Avalanche Awareness for Women in Bend

For the second year in a row, SheJumps and the Central Oregon Avalanche Association (COAA) teamed up to bring a Know Before You Go avalanche awareness evening to the ladies of central Oregon.

Last year's inaugural event, held in downtown Bend at Crow's Feet Commons, exceeded everyone's expectations. The house was packed! Women with hugely different backgrounds came to hear Betsy Norsen, Mt. Bachelor ski patroller and BCA pro ambassador, talk about avalanches: how people get in trouble, how to avoid them, and the appropriate gear for backcountry travel.

2013 SheJumps / COAA Know Before You Go. Photo by Golden Trail Photography

This year, we moved to the larger venue at Cascade Lakes Brewing, and had plenty of room for the 35 ladies who braved freezing rain and slippery roads to learn about avalanches, or get an early-season refresher.

Betsy Norsen addressing the ladies of SheJumps. Photo by Golden Trail Photography

For a backcountry traveler, you can't hear this information enough! Betsy's presentation was relevant for ladies just thinking about traveling beyond the safety of the resort boundaries, to the seasoned backcountry skier who needs a reminder to not be complacent.

The most memorable part of Besy's talk was also the most personal: She moved to Chamonix in her early 20's with a pair of Alpine Trekkers and a copy of the pocket guide ABC's of Avalanche Safety.  Immediately wrapped up in the radical ski opportunities Chamonix affords, plus a crew of guys to tag along with, she ski toured extensively without any major concern for avalanche safety, and without participating in group decisions.

It's a classic mistake, and the resason that contemporary avalanche education is so focused on the human element of avalanche danger. In this example, Betsy fell prey to a key human factor -- "experts". Betsy followed the crew of guys (the experts) around because they had been skiing there for a few years and knew the best places to ski.

As an avalanche professional with much more education and experience in her toolkit these days, Betsy looks back on that time of her life with relief: relief that nothing bad happened.

I addition to this excellent story, we saw a video of an avalanche in central Oregon, which very quickly dispelled any notion that avalanches aren't a concern in our area.

Afer the hour-long slideshow, the ladies knew how to identify avalanche terrain, what causes avalanches, how to avoid them, and what gear to take into the backcountry.

From the left: Elena Pressprich of SheJumps, KBYG presenter Betsy Norsen, and yours truly (Lindsey Clark) of SheJumps. Photo by Golden Trail Photography

Thanks so much to Betsy for sharing your knowledge of avalanches with us, and for being such an excellent role model in our community!

Bring On the Girly Fun Ski Time!

Have you heard of SheJumps? We are a national organization with the goal of increasing female participation in outdoor activities. SheJumps offers a variety of programs around the country, including outdoor education, youth initiatives, and lots of fun activities to get the girls out!

I had the opportunity to host two Get the Girls Out events in Oregon last season: winter and spring ski days at Mt Bachelor. They were both incredible! Fun, empowering, colorful, giggly, and amazing. Read all about them here:

Winter '13 Get the Girls Out Mt Bachelor

Spring '13 Get the Girls Out Mt Bachelor

For the next year, I'm taking my involvement with the organization even further by being a SheJumps/Isis ambassador for 2013! I am SO HONORED to be a part of this new ambassador program, and look forward to planning more great events for the ladies of central Oregon!

I have lots of ideas up my sleeve, including some ladies' backcountry ski days! Counting down the days until the snow starts flying again : )






xoxo
Lindsey

SheJumps Get the Girls Out Mt. Bachelor, Spring ’13 Recap!

April 21, 2013

“This weather is so bad, if I weren’t having so much fun I would have left hours ago!” 

If there was a theme for the SheJumps Spring ‘13 Get the Girls Out Mt. Bachelor, this would be it!

The forecast looked amazing: sunny, with warm temperatures to soften the snow for excellent shredding conditions.

Walking up to our meeting place in the morning, I was wiping the moisture off my sunny-day goggles, looking up at the black cloud parked directly over Mt. Bachelor, and thinking, “I really hope this burns off!”

About 20 girls met up at the bottom of the Pine Marten lift, with high spirits, colorful outfits, and huge smiles! I quickly realized that in good weather or bad, these girls were here to have a good time.

