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The Colorado High Country can be a lonely place. Although there are numerous opportunities for outdoor exploration year-round, there are many people who venture out alone for a variety of reasons ranging from varying fitness levels to prior commitments.
Denver-based creator Ellie Frost learned all too well about solo outdoor adventures while living in Dillon and Vail.
“When I lived up in the mountains, it could sometimes be a little difficult for people to follow through on their plans,” she said.
After returning to the Denver area to go back to school, she encountered another problem that many women face when they want to move to the high country.
“I moved back to the city during COVID to go back to school and got really out of shape,” Frost said. “I realized I was no longer in shape to go out with the people I know in the mountains. I didn’t want to hold them back.”
Feeling isolated from her other outdoor-loving friends, she posted in a Facebook group on December 10, 2023, looking for other women to go ski touring with. Within hours, she received responses from a large group of other women who were also interested in exploring the outdoors on a regular basis.
“All these women were writing to me and I started getting to know people,” she said. “I felt like I needed to bring them together in some kind of group chat. Someone suggested WhatsApp.and four days later, 300 of us were on a WhatsApp. I had no idea that was going to happen. That wasn’t my intention. I was genuinely looking for other women to spend time with out there.”
With a WhatsApp group chat involving hundreds of people, she soon realized the limitations of the app and decided to be at the forefront of developing a possible solution.
“You couldn’t see the chat history from before and we were repeating a lot of different things,” she said. “I decided to create an app to help everyone stay connected.”
Frost, who has a background in software development, merged the key focuses of Facebook and Meetup to create Backcountry Beauties. The free app ultimately connects other women who are looking for nudity at night, tours during the day and fun in a community of like-minded people.
“I started developing the app myself on December 15,” she said. “I put it together myself and it took me about four months to create the basis of the system.”
The Backcountry Beauties app allows women to create profiles highlighting their location, favorite outdoor hobbies, skills and certifications, making it easy to connect with other women.
Users can join groups based on their interests and locations, where they can discuss meetups, sign up for events or create their own events, and chat about their experiences.
Since the app’s official launch in early June, Backcountry Beauties has grown into a community of over 2,000 women, all interested in creating and attending events in Colorado’s natural paradise.
“I feel like I’m finally living what my purpose is, which is to enrich the quality of life for as many people as possible and inspire others to do the same,” Frost said. “…Many of us have been hurt by women before, so there’s been this incredible healing in the community. So many women have said how hard it was to make friends with women.
“It was really nice to see all these isolated people together,” she added. “I feel like in the mountains, cliques form that can be very exclusive. I think that often has to do with the fact that they never really feel accepted in a group.”
The Backcountry Beauties app not only creates a network of women to share their love of sports and the outdoors, but also allows women to further their education on a wide range of topics and activities through the app’s learning library.
“We do these virtual learning sessions,” she said. “This winter we did one with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center where they taught everyone how to read avalanche forecast reports and do condition reports. … I’m working on partnering with different companies and brands to provide education.”
In the future, she would like to introduce a subscription model for the app to provide users with benefits such as access to popular backcountry outdoor tools/apps and discounts from sponsors. Since the app is already quite popular regionally, she hopes interest in the app will grow beyond Colorado.
“I hope to expand the infrastructure beyond our local region in Colorado, out west, across the United States and, if it makes sense, around the world,” she said. “We’ve started our own little branches and talked about becoming like Girl Scouts for adults.”
Additionally, Frost is working on a hybrid version of the app – Backcountry Bonds – which will hopefully foster a similar community of outdoor enthusiasts. There is currently no set launch date for the new app.
Backcountry Beauties is available on iOS and Android app stores.
