chicks with picks shakes it up

Chicks, grab your picks, grab your rope and grab your guy. This year the Chicks with Picks clinic series is mixing it up by adding a co-ed Mixer, as well as new events called the Quickie and Chicks Rock, to the program.

“I think every year we try to shake it up and mix it up,” Kim Reynolds, “Head Chick” told Rock and Ice. Chicks with Picks promotes women's empowerment and giving back to the community, both through climbing. Its best-known event, the Betty Ice Ball, is an annual women's ice climbing festival in Ouray. The three-day festival has clinics during the day, while open (to the public) events at night include silent auctions and slide shows.

This year Chicks also started the Quickie, which sets up clinics and festivities over weekends so that people with weekday obligations don’t have to miss out. The Chicks Rock event was also new this year with rock climbing clinics at Devil's Lake in Wisconsin and at Red Rocks in Nevada. The events were a huge success.

Also new this year is that the organization started the Ouray Ice Park Endowment Fund and donated $8700 as a way to give back to the park. “I feel really privileged to be able to teach clinics [there] and I wanted to make sure that there was a sustainable resource for years to come,” Reynolds says.

Chicks with Picks also supports local women’s shelters at two of its locations, the Tri County Resource Center Colorado, and Starting Point in North Conway, New Hampshire, and has raised over $145,000 for them."

“We have been donating money for 10 years," Reynolds says. "We always try to stay local with the aid we are providing to whatever area we are climbing in.”

The organization “promotes self reliance through learning technical skills that help women become more equal partners with their counterparts," the company states on http://www.chickswithpicks.net/brains.htm.

With all the saturation of the women’s market the men seemed to feel left out so this year Chicks with Picks is also inviting the guys. They have added a co-ed mixer where girls can bring their climbing partners, boyfriends, husbands, and friends. “We wanted to change up the events by letting the guys in and we want the guys to come on their own. They don’t have to come with a girl. Don’t be afraid, guys,” Reynolds says. “For years guys have been teasing us about doing clinics without them."

Now they have nothing to complain about.



For more information and to sign up for events and clinics visit: http://www.chickswithpicks.net/index.php

For more photos please visit: http://www.chrisgilesphoto.com/