An elite team of lady athletes is building a program that’ll have you leaping out of your comfort zone.
Big mountain skiers Lynsey Dyer and Vanessa Pierce stood high on a platform working up the nerve to jump off. In the summer of 2005, the founders of SheJumps spent the off-season learning to backflip, and, rather than hazard learning on hard-packed snow, they were about to feel the give of a liquid landing. “I’ll do it if you will,” said Lyndsey. “Let’s go. On three.” From that very literal jump spawned SheJumps, a website where professional skiers, role-models, and friends posted motivational success stories and trip reports. The ladies—along with a growing posse of professional and professional-level women skiers, athletes, and coaches— have been encouraging more women to jump out of their outdoor adventure comfort zones ever since.
In 2008 SheJumps gained official non-profit status, and channeled its online-mentoring momentum into women’s-specific programs funded by donors and grants but run exclusively by volunteers. From day-long adult clinics to camps for inner-city teens, SheJumps aims to inspire women to reach their highest potential through increasing participation in the outdoors—on ski slopes, in avalanche-prone backcountry, and in Utah’s red-rock canyons. “Jumpers” this year are planning movie premiers, clinics, and networking events in five states, says 25-yearold Claire Smallwood, SheJumps’ executive director since 2007.
For elite athletes, such as Lynsey Dyer and ski-jumping phenom Lindsey Van, SheJumps’ website is a place to connect with other athletes in a highly individualized athletic arena, and to be positive role models for girls seeking alternatives to flavor-of-theweek pop princesses. “I want to take Hannah Montana skiing,” says Lynsey. “I want to take Paris Hilton camping and show her that she can do more than she thinks she can.”
Trying new things—especially scary new things—is a specialty of many of the women involved in SheJumps. Lynsey has hucked huge cliffs in Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research ski films and she’s never lost a big-mountain ski competition. Claire is managing SheJumps from afar while trekking around Argentina as this article goes to print. Vanessa splits ski patrolling with a career as a writer, and the rest of the 46-woman line up of “Jumpers” on the SheJumps website reads like a who’s who of outdoor adventure role models.
While their drops, jumps, and careers are more extreme than most, they all agree with the idea behind SheJumps’ mission: that overcoming a healthy dose of fear helps us all push a little further, overcome obstacles to enjoying the outdoors, and build confidence in our ability to try and succeed at new things.
Through day-long and weekend clinics, SheJumps teaches women skiers backcountry safety and big-mountain ski technique, and introduces “never ever” skiers, including a group of high-school-aged kids from Salt Lake City last year, to the sport. “I am always amazed to recount how SheJumps has unfolded and see where it is today, realizing how many people believe in what we are doing,” Claire says. Lynsey adds, “You certainly don’t have to scale Everest to impress us.”
—Whitney Medved
This is so fantastic! Way to go ladies, I always love reading about women who are pushing themselves to try new things. I hope Shejumps continues to challenge women from allover! especially those pop stars!