We started the day by introducing ourselves and naming our favorite place to ski on Mt. Bachelor:

“Rainbow!”

“Skyliner!”

“The cone!”

“The trees off Northwest!”

“The backside!”

“I don’t know, I’ve never skied here before!”

With most of the mountain closed due to weather, we skied the terrain accessed from the Pine Marten and Skyliner lifts. The moderate terrain and limited visibility meant that our group could stick together really easily, even though there were different abilities and interests. What a great way to help people get to know each other!

By about 11:30, we were all soaked and ready to dry out. We headed to the Clearing Rock Bar at the West Village Lodge and grabbed some tables in front of their giant fireplace. That was our opportunity to share the SheJumps mission of increasing female participation in outdoor activites. We gave away Vapur Shades Anti-Bottles (pre-filled!), delicious bars from Kate’s Real Food, and some women’s specific ski packs from Camelbak! The ladies were psyched.

After lunch, a handful of us rallied for a few more laps. That’s when the rain really started coming down, and things started getting silly!

Eventually, we did decide to call it a day a little earlier than planned. We were some of the last people on the entire mountain! There is no doubt that the lifties thought we were all a little crazy for skiing that long in the rain.

We all met back up in the warm sunshine in downtown Bend at Crow’s Feet Commons. Our friends at Dump City Dumplings brought their food cart so we wouldn’t starve after our epic day of skiing in the rain! It was a great ending to a very memorable day.

Looking forward to doing this again next season!

SheJumps Get the Girls Out Mt. Bachelor, Winter ’13 Recap!

February 9, 2013

Giggles and smiles and bright colors everywhere... the girls were out in full force for our first ever SheJumps Get the Girls Out Mt. Bachelor!

What is it about shredding around on snow with a crew of ladies all day that makes you feel so amazing? It is incredible how fun, silly, motivational, and inspiring a day out skiing with a group of women can be!

We had ladies travel to Mt. Bachelor from all over the west: Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, and of course from all over Oregon. It is pretty unusual to ski with a group of ladies, so it was worth the travel effort to enjoy this special day!

We met about 35 ladies at the bottom of Pine Marten in the morning, and started our day by fanning out all over the front of the mountain. It was awesome to watch a ton of brightly-colored ants spread out and fly down! By the second run, we were already split up. It's crazy how fast that will happen!

Some ladies hit the terrain parks off Skyliner, some explored the trees off Northwest, and a crew of about 15 of us rode the Summit chair and hiked to the top of the mountain for great views and some good, old-fashioned hunting for windblown pockets of snow!

It took some hiking, some traversing, and some rime skiing, but we definitely found what we were looking for in the gullies above Pine Marten and Northwest: smooth pockets of fluffy snow! We were psyched.

We all met back up for lunch with even more ladies who had missed us in the morning. Our special guest Meghan Kelly -- Regional Coordinator for SheJumps in California --  introduced the organization by sharing her personal experiences with SheJumps including making new friends, and finding other women to help her learn new outdoor skills. We also talked about ideas for future SheJumps events and what a central Oregon chapter could be all about.

In the afternoon, we rode the Summit chair again and dropped off the backside for some afternoon corn turns in the sunshine. We enjoyed gullies, trees, playing around on the wall of voodoo, and of course jumping! We wrapped up the day with a classic 4 PM cone hike. We dropped in to inner cone, made some great turns in soft snow, and even found freshies in the parking lot glade! 

With all the out-of-towners coming to visit, it was important to let Mt. Bachelor's best features shine: lots of awesome skiing on all aspects, 360 degrees off the summit, on a beautiful and sunny day! The cone hike was just icing on the cake : )

We headed back down the hill to downtown Bend, where our friends at Crow's Feet Commons hosted our après ski party! We all had a great time reliving all the action from the day, exchanging phone numbers, and planning future days together on the snow!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out and made it a day to remember!

Sh*t Skier Girls Say...

This video by the uber-fabulous Lynsey Dyer is absolutely hilarious, and so true. While I've never taken a "beacon to the tit", I do occasionally complain about my cramps in the skin track! And who knew that all ladies make the same high-pitched squeaky sounds when slaying the pow?!? Bonus points for the Dynafit bindings making an appearance toward the end.