Jen Higgins Grant Recipients 2019
Every year, the Alpine Club of Canada (acc) selects mountainrelated projects to fund with the Jen Higgins Grant for Young Women. The fund was established by friends and family to honour Jen Higgins after her death in 1997.
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,” said the acc.
Peru: Joanna Bulmer and Heather Lightfoot will spend one month in Peru to travel to Huascaran National Park, to climb the 16-pitch 5.13a trad route Cruz Del Sur, a 600 m 5.12c trad line 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,” said the acc.
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 Juneau 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,” said the acc.