Canmore Climbing Legend Sarah Hueniken Wins Prestigious Mountain Award

Bow Valley alpine guide Sarah Hueniken is this year’s Summit of Excellence Award recipient, an honour she didn’t see coming.

“I’m blown away ... it’s not an award that I expected to receive,” Hueniken told Bow Valley Insider.

The Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival presents the award for significant contributions to mountain life in Canada.

Hueniken said she sees it as recognition of the communities she has belonged to and helped build, especially Mountain Muskox, the Bow Valley non-profit she co-founded to support people dealing with trauma and loss in the outdoors.

A certified Association of Canadian Mountain guide (ACMG), Hueniken became the first woman in North American to climb mixed rock-and-ice routes graded M11, M12, M13 and M14.

The grades indicate climbing difficulty, with higher numbers marking harder routes. She has also spent more than a decade developing and leading mountaineering programs for women.

From Personal Loss to Community Support

Hueniken’s involvement in Mountain Muskox grew out of losing a close friend in a mountain accident.

“I felt quite responsible and I felt super isolated and alone, and separate from all the communities that I used to feel part of including just the mountain community as a whole.”

Hueniken said the original idea came from her therapist, and she co-founded the organization with colleagues.

Meeting peers who had been through similar losses showed her the value of having a community that understood the challenges of life after an accident.

She has been executive director for six years.

The organization’s peer support circles have run in the Bow Valley for that long, and it now has six chapters across Western Canada.

A Place to Share, Listen and Heal

The circles bring small groups together with professional facilitators, Hueniken said.

Participants can speak, listen or simply sit with others, and nobody has to share anything they’re uncomfortable discussing.

“You don’t have to participate in any way that you don’t want to ... you can just sit and be there, if that’s where you’re comfortable.”

Hueniken said the focus is on life after an accident, rather than analyzing what happened or encouraging people to return to the mountains.

Some resume recreation or work quickly. Others need more time or choose a different path.

“We’re not there to point you in any direction but really just there to support you through it,” she explained.

Geoff Powter, a member of the Summit of Excellence selection committee who also sits on Mountain Muskox’s board, praised Hueniken’s work in a statement supplied by Banff Centre.

“Sarah has helped countless people around the globe better understand, accept, and recover from, the often unspoken weight of mountain trauma,” Powter said.

Hueniken’s work with Mountain Muskox has also shifted her priorities.

“I definitely don’t guide nearly as much as I used to,” she said.

Mountain Muskox now takes up much of her time because she finds it meaningful and rewarding, she said. She still makes time for her own climbing.

The award will be presented Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Jenny Belzberg Theatre at Banff Centre.