Mountaineer Magazine

Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is a Japanese nature therapy practice to help individuals develop strong connections with nature and reap the physical and emotional benefits that this connection provides. Although its roots are far older, the modern understanding of this practice began in 1982 when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries instituted a national forest bathing program. Now gaining traction internationally, forest bathing is a tool that many are beginning to explore. Read on to learn about one member’s experiences, and steps you can take to begin your own forest bathing journey. Read more…

I’ve been hiking and backpacking for more than 40 years now. Along the way I’ve learned a few things from research, the guidance of others, the trials of my own errors, and random luck. It’s not only helped make me a successful guidebook author, but a confident hiker, backpacker, and trail runner. Below are a few of my hard-earned, trail-tested tips on how to have a pretty darn good hiking adventure. Read more…

Over my last four years working for The Mountaineers, it has been a great honor to observe and learn from three amazing Board Presidents, each with their own unique abilities and unwavering commitment to the health of our organization. I may be biased in my admiration of strong women in leadership, but one president stands out as particularly inspiring to me. This spring we honored retiring Board President Lorna Corrigan, an accomplished attorney and 30-year member of the Everett Branch who recently completed her third and final year of presidential leadership. Read more…

Cindy Ross is the author of nine books, including her first, A Woman’s Journey on the Appalachian Trail, which has been in print for nearly 40 years and has become a hiking classic. A former contributing editor for Backpacker Magazine, her column “Everyday Wisdom” was one of the publication’s most popular features. In April 2021, Mountaineers Books published her 9th book, Walking Toward Peace: Veterans Healing on America’s Trails, featuring stories of veterans who have struggled with PTSD and their journeys toward healing. This article includes excerpts from her most recent book in italics. Read more…

The word “legend” often evokes tall tales, stories whose veracity is less relevant than our collective belief in the incredible. Amidst the giant lumberjacks, sea monsters, and ‘there be dragons’ marks on the map, however, there do exist flesh-and-blood legends. Their footsteps are a little smaller and their voices a little softer, but they are there, crafting history. Read more…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to... Read more…

Have you ever been hiking alone and felt like you were being watched? It’s quite possible you were under observation - by a stealthy owl, perched above you in a tree. Often heard but not seen in our forests, these amazing birds of prey can swoop down silently, blending in with the trees they inhabit. Read more…

As we neared the ridge crest, the wind blasted snow pellets into my face like hot shrapnel. Just ahead of me, Bob’s blue pack cover snapped once, hard, then blew off his pack and into the white. Read more…

A little over a year ago, a colleague and I ventured about an hour north of Seattle to the little seaside town of Anacortes. Although tempted by views of nearby Mount Erie State Park, we were on our way to pick up the newest addition to The Mountaineers: a 15-passenger van. The vehicle was fated to take Mountaineers youth to the lakes, trails, and mountains surrounding Puget Sound. Read more…

I went to the Pacific Crest Trail to find my limit. I’d imagined my fastest known time attempt ending with me on hands and knees — dry heaving — at my utmost breaking point. Yet that never happened. I started the hike with my little plastic trowel, intent on digging deep as I’d learned to do over many ultramarathons, but the PCT laughed at that, and within a few days had handed me a full-size shovel instead. Read more…

One of my first jaunts into the alpine was blindly following friends to the summit of Kaleetan Peak. As we climbed, rocks whizzed passed me, kicked off by my friends above. On the descent, my roommate slipped on a slick patch and was nearly swept down a steep chute that dropped a hundred feet below. Read more…

With summer around the corner, it’s time to train for upcoming outdoor goals. In this edition of Peak Performance, I hope to help you assess the components of your alpine sport, and describe how to put together a safe, suitable, and personalized training program. Read more…

Teaching kayak self-rescue on a bleary Northwest day. Practicing crevasse rescue with a “fallen climber” twice your size. Encountering surprise sleet and snow on a backpacking trip. Of the many challenging situations they encounter, navigating federal permitting processes is one of the few that make our volunteer leaders groan. Read more…

We’ve all experienced a moment of true fear. Your fingers grow cold and your stomach drops. Time slows while your mind and body prime to react, and all you can think is, “This is actually happening.” Read more…

Reading the journals of many naturalists, outdoorspeople, and adventurers, you immediately feel their strong love for the land. You can sense how this love touched their souls and tantalized their emotions. But what about romantic, familial, or platonic love? Did they experience that too while out and about in the backcountry? Read more…

