Foothills Branch Blog Posts

 At The Mountaineers, leadership plays an integral part in every facet of our organization. We have a wide variety of leaders in many different roles - from Branch Treasurer, to Qualified Youth Leader, to Committee Chair. The term "leader" also specifically refers to a volunteer who has been vetted by an activity committee to lead a Mountaineers activity. These trips leaders have fulfilled the technical and interpersonal skill requirements included in our Club-wide Activity Standards. By leading hundreds of trips each month, trip leaders play a fundamental role within our organization.  Read more…

This past year, as always, our volunteers have remained at the core of our operations. Thank you to the 3,254 members who volunteered their time during fiscal year 2022 (October 2021-September 2022), and to the many others who supported from afar! Each of you has made a difference. Read more…

Since the beginning of Mountaineers Youth Programs in 2011, camp has been a staple of our summers, filling the Seattle and Tacoma Program Centers with camp joy every year. As we strive to connect more youth with nature year after year, we’re excited to expand our summer offerings to include week-long camp programs from mid-June through mid-August. Join us for a week, or multiple, full of community building and outdoor exploration at a Mountaineers lodge this summer!  Read more…

As we experience worsening impacts of the climate crisis on our public lands and communities, we must do more to respond to this urgent threat.
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The Leadership Development Series offers high-quality, continuing education opportunities for our current and aspiring volunteer leaders and instructors. Offered mainly remotely through Zoom, with a couple in-person sessions, these seminars lean on the expertise of outdoor professionals - including experts within our community - and focus on areas of leadership development. Read more…

Whether it’s paddling the emerald waters of Deception Pass, hiking through Capitol State Forest, or climbing the Royal Columns at Oak Creek Wildlife area, Washington’s state-managed public lands and waters connect us to nature through the many recreational activities we enjoy. Over the years, Mountaineers have been strong champions for Washington’s state parks and recreation areas and the outdoor opportunities they provide.
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Whether you prefer backcountry skiing the North Cascades, climbing in Tieton, or day hiking along the Snoqualmie River, as Mountaineers you’ve likely experienced how policy and management decisions impact our public lands. Many of us have seen hazardous roads, decrepit facilities, and closed trailheads as funding falls shy year after year. But this frustration can – and has – produced change. The experiences of recreationists like you translate into compelling advocacy for conservation and recreation. Read more…

Meet Dan Renfrow, a Foothills Backcountry and Frontcountry Trail Run leader and lead instructor for the Introduction to Trail Running: Fastpacking Course. Dan has been recognized for his leadership and contributions to the Foothills Branch in 2022 with Super Volunteer, Key Instructor, and Key Leader award badges. Read more…

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, philanthropic donations to The Mountaineers support organization-wide innovation, equity, conservation, and more. But did you know that The Mountaineers has a pilot program where members can designate donations specifically to their branch community? Read more…

Happy January Mountaineers!  As we ring in the new year with some of our favorite trip reports from last month, we hope you feel inspired to reflect on your past success as you forge ahead into a year full of adventure and personal growth.

This month we are  highlighting trip reports that "beat" the "winter blues" amidst the dark and dreary winter. Read on for our favorite January reports of smiles, snow, and the occasional blue sky.  
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Over the years, we’ve been on a long journey to protect ancient, old-growth trees in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Our community has answered our calls to action time and time again because it understands that protecting Roadless Areas in Alaska sets a strong precedent for protecting backcountry places in Washington State and beyond. Last week, the administration finalized protections for the Tongass, securing a much-anticipated win for conservation, climate, and Indigenous communities. Read more…

One of the unwritten core values at The Mountaineers is safety. When we go out together, we make every effort to return safely. And, safety is about more than just physical safety. Feeling emotionally safe - to ask questions, share concerns, and show up as your full self - is a key component to physically safe outcomes. To support emotionally safe environments for our participants, we are excited to share our new Emotional Safety in the Outdoors eLearning course. Read more…

Federal public lands are central to The Mountaineers, playing host to nearly 60% of our programs and activities. Places like Mount Rainier, Washington Pass, the Olympic Coast, and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness connect us to nature and provide many public health benefits. Unfortunately, the 118th Congress spent the initial days of the new session making it easier to advance an anti-public lands agenda in the coming months.
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Advocacy has been an enduring theme throughout The Mountaineers history. In the face of intensifying impacts of climate change and increasing recreational use of public lands, it’s as important as ever that the outdoor community advocate to protect public lands and the outdoor experiences they provide. Read more…

Mountain photography has been a passion of mine for over forty years, but I had little noticed (or perhaps intentionally ignored) mosses. After rejoining The Mountaineers in early 2015 to take the Introduction to the Natural World (INW) Course, I signed up for a few Naturalist activities that were oriented around mosses and lichens on wintertime hikes. I don’t recall wanting to learn about mosses and lichens - I barely knew what the latter were. I just wanted to expand my hiking repertoire. So I joined “moss hikes” on Cougar and Tiger Mountain. Read more…

