Women in the Backcountry Panel with Women on the Ascent
Join us for an honest, experience-based conversation led by women who not only recreate in the backcountry, but have built successful careers. We'll chat about the first steps for entering the backcountry and cover tips to help you on those first days out. Our panelists will also cover decision making in complex conditions, how to choose the right equipment for your needs, and experiences, mistakes, and close calls that helped shape how they move through the mountains.
This is a space for curiosity, learning, and connection. No slides. Just real conversations meant to help women feel more informed, supported, and confident as they continue their backcountry journey.
If you are craving more clarity, confidence, and community in the mountains, this panel is for you!
This event features an opportunity drawing with tons of prizes from local and outdoor-focused brands with all proceeds going straight to Women on the Ascent!
Read more on our Panelists below
Piper Kunst: Piper is a professional Freeride skier and film producer living in Salt Lake City. After she was crowned the 'Queen of Corbets’ title in 2022, she began to explore how her ski career could flourish. After years of learning and mentorship, Piper has found herself in the Backcountry more and more - where she continues to let the mountains shape who she is. It is incredibly important for these mountain spaces to hold and teach other women. Piper feels her most confident when surrounded by other ambitions females, and this creates the most potential for growth. The next generation of young backcountry enthusiasts should feel safe, confident, and supported in their roles. When women continue to show up, even the smallest wins are extremely significant.
Jessie Haffener: Nomadic by nature, Jessie Haffener has guided backcountry ski and backpacking clients for nearly a decade across the mountains and deserts of the West, and is fortunate to work in the Wasatch and Uinta mountains in the winter, and the High Sierras and Southcentral Alaska in the summer. When not guiding, she can be found outside on month's long bikepacking expeditions in remote, international mountain ranges, paddling lonely desert rivers, backpacking high routes, and pursuing her next "lifer" as a birder. Having been deeply influenced by the power of female representation in leadership and mentorship early in her career in Alaska, she believes passionately in the power of women's spaces, and is in her 6th winter of leading women's backcountry ski and mentorship programs in the Wasatch mountains.
Nikki Champion: Now based in Utah, Nikki is an avalanche forecaster with the Utah Avalanche Center, where she has spent the past seven seasons forecasting primarily for the Salt Lake, Provo, and Ogden area mountains, blending daily forecasting, snow and weather research, public communication, and education. In the spring and summer, she guides alpine routes in the Cascades and on Denali and works in wildland fire, bringing a year-round perspective to risk, leadership, and decision-making in mountain environments. Having benefited from strong female mentorship in traditionally male-dominated fields, Nikki is deeply committed to supporting women in the backcountry through mentorship, female-specific avalanche education, leadership and training, helping ensure women are present, visible, and empowered in outdoor spaces.
