KELSI FRANZEN (GOI 2002)
If there ever is an experience that I shall remember, it will be Girls On Ice. Growing up with two mountaineers for parents, I had become familiar with the North Cascades through camping and hiking trips with my family, but never had I gotten a chance to get quite as intimate with the rugged and often misunderstood landscape of those mountains as with Girls On Ice.
I was a participant in the summer of 2002, one of the earlier years of the program, when I traveled with seven other high school-aged women and two instructors up to the South Cascade Glacier in the North Cascade mountains of Washington state. Often, as a young girl, I felt like I hadn’t quite found my place on this planet, that my journey was not on the course my heart wanted it to be. I had grown up with exposure to the outdoors, but I had felt hesitant to truly engage with the environment on my own. But Girls On Ice changed all that. The whole process of experiential learning in a wilderness setting was what my young mind needed. Traveling nearly 12 miles up an unmarked trail with enough supplies for 10 days was in itself a challenge, but what I found was that I could rely on my fellow women to encourage and push me forward toward our destination. Once we reached the South Cascade Glacier, we had the opportunity to stay in an old fire-lookout, whose outhouse had a view of Mt. Baker that many would pay millions for! My journeys on the glacier were the most exhilarating! Learning about how a glacier forms and transforms itself through movement by the means of science experiments we conducted was fantastic. Exploring the terminus of the glacier was a unique sight as well, where we learned not only of the glacial processes, but other processes like global climate change, that affect the recession rate of glaciers and ice not just locally, but worldwide. Climbing to the top of the South Cascade Glacier was a symbolic experience for me, because it allowed me to look out across the vast expanse of ice that lay underneath my feet and made me realize just how much we humans can change things we sometimes rarely even notice. Glaciers are one of those entities that few of us may witness in our lifetimes, but that given a chance, you stand in awe and appreciate. But will they be there for our childrens’ lifetimes? We all have a stake in glaciers. Girls On Ice was an experience I shall never forget. It gave me the opportunity to be more self-reliant in the wilderness, as well as encouraging me to make connections between natural processes like glacial recession with human-perpetuated processes like CO2 emissions. Living and learning among a group of young women truly was inspiring for me as a young girl. The Girls On Ice experience has helped solidify the pathway that I was so longing to find as a young girl. Now, seven years later, it’s nearly 2009 and I am finishing up my degree in Environmental Education at Western Washington University. With inspiration from Girls On Ice, I am now becoming a teacher that will educate young kids about environmental issues through experiential learning. I aim to continue telling the story that Girls On Ice so beautifully began telling to me as a young girl - that we, as young women, can change the way we look at ourselves, at the landscapes surrounding us, and how we can change the world. Thank you, Girls On Ice, and thank you, Erin, for this opportunity, may Girls On Ice continue to inspire young women worldwide and show the potential that we have in being stewards of this magnificent planet.