My hometown of Bozeman, Montana, has four seasons: summer, fall, snow, and mud. Snow season is the longest. While the climate crisis has changed things, as a child I remember planning Halloween costumes based on what would pair well with my snowsuit, and I often celebrated my mid-May birthday in a snowstorm. I spent many a weekend at the local sledding hill sweating my way up (often quitting halfway) and squealing my way down. As such, I consider myself a connoisseur of fun in freezing season. Read more…

Over the past 18 months, Mountaineers volunteers have been working to create an Equity and Inclusion (E&I) Leader Toolkit for our community. The E&I Leader Toolkit is designed to help you (our volunteer leaders) foster a culture of belonging in your courses and activities. As part of our organizational commitment to equity and inclusion, we are working to create a Mountaineers where everyone can feel belonging. We hope this toolkit is a helpful resource for the many volunteers requesting more E&I support. Read more…

December's Top Trip Reports catalogs the closing chapter of a truly wonderful and joyous year, despite an end-of-month ice storm that had everyone wondering if they would "make it home for the holidays"!

Read on for some of our favorite trip reports from last month, including a tumultuous sea kayaking trip, arduous scrambles, numerous snowed-in parking lots, a spicy bikepacking trip, and endless smiles!  Read more…

Meet John Murphy, a Foothills scramble, snowshoe, hiking, and trail running leader, as well as a 2022 Super Volunteer, Key Leader, and Key Instructor. Read more…

The Mountaineers is an incredible community of outdoor enthusiasts, students, instructors, advocates, and leaders. We are inspired by our community’s dedication to fostering connections to the outdoors. As we close the door on 2022 and look ahead to 2023, we reflect on our core values and how they’ve guided us through this past fiscal year. Read more…

One of the first impulses we have while recreating outdoors is to take a photo. We want to share the exhilaration of our alpine scrambles, the warmth of alpenglow on an early morning snowshoe, or the unexpected wildlife dotting our hiking trails. We photograph because we have a deep connection to these natural places and we want others to experience that connection, too. Read more…

On Monday, January 9, The Mountaineers will be hosting a Pop-Up Donor Center with Bloodworks Northwest at the Seattle Program Center from 9am-3pm. Read more…

We’ve heard from many members expressing concern about this winter’s weekday closure of the Longmire to Paradise Road in Mount Rainier National Park. We share those concerns for the loss of winter recreation access, and we are sympathetic to the staffing challenges the Park is currently facing. Read more…

Last year we announced that The Mountaineers is leading Outdoor Alliance Washington (OA Washington), a network of organizations representing the human-powered outdoor recreation community in Washington State. The goal of OA Washington is to forge strong relationships with lawmakers and land managers so that we can effectively advocate for shared conservation, recreation, and climate priorities. By amplifying the voices of more than 75,000 hikers,  paddlers, climbers, backcountry skiers, and mountain bikers across the state, we can achieve a more sustainable future for Washington’s outdoors. Read more…

As we increasingly experience the impacts of climate change in our communities and on outdoor experiences, it’s time to meaningfully invest in fighting the climate crisis. This summer, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) - a massive package of climate, healthcare, and tax bills - was passed by Congress and signed into law. Read more…

As a Mountaineers member, you receive free access to our quarterly Mountaineer magazine, keeping you up-to-date with everything our organization and community have been up to. Hear from regular contributors on topics from training exercises to trail tips, and read features from our members sharing stories from the outdoors. We encourage you to access all of our updates, stories, tips, and more in the tree free online magazine today. Read more…

November is a time to be grateful not only for leftovers, but for stunning adventures and perfect days exploring with The Mountaineers. This month there was a surprising amount of blue sky that made for sunny lunch breaks, great weather conditions, and wonderful photographs of our iconic mountains. Read more…

Braided River, the conservation imprint of Mountaineers Books, has deep roots in protecting nature through visual storytelling. It began with a historic vote on the Senate floor in 2003; the U.S. Senate was set to vote on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling. At a critical moment during the debate, Senator Barbara Boxer held up a Mountaineers Books publication book with photographer Subhankar Banerjee - showing her fellow senators images that told a much different story than the “blank white nothingness” portrayed by pro-drilling senators and the oil industry. Seeing images of the abundant life in all four seasons encouraged a vote of 52 to 48 against opening up the coastal plain of this refuge to drilling. Read more…

The climate crisis is a critical issue for outdoor recreationists like you, who took action to urge Congress to go big on climate and invest in a sustainable future for the planet and our communities. In early August 2022, everything fell into place and lawmakers passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) - a massive package of climate, healthcare, and tax bills. The final version of the bill contains $369 billion in climate provisions, making it the largest effort to address the climate crisis in our nation’s history.  Read more…

At The Mountaineers, we aspire to offer outdoor opportunities for everyone, and are committed to building a community where all people feel belonging. Our Equity & Inclusion (E&I) Committee was founded in 2018 to work across the organization, in partnership with staff and volunteers, to bring this vision to life. Reflecting the promise of transparency to our community, our committee shares written updates twice per year and holds an annual E&I Town Hall to highlight key trail markers in our work. Today we’re excited to share the progress we’ve made since our April Town Hall, and to announce that applications are now open to join the E&I Committee in 2023.  Read more…