This winter, SheJumps has been building a partnership with Sorel boots and we wanted to tell you why. To check out the cool collection of boots, go to www.sorel.com. —Vanessa Pierce, SJ Co-Founder

Seriously Sorel, your boots are sweet! Last week, it was snowing in Salt Lake City, and that means that our Sorel boots are still in use—plenty of use. This winter, Sorel donated boots to a good cause, SheJumps (my 501c3 organization that has a mission to inspire and connect more women to the outdoors). The three founders were able to give the boots a test run. I have the Tivoli, which I found particularly nice during the ski town shoulder seasons (aka “mud season”) since the style is waterproof. Claire Smallwood has the more classic 1964 model, as she’s a hardcore outdoorswoman and needs a sturdy boot. Our other founder, Lynsey Dyer, wears the Joan of Artic since she likes a dependable boot with some sass (as a pro skier/model, it’s good to have the “model” boot for the photos). Either way you look at it, there’s a boot for everyone in the Sorel collection.

But back to the brand: Sorel seemed particularly pleased with getting involved with our (S)heJumps into the Canyon: Empowering SLC Teens in the Wasatch program. During the month of March, SheJumps offered many of its “Jumpers” or professional and/or recreational athlete members a chance to give back to the community by being coaches for the second annual event. For four weeks, many inner city, Hispanic teens were introduced to skiing. Most would have never been able to venture into the mountains otherwise, but thanks to Alta Ski Area and our coaches, we convinced these kids to make the mountains a part of their lives. And thanks to Sorel for keeping our footsies warm while we were running around Alta getting the kids ready prior to putting on the less-desirable hard plastic things that hold our skis on.

But here was the real test for the Sorel brand, and why the boots truly work: Try snow camping in them, we dare you. Over the weekend of April 9-10, SheJumps organized an introduction to snow camping to anyone who wanted to get a taste of a cold adventure, without, as we like to say, doing an “epic.” So instead of skinning into a base camp far far away, we went about .8 miles off the road in Big Cottonwood Canyon with a max vertical rise of 600 feet (just in case all of the novices had to go back to the car for more layers, etc.). Now that doesn’t, by any means, rule out the fact that it was a COLD night (no clouds and lots of stars). Claire and myself didn’t want to risk dying from the cold so we packed our Sorels and couldn’t be happier. We wore them while digging out a snow barrier for our tents; we wore them while making a snow pit for the fire; we wore them during dinner; we wore them in the morning while waiting for our ski boots to get a bit warmer—and, in fact, we wear them everywhere.

At SheJumps, we dare people to get out of their comfort zones and try something new. Teach kids how to ski, go snow camping, hike to the top of a mountain. Whatever you do, take a jump and get out there and enjoy the outdoors. That’s why we love Sorel because there’s no doing that without them.