Across history, women have fought for the simple freedom to move through the world without restriction. Women conquering wild spaces is not a new story. For 150 years or longer, women across the globe have led expeditions, first ascents, and feats of endurance—often quietly, often in the shadow of a male companion, frequently unrecorded or misrepresented in their own stories. And yet, here we are, still fighting to be seen, still fighting for access, still pushing back against the same tired conventions and rules. Sunny Stroeer doesn’t just navigate the high alpine; she pushes through the social barriers that have long constrained women in the mountains and brings women and girls to the forefront of alpine progression. Voices like hers are essential.
Sunny Stroeer is a Harvard Business School-educated strategic leader, entrepreneur, and renowned endurance athlete who has redefined success in the high alpine. She blends business acumen with trailblazing expeditions across the highest heights and deepest deeps. Stroeer holds speed records on iconic objectives such as Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, and the Annapurna Circuit, Nepal’s legendary trek, circling the Annapurna massif. She is also the first woman to complete the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational on skis. As founder of AWExpeditions and an executive director for several organizations advancing gender equity—including the Summit Scholarship Foundation and the GEA Alliance—Stroeer champions women’s participation and leadership in mountaineering. Her work, featured in outlets such as National Geographic and Forbes, offers actionable lessons in resilience, leadership, and decision-making in extreme environments.
“Since my first climb of Aconcagua, I’ve spent a lot of time on the mountain—leading all-women teams, setting speed records, and mentoring future female expedition leaders,” Stroeer recalls. “I distinctly remember a moment on an AWE expedition: our all-women team, in our thirties and forties, had just finished the first approach day and was relaxing at Pampas de Llenas. A male climber from another team, surprised to see us, began asking questions—‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘You’re not going to attempt the summit, are you?’—even though I’d been to the summit five days earlier with another all-women team. He ended with, ‘But, wait…where are you going to sleep tonight?’ As funny as these encounters are, they highlight a persistent belief in the mountains: that women don’t belong. That narrative shapes expectations, and those expectations become outcomes. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.”
What Stroeer describes echoes the experiences of the women who came before her. In 1975, Japan’s Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Everest. Upon her successful climb of Puncak Jaya (16,024 feet) in 1992, she became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits challenge. In 1969, she founded Joshi-Tohan, Japan’s first women-only climbing club, after male climbers routinely dismissed her or assumed she climbed to “find a husband.” The group’s first expedition to Annapurna III in 1970 achieved the first female ascent, the first Japanese ascent, and the first ascent via a new route. After surviving an avalanche on her Everest expedition, Tabei reached the summit just twelve days later. She even has a mountain range on Pluto named in her honour—one of the most accomplished mountaineers in history, and a woman many have never heard of.
“I can’t understand why men make all this fuss about Everest—it’s only a mountain.”
— Junko Tabei
In 1871, England’s Lucy Walker became the first woman to summit the Matterhorn, completing 98 major expeditions over her lifetime. She became a founding figure in the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1909. A century earlier, in 1808, Marie Paradis became the first woman to summit Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s tallest mountain at 15,774 feet. Accounts years later, by popular writers such as Mark Twain, portrayed Paradis as having been “dragged” to the summit, despite earlier records indicating she climbed with determination while battling severe altitude sickness. It is a familiar pattern: men writing women out of their own accomplishments.
In the United States, Annie Smith Peck established herself as both a formidable climber and a public intellectual, lecturing widely and advocating for women’s education and athleticism. Fanny Bullock Workman became one of the most accomplished alpinists of her era with major Himalayan ascents, while also participating deeply in women’s climbing clubs in late-19th-century New England, where, tellingly, women often outnumbered men.
When asked who she looks up to today, Stroeer cites Libby Sauter, the first woman to cross Yosemite’s Lost Arrow Spire highline and one of the youngest inductees into the Mountaineering Hall of Fame. Also Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, the first woman to summit all fourteen eight-thousand-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters, and a recipient of National Geographic’s Explorer of the Year Award. She also points to Caroline Criado Perez, whose work exposing systemic gender bias in data and design has reshaped global conversations about equity. Even trailblazers have role models, and it is vital that women see and celebrate powerful female figures globally, and across disciplines.
