Mountaineer Magazine

There's something about digging in the dirt. I always know my kid's had an especially good day when he’s in outfit number three or there's dirt in his ears. As adults, or even young adults, our dirt ‘play’ changes significantly. I hike and climb and get dirty that way for sure, but there's something about getting dirt under-the-nails through good, old-fashioned dirt digging and rock moving. I started participating in trail-work events as a way to give back to the places I played. And kept doing it in part because it because it was so satisfying to see what impact a group of volunteers could make in a day’s work, and in part because it continues to be… simply fun. Read more…

Traveling along the North Cascade Scenic Highway (State Highway 20) between Marblemount and Mazama, one can’t help but be awed by the views of jagged peaks towering on every side. It is just as awe-inspiring to realize that the North Cascades began to be formed only about 90 million years ago, a blink of an eye in geologic time, through many collisions of fragments of the Earth’s lithosphere, called plates. The region has additionally been fine-tuned by ice-sheet and valley glaciers over the past two plus million years.  Read more…

Even after 34 years, the process of plant recolonization is still going on at Mount St. Helens. To go from moonscape to
forested landscape is a long process, and scientist John Bishop finds it “wondrous.” John, an ecologist and professor at Washington State University’s School of Biological Sciences, Vancouver, has been conducting research at the national monument for 25 years, starting as a grad student. He says his initial focus was evolutionary genetics. What better place to study than a landscape that was almost biblical: it was ripe for any kind of evolution. Read more…

This installment of Our Secret Rainier guides you to a monument and some amazing basalt columns in the national park. With extra effort, one can continue on to two scrambles in a remote part of the park.  Read more…

There’s nothing like that rush of exhilaration you feel upon cresting a high ridge bursting with wildflowers and surrounded by snow-capped craggy peaks. You stand upon your heavenly perch and gaze out with utter astonishment on how breathtakingly beautiful the natural world is; from the glistening glaciers before you to the fluttering butterflies among a carpet of brilliant blossoms below you. With senses completely overloaded, who among us hasn’t felt the urge to twirl amid the lupines and pull a Julie Andrews?  Read more…

Meet Helen Engle, a 64-year Mountaineers member and lifelong conservationist. She has devoted her life to protecting the places she loves, and is truly and inspiration to our community of explorers. Read more…

I first dreamed of writing books when I was twelve years old, stuck on my family’s sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Writing was an antidote to boredom, but as I grew up, it became a true passion. When I followed in my father’s footsteps to the summit of Mount Everest, the story was too good not to write about. Read more…

Atkins. Paleo. Zone. Low-carb. Low-fat. Gluten-free. There are as many eating plans out there as there are individuals, and just as much confusing information about which is best for the active outdoors enthusiast. The following habits recommended by Precision Nutrition require no calorie counting or food weighing, yet provide you with a healthy, functioning body that will get you where you want to go. 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…

One of the stories from The Wild Edge that resonates strongly with me is from Baja California, of gray whales approaching boats and trusting people to touch their bodies and stroke their newborn calves. People who experience these intimate encounters with whales describe them as among the most stirring moments of their lives--a connection of heart and spirit. Read more…

I was at a pretty big Thanksgiving gathering at an old YMCA camp on the Oregon Coast. In the industrial sized kitchen, a volunteer crew was preparing to feed a group of 50. Preparing to chop, the young man in charge of the meal that night dumped a bag of onions on the counter. I was nearby, chatting with a friend. I wasn’t part of the crew but I offered to help.  Read more…

We're very excited to be hosting IMG mountain guide and adventure writer Charlotte Austin for a one-night writing workshop. Whether you're an experienced author, part-time blogger, or curious novice, this class will give you a glimpse into the wide world of travel writing.  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…

Today we wish a very Happy Birthday to our longest standing member: Mary Anderson – a Washington State native, longtime teacher in the Seattle Public School Districts, and co-founder of REI with her husband Lloyd (she holds membership card #2). She was one of a handful of Mountaineers instrumental in setting up our climbing course in 1936. Read more…

I fell in love with the snow as a child. We didn’t have a lot of the white stuff where I grew up near London, England but I was fortunate in that my parents took my brother and I skiing in Austria. Every winter after that I tried to get in at least one ski vacation.  Read more…

If you’ve spent any time at the Seattle Program Center, you’ve probably come across John Wick in the basement, building test friction slabs or adjusting plumbing to install a washing machine, or behind the climbing wall removing bee hives, or attending an event. A mechanical engineer by trade and longtime employee of Boeing, John has shared his professional skills along with his love of the outdoors with The Mountaineers and the greater outdoor community. 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…

For veterans Steve Redenbaugh and Michael Fairman, climbing together was a way to cope with their struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Read more…

Snapping awake sometime before dawn, I extracted myself from sleeping bag and tent as quietly as possible so as not to awaken my tentmate. Snuggling in down parka, alpaca cap and mittens, I found a perch on a rock in the front row of the sunrise light show over the Cordillera across the deep gorge below. Read more…

As Mountaineers, we see the outdoors as the ultimate community center. It's a venue for young and old, new and seasoned, professional and novice to convene around a common interest. The renovated program center in Tacoma is an indoor space that proves the outdoors is not the only place Mountaineers come together.  Read more…

Few places on earth rival the rugged beauty and biological diversity of Washington state’s North Cascades mountain range. Read more…

Several months ago, I successfully rehabilitated my core and left hip stabilizer muscles, but steep steps remained awkward and tentative on my right leg. It turns out that crucial gluteal muscles were lagging behind those on the left side. It was time to even things out. Read more…

They’re all over Latin America. Along roadsides and in town squares; makeshift memorials honoring the lives of so many who departed this world prematurely. Usually placed on location of a terrible accident; these memorials allow us to reflect on the life taken from that very spot—and perhaps to lament the unfortunate situation leading up to it — alcohol, speed, negligence, distraction — the list goes on. Read more…

It’s 1:50am. The faded beam of my headlamp illuminates the narrow trail ahead. A river rages somewhere in the distance, like static from an unseen television. My legs are jelly. My back is soaked in sweat. The rhythmic crunch of two sets of feet behind me keeps my body pushing forward. The crew — Jordan, Dills, and I — have been hiking for six grueling hours, gaining 2,000 feet in elevation before winding around Lost Creek Ridge, and now sinking back to sea level as we near the river. Read more…

“You guys got me, right?” A student shouts down to her classmates, who are belaying her 50 feet into the air at Camp Long’s high ropes course. Her English is heavily accented, marking her Somalian roots, and the reply she gets from the ground comes from a native Spanish speaker, "Go, climb! You can make it!" Read more…

Last summer, I went on a hike with a group of Mountaineers staff and supporters to experience an example of the wild places we, as an organization, work to protect. We started out as so many Mountaineers trips do: meeting at a central location in Seattle, then carpooling to the mountains. 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 wife and I moved to Seattle nearly three years ago from Brooklyn, New York. It took us less than a year to decide to make Seattle our forever home. For outdoor lovers like us, how could we not? In under an hour on any given day, we can be on the trails headed to our campsite, in the mountains getting ready for a day of snowshoeing, or on the water in a kayak. Read more…

Many visitors to Rainier have visited Comet Falls - one of the more impressive falls in the park. If you haven’t been there, we highly recommend a visit. And continuing farther up the trail leads to two lesser-traveled spectacular places within the park. Read more…