Mountaineer Magazine

When it comes to health, exercise and nutrition tend to get the bulk of the attention. But getting adequate sleep may be the key to improving your outdoor performance, increasing brain and body function, and perhaps even losing unwanted weight as we enter the season of holiday parties and shorter daylight. Read more…

The Mountaineers’ Kitsap Forest Theater is one-of-a-kind. Attendees take a winding, quarter-mile path through lush woodlands sprinkled with wild rhododendrons. At the trail’s end, almost as though designed by the forest itself, the theater rises from the greenery. Giant firs surround terraced seating, moss-covered bark forms theater wings, verdant ferns serve as footlights, and sunlight shines through the tree canopy to create spotlights. Read more…

Sometimes a seabird is simply a bird that lives on the sea; other times it can lead you to a deeper connection with the world around you. For Joe Sweeney, that magic happens every time he visits the shore. Read more…

Mount Rainier National Park has over 100 climbable peaks (not counting Mount Rainier itself) either within or immediately adjacent to the Park boundary, and most are seldom visited and underappreciated. In this sense they are “secrets” and worthy of being featured in this Secret Rainier series, where we outline the benefits of these 76 scrambles, 15 hikes, and nine climbs. In this issue of Secret Rainier, we describe Copper and Iron Mountains. These two gems in the park require an arduous day but are well worth it. Read more…

Last November, on a southern point along the Continental Divide Trail in New Mexico, Heather Anderson, known as “Anish” on the trail, became the first woman and sixth person overall to complete one of thru-hiking’s ultimate feats: the “Calendar Year Triple Crown.” Read more…

In July 1996, I was a rock climber with very little experience in the mountains. I found myself in Glacier, having moved to Washington State from the relative flat-lands of the East Coast, where "it might be hot but at least it's humid." I was working for a small outdoor education program, and my new friend there suggested we go climb a technical peak in the North Cascades. Read more…

As staff liaison to the Everett branch, I have the opportunity to attend their branch banquet to witness the pride of accomplishment, honor exceptional volunteers, and to be inspired by their always entertaining featured speaker. This year, Lowell Skoog, a distinguished climber, skier, writer, photographer, and Mountaineers historian, gave a presentation on the past and future of Northwest mountaineering. Read more…

My friend Roger Rosenblatt and I had arranged to meet early one Saturday morning in April some years ago to go skiing in the Snoqualmie pass backcountry. Neither of us were especially good skiers, so our normal trips involved going up a logging road, and then branching off to find a lake or view rewarding ridge line. Read more…

When Dave Enfield describes one of his first and most memorable Mountaineers scrambles along Mazama Ridge, he does not mention the iconic views of the Tatoosh Range, the subalpine meadows down below, or Mount Rainier looming above. He does not bring up the early-season frost spreading from underfoot to distant peaks and chilling glaciers. He does not speak of beauty or majesty. Dave describes something entirely different: leaving his tent in the morning, all he saw was pure white. Read more…

When most people think of Mount Rainier National Park, they think of the park’s namesake peak, a towering 14,441-foot stratovolcano that’s famous the world over. But Washington State’s iconic mountain only scratches the surfaces of the area’s summit possibilities. Longtime Mountaineers Gene Yore and Mickey Eisenberg identified the 100 peaks surrounding Rainier and set about climbing these lesser-known gems. Gene, who took on the challenge at age 72, overcame cardiac arrest and a broken femur on his way to reaching all 100 peaks. Read more…

I looked around at the others, perhaps 75 in all, and saw that almost everyone was quite a bit younger than me. One exception was an instructor who looked like he might at least hail from the same part of the century. The lines on his clean-shaven face were well-defined and weathered in a good way. Read more…

A little past noon, the younger members of our group started getting hungry. One of the parents found a small rock outcropping with a nice view for a bite, and I unburdened myself of my backpack and sat down next to my father. Taking in the early autumn air of the Appalachians, we ate the sandwiches he’d prepared earlier that morning. Read more…

Our small town in rural Pennsylvania didn’t have a community center. Or a swimming pool. The only thing for us children to do when we weren’t in school was hike the surrounding hills and mountains. My family was poor, so we never went on vacations that didn’t involve a tent or camper. My strongest and most vivid memories growing up are from experiences in the outdoors. Spending time in the forests and mountains is as natural to me as breathing. Read more…

The Mountaineers annual Leadership Conference is dedicated to the ongoing development of our volunteer leaders. Discussions on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have been incorporated since its inception in 2014, and we’ve strived to include a wide array of presenters and sessions centered on inclusive and equitable programs. At the 2018 conference, we chose to introduce a full track focused on DEI, an exciting first for this event. Read more…

With just three days left in his 23-day, reality television ordeal, Don Nguyen was the very embodiment of the show’s title, “Naked and Afraid.” Cold rain and winds pounded and compromised his primitive shelter in the Namibian wilderness. As he shivered uncontrollably, in the buff and borderline hypothermic, he pondered an ending that he ultimately refused to accept. Read more…

