Nine Women Receive Jen Higgins 2019 Grants

Every year, the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) select mountain-related projects to fund as part of their grant program, which the Jen Higgins Grant for Young Women is one of.

“The Jen Higgins Fund was established by friends and family to honour Jen Higgins after her death in 1997. Jen’s enthusiasm and generous spirit continue to live on by supporting young women in creative, self-propelled, mountain adventures with this grant.”

This year, the ACC has selected three full-female teams going to Patagonia, Peru and Alaska. Complete recipient news release here, see below for trip details.

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Every year we maintain or administer funds to which people may apply for financial support for their mountain-related projects and initiatives – one of those awards is the Jen Higgins Grant for Young Women. . This year we have full-female teams going to Patagonia, Peru and Alaska. Read on for a more details on the trips from the link in our profile! . ?: @jamiefinlayson, of Jen Higgins recipient @jobulmer, who is heading to Peru with @heather_lightfoot! . . . #jenhigginsgrant

A post shared by The Alpine Club of Canada. (@alpineclubcan) on Apr 4, 2019 at 7:00am PDT

Grant Recipients 2019

Patagonia: Gabrielle Degagne, Mariam Krogh and Nicole Mesman will be spending one month on the coastline of Beagle Channel and Darwin Mountain Range in Patagonia using skis and kayaks.

“The mission of their trip is to promote human powered travel to remote regions and to draw attention to the impacts of climate change in these regions.”

Peru: Joanna Bulmer and Heather Lightfoot will spend one month in Peru to travel to Huascaran National Park, Peru to climb the 16-pitch 5.13a trad route called Cruz Del Sur, a 600m 5.12c trad line called Chappie and to establish a new route on La Esfinge (The Sphinx).

“The group wants to work with the community to arrange for the erection of educational signage and a ‘biffy bag’ dispensary box at the basecamp area of La Esfinge to tackle to issue of human waste draining into natural water sources and contaminating major lakes.”

Alaska: Amaya Cherian-Hall, Claire Clarkson, Caleigh Warner and Sami Bierman will travel to Alaska for a self-propelled 15-day ski traverse across the 160 km long Juneau Icefield between Junean and Atlin, B.C.

“A main goal of this trip is to collect snow samples from their time on the glacier and send them to the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP). Their hopes are to increase female representation and visibility in the outdoors.”

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