Climbing

Fred Beckey, a living legend among Northwest Mountaineers, is a climber, environmentalist, historian, and author. He is recognized as one the most imaginative, persistent, and thorough explorer and mountain investigator of the Cascade Range Wilderness.  Read more…

Life is full of people you don’t know for long, but who have a profound impact on your life and work. I met a guy like that a little more than a year ago. It was at the REI flagship in Seattle, for an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Read more…

Sometimes our passions find us young. Sometimes they don’t find us at all – and sometimes, we’re born for a specific purpose. For me, that purpose was adventure. Specifically, the kind that can be found trekking, kick-stepping and climbing up a mountain. And especially, the kind that is done with friends. Read more…

Excerpts from the personal blog of Bill Ashby, Mountaineers Director of Operations.   Read more…

Life is all about mountains for Marybeth Dingledy — not just the kind you scale, but the rugged terrain you have to slog up, over, around or through when life goes sideways. Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit. Read more…

As author Simon McCartney recovers from a climb plagued by altitude sickness, hypothermia, crevasses, avalanche, and famine, a doctor tells him, “I don’t understand what drives guys like you to do what you do.” Read more…

We've spent the past five months in an intensive discovery process, gathering input from folks within our climbing committees at all branches, from leaders in our climbing community, and from folks in our local climbing communities who may not be associated with The Mountaineers. We've learned a lot and highly value the input we've received from our community! To learn more about the discovery process, check out this blog. Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit. Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit. Read more…

Rock fall is one of the more common causes of injuries in both climbing and scrambling. The rock in the Olympics is notorious for its poor quality, and the Cascades, although overall it is of much better quality, has its share of choss piles as well. A friend of mine used to joke about climbing in the Olympics, “if you don’t like your options for handholds, pick the rock up and move it somewhere else.” Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit. Read more…

Earlier in 2016, The Mountaineers Board of Directors voted to allocate funds to a project we’re calling Progressive Climbing Education. The goal is to dedicate resources to advance the goals and initiatives  of our passionate volunteers. Done well, these strategic investments will make our suite of volunteer-led Climbing Programs more fun for volunteers to run, easier to recruit volunteers for, more attractive to new climbers (especially those coming out of the gym), and more advanced for our highly-skilled volunteers and students. Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit. Read more…

Beginning in late 2012, our volunteer climb leaders started dreaming about new, easier ways to teach friction climbing. From their imaginations came the idea to build our very own friction slab climbing center. The plans are drawn, the money is raised, and now we need a project manager to help make this dream a reality. Read more…

Seventeen Mountaineers members from our Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, and Foothills branches joined the Mountains to Sound Greenway on August 27 to help disassemble social trails around popular rock climbing crags on the Little Si Trail. The Greenway staff were impressed at the efficiency of our Mountaineers - from hiking to getting work done, they said we took four hours to accomplish what it would take a normal group to accomplish in a full eight-hour day. When Mountaineers get involved, we show up in force! Read more…

We believe we have a responsibility to teach climbers to be good stewards in the mountains. That's why we embarked on a project called Progressive Climbing Education - an initiative to re-think our program design to better meet the needs of the climbing community and better achieve our mission. The first step involved intensive information-seeking, then we took the feedback to simplify our project goals. One of those goals is to "Develop Good Stewards."  Read more…

We believe we have a responsibility to teach climbers to be safe, efficient, and competent in the mountains. That's why we embarked on a project called Progressive Climbing Education - an initiative to re-think our program design to better meet the needs of the climbing community and better achieve our mission. The first step involved intensive information-seeking, then we took the feedback to simplify our project goals. One of those goals is to "Develop Safe Climbers."  Read more…

Mountaineer climbers in 1939 were well aware of their unparalleled good fortune. Only the highest Northwest peaks had been climbed, and all a young climber had to do to score a first ascent was head for the nearest blank spot on the map. Many of the mountains hadn’t even been surveyed, and the climbers often went without benefit of a map. Often they explored the area first and returned later, relying on their own notes to reach the summit. Read more…

My brother Colin and I had been planning to climb the Grand Teton in the "light and fast" style with the goal of completing the 12-pitch, 15-mile hike as fast as we could with light gear. No camping gear, no emergency bivy - just some food, enough gear, and a good idea of where we were supposed to go. My bag had all of the gear and food that I needed to climb, so this was not an ideal situation. Read more…

As the summer heat melts the snow in the mountains, more and more patches of  exposed rock appear and can be very hazardous for multiple reasons. Read more…

Meet Our Parks | Your Adventure's Caitlin O'Brien. Together with her brother Colin O'Brien, she will climb the Grand in Grand Teton National Park in under 24 hours, all in support of The Mountaineers Youth Programs.  Read more…

The Mountaineers pioneered alpine climbing in North America. Join us on August 18, 2016, to revel in the terrible ways climbing has been portrayed in the movies ever since. The "Arc'teryx Bad Movie Night" is the premier event you didn't know you wanted!  Read more…

We were so close (we think) to the summit. Darkness was still a few hours away, and we had a fleeting glimpse of hope that we’d be able to find the route and regain the ridge to the top. Passing anxious scramblers - dodging scree and loose rocks they were kicking down on each other while down-climbing a sketchy section of rock  - put a damper on our spirits.  Read more…

The Mountaineers is embarking on a project we're calling Progressive Climbing Education - an initiative to re-think our program design to better meet the needs of the climbing community and better achieve our mission. The first step is an intensive information-seeking process to find out what's working and what needs to change. We sent a survey to the broader climbing community and received more than 200 thoughtful responses. Read more…

June was an interesting month in the mountains. We had “June-uary” conditions, giving us lots of new snow, rain, and wind. We also had scorchingly high temperatures with places like Leavenworth and Vantage reaching close to 100°F.  As we progress through the summer, we need to be mindful of the dangers on these hot, sunny days - even if we are out on snow or a glacier.  Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we've believe venturing into the outdoors is an essential piece of the human experience. We go outside to wander and explore the adventurous spirit within ourselves. It's important to implement low-impact recreation skills to keep our wild places as sanctuaries for the human spirit; so our grandchildren can experience the sensation of discovering an untouched place. Read more…

Mountaineers Books author and international mountaineer Nick Clinch passed away June 15, 2016 in Palo Alto, California at the age of 85. Read more…

With headlamps switched on, we started up the Ingalls Creek trail. The first rays of dawn followed behind, ready to bask the forest in gold, while our lamps illuminated the trail in front — guiding us up and over the pass.  Read more…

In celebration of the National Parks Centennial, we’re launching Our Parks | Your Adventure, a fundraising opportunity we hope will inspire you  to choose a challenge in our National Parks. We hope to raise $40,000 between July 1 and September 5, 2016!  Read more…