Sometimes a story asks to be told. As part of my role as Assistant Director of Development, I have the privilege of connecting with members to learn how Mountaineers philanthropy has positively impacted their lives. In last fall’s #GivingTuesday scholarship fundraising effort we introduced 18 year-old scholarship recipient Lily Walker, a five-year member of our year-round teen program, the Tacoma Mountaineers Adventure Club (MAC). Read more…

While traveling solo to remote and wild places, I had been in some dicey situations. The risks were real, but I knew of no one else interested in exploring the nether regions of wilderness, nor the Himalayan front range from east to west, nor the ancient trade routes that connect Tibet to India through massive ranges, passes that cut deep, from north to south where borders often go unmarked – and so I had gone alone. Read more…

This summer, I interned with The Mountaineers Mountain Workshop youth program. It taught me a lot about what it means to help a community. Getting people outdoors — especially those who don’t usually have the opportunity — can make all the difference in their day, week and even life. Read more…

The last patch of shade disappears in a wavering blue line, distorted by the heat. I sit on the scorching sand in exasperation. We are still five miles from the car, and I feel like garbage. I’m dizzy, a bit nauseous, and have a headache. After a year of hiking in the Northwest, I’ve forgotten about the unrelenting desert sun and my 2.5 liters of water was not nearly enough... I am dehydrated, and badly. Read more…

Escape. Flee. Run away. Most likely derived from the 1500s Middle Dutch word lopen, the meaning of the word elope has shifted over time. From its origins describing a simple, non-romantic escape, elope morphed to mean a scandalous affair wherein a married woman ran off with her lover. The affair disappeared, but the scandal remained, when eloping changed once again to mean a secret marriage without parental consent. Read more…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to... Read more…

When training your upper body at home, it’s easy to train your pushing muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) with pushups, and your core (abdominals, lower back, obliques) with various ab exercises such as planks. For your pulling muscles, however, more creativity is required. If you have a simple pull-up bar and you have the strength for pull-ups, great. If not, here are great pulling exercises you can do with items at home. Read more…

In the dark days of winter, one of the few reliefs we have from the gloomy weather is the promise of snow. Uncommon in the lowlands west of the Cascades, snow is a treat reserved for just a few days every year, blanketing the damp Northwest in a sheet of white. As a result, lowland snow days are a hectic delight. School is cancelled, roads are salted, snow plows deployed, and the Midwesterners shake their heads at our four inch dusting. Each year we act like it’s a surprise – and it may just be that it’s more fun that way. Read more…

A passionate skier since he was a child, Anders Morley dreamed of going on a significant adventure, something bold and of his own design. And so one year in his early thirties, he decided to strap on cross-country skis to travel across Canada in the winter alone. Read more…

Despite summer 2020 being the tenth year of summer camp, it was a year of firsts in more ways than one. With the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in March, by June safety was a primary concern for both campers and staff. It led us to wonder – can we still provide summer camp? And if so, what can be done to preserve that classic camp feeling? Sitting shoulder-to shoulder eating s’mores was off the table, but there had to be a way to reclaim the spark that only camp can bring. Read more…

Every winter I warm a kettle of cinnamon and cloves and sit down to write holiday cards to friends and family who supported me throughout the year. This personal ritual is something we practice as an organization as well. Read more…

Volunteer-led outdoor education is the heart and soul of The Mountaineers. Our instructors are passionate about sharing their love of the outdoors with others, and many of our students choose to play an important role in our community as volunteer instructors after graduation. Read more…

Like many aspects of our lives, 2020 has been a roller coaster of a year for public lands. During the initial weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, public lands in Washington State closed as a result of Governor Inslee’s ”Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order. Read more…

I grabbed my antique wooden snowshoes and headed for the door. Growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, solo adventures every weekend were the norm as a kid. Winters were my favorite; a blanket of snow transformed the world into a black and white vintage photo from December through April. My brothers and I would skate on the lake and wander the empty woods surrounding our small cabin until dusk. Read more…

The emptiness of Northeastern Washington’s Salmo-Priest Wilderness has never felt more comforting. I stand alone on a ridge gazing out over waves of emerald ridges, shadowed by processions of white puffy clouds. Soft, warm breezes whistle through silver snags, prompting boughs of bear grass to delicately sway. I haven’t encountered another human all day; out in all of that wildness before me, some of Washington’s last grizzlies still roam. I finally feel safe and relieved from the ravages of the pandemic sweeping the world outside my wilderness. Read more…