This experience contributed to our future relationship with Arcteryx as a primary sponsor.

May 2021

We offered a Barriers to Access Climbing Event sponsored by Arcteryx. This one day event was for 10 Indigenous women, offered by 2 ACMG guides, 3 program facilitators and one photographer. The purpose of this event was to facilitate making connections between how we experience climbing and how it relates to overcoming challenges and barriers in our everyday lives. For this event, we partnered with Cassie Ayoungman, founder of Soul of Miistaki.

March 2020

We founded Dirtbabe Collective. Limited to online engagement within the context of Covid-19, we hosted six online events within the first year. “Digital Dirtbabe Chats” are collaborative conversations led by two facilitators with six participants. Each discussion is centered around a topic of interest within the community. The purpose of these online events is to achieve our mission of impacting mountain culture by offering therapeutically framed experiences. We discussed topics including; masculinity and femininity, pivotal moments, indulgences, value systems and fear space.