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Celebrating Our First Women’s Winter Series
Our first Women’s Winter Series brought women together to learn, explore, and connect in the mountains of Aotearoa New Zealand. From avalanche skills and hut-based adventures to our backcountry community weekend, we look back on a season of shared experiences, female leadership, and new possibilities.
From first steps in the backcountry to bigger mountain ambitions, our inaugural Women’s Winter Series brought women together to learn, explore, and share the adventure.
This winter, we set out to create something new at Aspiring Guides: a season of mountain experiences dedicated to women.
The idea was simple. Bring women of different levels together and foster a supportive environment with knowledgeable female guides at the helm. Whether someone was curious about venturing beyond the ski area or already looking towards more demanding alpine terrain, we wanted them to see a place for themselves.
Our first Women’s Winter Series grew from that belief. Spanning July through to October 2026, the programme brought together avalanche education, a beginner backcountry hut trip, a community weekend, and an opportunity for experienced women to take their touring into glaciated terrain.
We’re so incredibly proud to celebrate the epic success to the first season and want to send a special thanks to our supporting partners The North Face & B.Effect as well as our incredible team of guides who make this series possible:
- Bronwen Waters
- Monika Bischof
- Laetitia Campe
- Petrouchka Steiner-Grierson
- Katerina Maceskova
Building a foundation
The series began in July with our Women’s Avalanche Skills Course Level 1.
For anyone starting to explore the backcountry, there is a lot to learn beyond making turns. Understanding avalanche terrain, interpreting a forecast, contributing to decisions, and practising companion rescue are all part of developing a more informed approach to the mountains.
Our New Zealand Mountain Safety Council accredited course gave women a focused introduction to those skills, with a qualified female guide leading the learning.
Just as valuable was the setting: a course where women could ask questions, work through unfamiliar concepts, and practise together. Learning alongside others at a similar stage creates room to be curious, including about the things that can feel awkward to ask.That was an important starting point for the series. We wanted to support confidence grounded in knowledge, practice, and an understanding of how much there is still to learn.
Time to settle into the backcountry
In August, the Women’s Four-Day Beginner Backcountry Hut Trip offered something that a single day can’t: time to get into the rhythm of touring.
Based at Robrosa Hut, at 1,700 metres in the Pisa Range, the trip brought the learning into a remote mountain setting. With a small group and Bron leading the way, the focus was on the foundations of moving through the backcountry: using skins, understanding the terrain, and bringing the uphill and downhill parts of a touring day together in a proper backcountry setting.
A hut trip gives those skills context. Equipment becomes part of a daily routine. Questions arise naturally as the terrain changes. There is time to revisit a technique and understand why it matters.
There is also the experience of staying in the mountains, beyond the usual drive home at the end of a ski day. Sharing a hut makes the group part of the adventure, alongside the landscape and the skiing. For our first series, Robrosa offered a valuable bridge between introductory learning and a longer backcountry experience. It gave beginners space to build familiarity over several days with various weather conditions thrown their way.
Bringing the community together
September’s Women’s Backcountry Weekend was the community centrepiece of the series.
We designed it to welcome women across a range of experience levels, from those taking their first steps into touring to those already comfortable spending time beyond the ski area. The format brought a social gathering together with time on the mountain, with ability-based groups led by our female guides. That combination mattered. Meeting other women is one part of building a backcountry community; having an opportunity to get outside together gives those introductions somewhere to go.
A weekend like this also makes the breadth of that community visible. There are different starting points, different goals, and different ideas of a rewarding day in the mountains. There is room for all of them. For us, that was central to the series’ success. We wanted women to find an experience that suited them now, while seeing possibilities for where they might go next.
Making room for bigger ambitions
The series also included a five-day glacier touring trip in October, designed for intermediate to advanced skiers and splitboarders and led by an NZMGA certified female guide. Its place in the series was deliberate. Alongside welcoming newcomers, we wanted to recognise women who already had backcountry experience and were ready to pursue more demanding mountain objectives.
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The full series offered a range of entry points, rather than a sequence everyone needed to follow. Some women might be looking for foundational education. Others might want several days of touring, a chance to meet new people, or guidance in more complex alpine terrain.
Thank you for being part of the beginning
To everyone who joined our first Women’s Winter Series: thank you for making it possible. Thank you for bringing your curiosity, your willingness to learn, and your enthusiasm for spending time in the mountains together.
Thank you, too, to the female guides whose expertise and care shaped the experiences throughout the series. This first season gave us plenty to celebrate: opportunities to learn, time to explore, and a shared space for women in the mountains of Aotearoa New Zealand. It also gave us a strong foundation to build on.
We are so thrilled by how the series went this year by selling out all sessions so quickly that we have decided to open bookings for next year on hopes of getting as many of you ladies into the mountains as we can manage!
Learn More & Book
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Celebrating Our First Women’s Winter Series
The Gear Room: Ski Trip Equipment Check
Our Top Trekking Picks for the 2024 Trekking Season
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