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More than your typical outdoor experience

Girls on Ice is a unique, FREE, wilderness science education program for high school girls that takes place in the North Cascades in Washington state. Each year a team of 9 teenage girls and 3 instructors spend 11 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers and the alpine landscape through scientific field studies with professional glaciologists, mountaineers, and some years, artists as well. This recent article by founder Erin Pettit describes the philosophy.

A Poster of photos from the 2009 Expedition, feel free to move around and zoom in as you like. Or click the arrow buttons at the bottom for a guided tour of the poster.

NEWS : Congratulations to the GOI 2010 Team Members

  • Bernadette Mays (Fairbanks, Alaska)
  • Naja Lewis (New York City, New York)
  • Freedom Wright (Ellenwood, Georgia)
  • Neyeska Tejeda (New Rochelle, New York)
  • Jessica Badgeley (Seattle, Washington)
  • Lordlyn Osei-Ofori (New York City, New York)
  • Olga Romero (Sierra Vista, Arizona)
  • Kearra Weiting (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
  • Nida Naushad (Brighton, Massachusetts)

Girls on Ice 2010 course dates: July 26- August 5


Give a gift of exploration, learning, and adventure

ยป Find out more about Girls on Ice.

Girls on Ice 2009 Expedition - we did it!

Highlights: This year the snow level was very high, the glacier ice was more exposed than we have ever seen it before. Lots of water was running on the surface, leaving sinuous channels and many moulins. We discovered a small collection of beads and rings melting out of the glacier ice - probably thrown into a crevasse higher on the mountain many years ago (maybe in the 1960s?). Melissa, a volcano glaciologist, visited us and taught the group about the crater glacier, the dragonhole, and about sulfuric volcanic rocks that can actually burn! We found a small cave to crawl underneath the glacier. Half of the team climbed to the crater rim and then continued on to the very windy summit.

Click here to see a selection of photos.

The girls wrote summaries of their explorations:

Girls on Ice Timelapse Movie (low res version)

The 2009 Team:

Marie Seal (Kasigluk, Alaska)
Abrianna Peto (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Kaia Waller (Morristown, Vermont)
Sune Gerber (Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa)
Angelica Ferreira (Lemon Grove, California)
Annie Bartholomew (Juneau, Alaska)
Cheyanne Olson (St. Helens, Oregon)
Heidy Henriquez (Central Falls, Rhode Island)
Bethany Monsees (College Station, Texas)

Thank you to our generous donors!


Girls on Ice is offered in partnership with the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.


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We Need Your Help!

Girls on Ice relies on your support. Please consider giving to this program to allow it continue and evolve in the future.

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Important: In the box that follows "Please Direct my Gift to:", click the "other" button and type GIRLS ON ICE.

Contact Us

For general information, please contact Erin Pettit at pettit.erin@gmail.com

Girls on Ice Photos

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