I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut; the largest city in one of the country’s most densely populated states. Located 50 miles east of New York City, Bridgeport was an industrial powerhouse from the late 1800s to just after World War II. The city attracted waves of immigrants and was, and still is, incredibly diverse. I lived in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood where Italian and Yiddish were freely spoken. I remember a lot of little old ladies in black dresses. My parents were not outdoorspeople, nor were my friends. My neighborhood of tightly-packed two and three family homes was no Walden Pond. Read more…

A revamped building in Bremerton is set to transform how The Mountaineers Kitsap Branch teaches and trains students. But before we get too far into the future, the story of our new home warrants a look at the past. Read more…

A few years ago, I took a group of Nordic skiers to the Dolomites in Italy. One couple in my group was looking forward to celebrating a significant anniversary in Florence and Rome following our ski adventures. We had been in the Dolomiti for about 10 days and, on this day, had enjoyed a rigorous mountain ski. After lunch and a ski back to a side valley where our path crossed a road, the anniversary couple decided to take the rest of the day off and bus back to the hotel. Read more…

In the first few decades of The Mountaineers existence, members planned long, yearly excursions into the wilderness every summer and winter. On these annual trips, our members ventured into the mountains to explore and discover first ascents on unmapped peaks. In 1912, The Mountaineers spent July 20 - August 10 traveling around Mt. Rainier. Read more…

On February 28, 2001, a friend was being prepped for varicose vein surgery at the Seattle VA Hospital. He was given a mild sedative and began experiencing what he thought was vertigo when his surgeon announced that the procedure was cancelled and he needed to get dressed and leave the hospital immediately. An earthquake later known as the Nisqually, of a magnitude 6.8-7.0 had struck. My friend was disappointed at the postponement of his operation at the time, but it could have been worse. Read more…

“The night before we didn’t sleep. We were seriously worried it’d be a disaster,” says John Ohlson, the man who hatched the idea of erecting 25-foot basalt columns at The Mountaineers Seattle Program Center.  Read more…

One of the most common concerns mountaineering clients have is how to keep their knees healthy as they add mileage and years. To strengthen your quadriceps for downhill hiking, add Reverse Step Ups and Backward Walking to your training program. Both moves will help you develop better balance and build your leg strength and confidence, no matter your age. Read more…

In August of 2017, our sixth class of Mountaineers Adventure Club (MAC) reached graduation. MAC is a year-round outdoor club for teenagers in The Mountaineers. With about 30 participants a year, many join in 8th grade or as freshmen, and grow into outdoor leaders through their senior year in High School. Some of our MAC kids come up through Explorers, our middle-school outdoor club. Read more…

I am by nature a city girl. I enjoy bright lights and long walks down populated concrete sidewalks while street musicians fill the air with tunes. I am from Chicago, land of blues and backyard barbecue smells, where as a child I played double dutch near curbs on city streets in my Westside neighborhood. Big-city noises such as loud car motors and high-volume voices drowned out the sounds of pigeons, crows, and ravens, but the city was their home too. Read more…

The wind was unreliable and moody that day. It was a typical Pacific Northwest early April morning: overcast and chilly but with a crisp tinge of salt in the air. My wife, Michelle, and I were at Shilshole Marina, just west of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, to take part in the Blakely Rock Benefit Race (sponsored by Sloop Tavern Yacht Club). We had both just finished the Mountaineers sailing class, but, here we were, about to partake in a major sailing event. 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…

Meet Addison - an eight year old with a quiet yet self-assured presence. Addison, like all Mountaineers, loves the outdoors. She loves swimming, fishing, kayaking, rock climbing, and camping in her family’s gigantic tent – “no seriously, it’s gigantic!” she’ll tell you. Read more…

Kimberly “Kimber” Cross has that windblown sense of adventure you’d find in old western movies: a protagonist with an indelible charm, big smile, hard-working grit that’s worn like loose chaps, and a can-do attitude as easy as the winds she roams with. Read more…

While my wife was buying our snowshoe permits for the Crystal Mountain Nordic Area, I leaned against the back of our car, put my snowshoes on, and admired the couple resting at a nearby picnic table. They’d finished their jaunt through the powder around Leach Lake. They had at least a score on our three score years and I saw them as my role models. I too would be taking to the slopes for the next two decades, no matter the whining from my knees. They were doing it. I could do it. They had seized the day. Their stooping shoulders were not to be yoked by the presumptions of society or nature. They were empowered. Read more…

With a whirlwind of energy, Aisha and Anisah enter The Mountaineers Seattle Program Center, along with their father, Hakim Ali. The program center is a giant playground for them, starting with the basalt columns outside. I’m always proud to share with guests that people actually climb them – but the little Mountaineers, Aisha and Anisah weren’t surprised. Read more…