Jones Snowboards Wants to Fund Your Dream Mission

Jones Snowboards is giving away $1,500 in cash to women who want to explore backcountry frontiers. They're also kicking in a new Jones splitboard, skins, and backpack.

The grant is offered in partnership with the American Alpine Club, and only women qualify. It honors Liz Daley, a snowboarder and mountain guide who died in a 2014 avalanche while descending 7,000-foot Cerro Vespignani, in Argentinian Patagonia. The Live Like Liz Award seeks to support women who share Daley’s passion for wilderness exploration.

Recipients must demonstrate a commitment to splitboard travel in relatively unexplored mountains. “Applicants must be American Alpine Club members, and grant proposals will be considered based on objective remoteness, exploratory nature, carbon footprint, creativity, and overall significance,” says Seth Lightcap, marketing and team manager for Jones Snowboards. “Objectives may be a single line/peak or a tour/traverse of a wider region.”

The award is one of two grants that Jones Snowboards is offering with the AAC. The Jones Backcountry Adventure Grant has the same application requirements and awards, but is open to anyone.

“It has been our goal for a while to find a way to lend support to motivated amateur athletes,” says Lightcap. In 2016, Jackson, Wyoming, snowboarder Halina Boyd, now sponsored by Jones, used Jones’ award to climb and ride Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest. The company also produced a video about the expedition, called Chasing the Winds.

To qualify for the Live Like Liz Award, applicants must target an objective within North America. “We are looking to support logistically lean, high-adventure splitboard missions to a location relatively local to the grant applicant—or at least within the USA,” says Lightcap. “Halina simply drove four hours from her house and started walking toward her goal into a very wild zone.”

Applications close January 30.