Earlier this fall, Snowbrains interviewed Samina Baig, Pakistan’s most celebrated woman in high-altitude climbing, with Mount Everest, the Seven Summits, and K2 among her many accomplishments. She is also the co-founder of the Pakistan Youth Outreach Foundation and a driving force behind the country’s growing winter-sports movement. In a region where sport has long been a gendered privilege, Baig’s work changes what is possible at the most practical level: access. Her youth programs insist on equal numbers of girls and boys, reframing mountaineering not as an exception for women, but as a legitimate and supported pathway. For Baig, equity is not an abstract principle—it is something built deliberately through training, visibility, mentorship, and institutional support, one climber at a time.
“Equity starts with access—the chance for girls to stand in the same place as boys, with the same opportunities. This is not just about climbing mountains. It’s about changing mindsets,” Baig said.
Like Baig, Stroeer’s commitment to women in mountaineering is rooted in access and mentorship. She is the founder of AWExpeditions, a for-profit female expedition company offering guided big-mountain climbs and mountaineering courses, and creator of the Summit Scholarship Foundation, a nonprofit that provides full scholarship opportunities for women to participate in guided mountaineering and backcountry adventures. While AWExpeditions runs trips for any passionate adventurer, the Summit Scholarship partners with women-owned guiding services—including She Moves Mountains, Upwards Transitions, and Ma’wa Collective—to make expeditions accessible to women who might otherwise face financial, logistical, or societal barriers.
The idea for the Summit Scholarship was born during an Aconcagua expedition in 2014, when Stroeer climbed solo and unsupported. Though several men were climbing solo at the same time, the reception to her ascent was strikingly different: commentary on male climbers’ solo attempts ranged from “that’s rad!” to “good luck for the summit push,” while hers included questions like “Why are you climbing solo?” or “Do you not have a husband?” The experience revealed, vividly and unambiguously, the gendered lens that still colors perceptions in the mountains. It was at that moment she knew something needed to exist to change who gets seen and supported in the mountains.
Since then, the Summit Scholarship has had a profound, tangible impact. Stroeer recalls guiding a youth-focused climb on Washington’s Mount Baker in 2024. A mother of one of the group members emailed afterward:
“I cannot convey what this trip did to her entire being. She changed. I saw it, I felt it…it was amazing to watch my daughter transform from one single trip. She is still my daughter, but there is something inside of her that is so different.”
For Stroeer, the effect begins long before the expedition itself. Every year, hundreds of women apply, reflecting on why mountaineering matters to them, how gender affects their outdoor experience, and what possibilities they see for themselves if barriers were removed. Even applicants who do not receive a scholarship report transformative shifts: signing up for a first solo backpacking trip, returning to outdoor training after years away, or simply feeling seen for the first time in a space where they usually feel invisible.
Stroeer’s work is made possible through a combination of corporate sponsorships and community-driven initiatives. Partnerships with global brands, including outdoor leaders like Fjällräven, provide financial and logistical support, while grassroots projects like the Grit Lit Book Club engage women and raise funds directly for the Summit Scholarship. This blend of institutional and community backing ensures the program remains accessible, dynamic, and impactful for every participant.
“When you put a program like this in front of women and ask them to take their desire seriously, it shifts something internally. It reframes what we feel like we are ‘allowed’ to pursue,” Stroeer said.
Stroeer emphasizes that all-women guided programs are about more than technique or summits. They create spaces where women can operate free of constant scrutiny, build deep trust, and navigate challenges that are often invisible in mixed-gender environments, including, very human considerations like privacy or bodily functions on a glaciated peak. These environments foster both competence and confidence, and they ripple outward, reshaping how women carry themselves in everyday life, at work, at home, and on the mountains.
What keeps her going is witnessing lives change firsthand. “I saw my own life transform through the mountains, and I watch other women step onto a rope team, shy and uncertain, only to step off a week later with a completely different understanding of who they are,” Stroeer says. While she recognizes that mountaineering is just one form of adventure, it’s uniquely catalytic because of its intensity, the high barriers to entry, and the glaring gender gap.
