At first, Heather Hansman hated the idea that became her new book. It was 2021, and the Durango-based nature writer had just published her second nonfiction volume, Powder Days, a deep dive into ski culture. Her editor noted that some of that book’s best material was about trailbreaking outdoorswomen. Could that be their next project?

“I immediately had a strong gut reflex: I don’t want to do a girl book,” Hansman recalls. She had often admired older women who overcame sexist barriers to live unconventional lives, but she worried that framing their stories this way might flatten them into cliché. With time, however, Hansman’s initial aversion grew into curiosity. Five years later, she has unspooled an honest, unflinching portrayal of three overlooked outdoor icons.

5280 July 2026
More From The Issue

In the engrossing Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild (July 14), Hansman, 42, tells the stories of Georgie White, who in 1953 became the first woman to guide rafters down the Grand Canyon; Anne LaBastille, an activist, author, and hermit whose retreat to the Adirondacks in the 1960s put Thoreau to shame; and Dolores LaChapelle, a skier and environmental philosopher.

Dolores LaChapelle in shorts on a snowy mountain
Silverton’s Dolores LaChapelle. Photo courtesy of LaChapelle Legacy Archive

Old-school Colorado skiers will recognize LaChapelle, who lived in Silverton, as the author of Deep Powder Snow: 40 Years of Ecstatic Skiing, Avalanches, and Earth Wisdom, an out-of-print classic so cherished that a copy recently sold for $149 on eBay. New-school readers will marvel at the history: LaBastille bought her land in cash because until 1974, it was illegal for a woman to get a credit card or a home loan without a male co-signer.

Hansman deftly enlivens the women’s biographies with tidbits from psychological research, such as how to achieve a blissful flow state. Answer: Pick any engrossing activity, whether sports, art, or writing, and pursue it until you’re both highly skilled and highly challenged. A male psychologist nicknamed “the father of flow” usually gets credit for naming that concept in a 1990 book, but as Hansman wryly notes, LaChapelle was writing about it—and living it, skiing the Rockies with her baby on her back—in the 1950s.

This isn’t hero worship, though. Hansman devotes considerable space to her characters’ flaws, noting, for example, White’s cruelty to other women and LaChapelle’s workaholism. She also shows how they were judged more harshly than their male peers and faced frequent harassment (LaBastille even had stalkers). It’s a testament to Hansman’s talent that her chatty prose never veers into girl-boss pablum. Her heroes are flawed, but “each carved out their lives around a mission,” she writes. “They wedged open space for people like me.”

3 More Outdoorsy Books by Colorado Women

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston

In the Colorado mountain community of Creede, Houston built the ranch life of her dreams, found healing, and nearly lost it all in a 2013 wildfire.

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

When this Guggenheim-winning poet moved to suburban Fort Collins in 2013, HOA restrictions prevented her from growing a native garden. She planted roots and pushed back.

Run, River, Run: A Naturalist’s Journey Down One of the Great Rivers of the West by Ann Zwinger

An underrated classic, this 1975 memoir by a beloved Colorado Springs author details her adventure on the Green River.

Read More: A Book Lover’s Guide to Colorado