Her personal story is perhaps the most inspiring testament of all, and one that resonates with many who find their home in the mountains. Stroeer came to this environment later in life. She didn’t grow up climbing, didn’t have childhood mentors in the outdoors, and dreaded PE in school. It wasn’t until her mid-twenties, deep into a corporate career with an MBA and a job in finance, that she even held an ice axe. Yet through curiosity, persistence, and a high tolerance for uncertainty, she built a career—and a movement—that empowers women worldwide.
“You don’t need to start young or be naturally gifted,” Stroeer asserts. “What you need is curiosity, a willingness to keep going when things get hard, and a desire to create opportunities for others.”
Across mountains, slopes, and media spaces, female leadership and creativity are reshaping what is possible. Snowboarder, filmmaker, and cultural innovator Jess Kimura advances this momentum through progressive riding, filming, and The Uninvited Invitational, an all-woman and non-binary competition. At the institutional level, Donna Carpenter guided Burton Snowboards through a period of profound transition, demonstrating that strategic vision and cultural stewardship are not limited by gender. In competition, Jamie Anderson continues to perform at the highest level as a new mom of two, aiming for her fourth Olympic Games in 2026, showing that elite longevity and motherhood can coexist harmoniously. Behind the lens, TomBoy Media works with global brands producing documentary and action-sports content that places women in front of and behind the camera, shaping visibility and narrative in the culture.
Together, these athletes, creators, and leaders demonstrate that progress is intentional, systemic, and generational. Many voices create powerful momentum and set the stage for the next chapter of leadership, mentorship, and access. There is so much to gain in these environments: a sense of accomplishment, mental clarity, and growth—experiences that should be accessible to everyone, not just a privileged few, Stroeer believes. There is now a network of programs and mentorships to support future mountaineers at every stage of their journey, thanks in large part to unrelenting women like Sunny Stroeer, who see that all it takes is an idea and the will to make their visions a reality.
Scholarships, Training & Expeditions for Women & Underrepresented Climbers
North America
American Alpine Institute (AAI)
AAI offers scholarships supporting women, gender-diverse, and BIPOC climbers to develop mountain skills and leadership. Key programs include Guide Like Liz, Liz Rocks Leaders of Tomorrow, and Climbing for Change Alpine.
Cascade Mountain Ascents (Bellingham)
Cascade Mountain Ascents is a worker-owned guiding cooperative in the North Cascades. Their programs create supportive, inclusive spaces for women, queer, trans, and gender-expansive climbers to build skills, confidence, and community in the mountains.
A women-centred, gender-inclusive program offering retreats, alpine and ice clinics, and technical training, inspired by Junko Tabei’s women-only expedition philosophy of support, and shared leadership.
The Alpine Club of Canada’s Jen Higgins Fund provides annual cash grants to help young women ages 17–30 lead creative, self-propelled mountain adventures. Applications are due January 31. Grants honor Higgins, a passionate outdoorswoman from Ontario who shared her love of the mountains and inspired others before her untimely death in 1997.
International
The Allison Chadwick Memorial Grant administered by the Mount Everest Foundation, provides funding to support women in mountaineering expeditions, whether on mainly female teams or as individuals on mixed expeditions. The grant honors Alison Chadwick, a British mountaineer who died near the summit of Annapurna in 1978.
The British Mountaineering Council
The Julie Tullis Memorial Award provides grants to support British female climbers or expeditions, as well as disabled climbers of any gender, in achieving their mountaineering goals. The award honorsTullis, the first British woman to summit an 8,000m peak, who died on K2 in 1986. Applications are made through the BMC Expedition Grant form with deadlines on November 1 and March 1.
The Summit Scholarship, founded in 2019, has grown from a single $5,000 stipend to over $175,000 in awards and is open globally to all women (cis and trans). Applications run from December 15, 2025, to January 31, 2026, with recipients announced in March and expeditions happening throughout the year. Scholarships cover full expedition fees, technical gear, and apparel, supported by sponsors including LOWA, Fjällräven, and Deuter. Past expeditions have taken participants to Kilimanjaro, Mt. Shasta, Everest Base Camp, and Aconcagua.
