Courses & Activities

Are you looking for active adventure travel in exciting new places around the world? You now have a chance to experience adventure in the Alps with other fun and capable Mountaineers, led by an experienced volunteer leader. Read more…

My thirst to belong outdoors started early. I was just in elementary school and I was being bussed across town from one district to another. I didn’t know why at the time, but I did notice that few students looked like me. My new school was awesome. It had everything I could hope for: musical instruments, better playgrounds, rad field tips, and cool teachers. We even had periodic visits from Mr. McFeely from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. My old school paled in comparison. Read more…

Whenever you set out on a trail, take time to appreciate its construction. A a complimentary piece to "Lightly on the Land" published our summer 2019 magazine, here we share some key trail features to look out for courtesy of stewardship expert and Mountaineers Books author Bob Birkby: Read more…

As we enter into the rainy season you may notice that there are fewer photography field trips, but that opens the door to more indoor activities and events. In the next few months, we have a photo presentation, two workshops, and  several indoor photography urban adventures to keep you busy. Read more…

The following is  an excerpt from Wild Shots: A Photographer's Life in Alaska by Tom Walker. Wild Shots is a memoir filled with stories of a life in the Alaskan bush and the colorful characters, animals, and adventures that have made it full and interesting. Read more…

The Teely Creek trail has much to offer hikers: fishing, camping, swimming, geocaching, and a relaxing atmosphere amidst an old growth forest. Read on to learn more about this incredible area, and how you can make the most of your trip if you decide to explore the trail.  Read more…

Do you want to learn more about travel photography before your big trip, or just enjoy the gorgeous photos your fellow Mountaineers took on their adventures? Join us for our Behind the Shot series! Created by the Seattle Photography Committee, this series is designed to inspire and educate our fellow photographers. This October 23 we explore the incredible forests of western Panama with Thomas Bancroft. Be sure to save the date for our other upcoming presentations. Read more…

John Porter has been called a climber's climber. A member of "the generation that nearly climbed itself into extinction", John currently serves as president of The Alpine Club, the world's first mountaineering club founded in the UK in 1857. John has been a part of many notable first ascents and wrote the biography of famed British mountaineer Alex MacIntryre. Join us to hear John's incredible tales of mountaineering achievement and failures. Read more…

Our blog series Gnar Face documents the funny, painful, and unfortunate things we’ve done to ourselves in the outdoors. In this edition, we hear from Communications Associate Hailey Oppelt about poor planning on Aasgard Pass. Take a look at the last edition of Gnar Face for more tails of woe and misery. Read more…

The following excerpt is from the new book, The Road to San Donato: Fathers, Sons, and Cycling Across Italy by Robert Cocuzzo.  Read more…

Alpine Ambassadors,  a group of climbers looking to push their limits together, learn from the mentorship of guides and highly accomplished climbers, and mentor others, held our second “rock” trip in the world class climbing mecca of Squamish, BC in July 2019. Spending six days (in a row) climbing in Squamish exposed us all to new techniques, rope systems, and climbing areas in a truly contagious learning environment. Together we pushed our  limits, challenged our abilities, and progressed as climbers. Read more…

“You’re doing what?!” I gasped. It was a typical Monday evening in July and we were sitting at the Elliot Bay Brewery for the launch party of The Mountaineers first peer-to-peer adventure based fundraising campaign, Our Parks | Your Adventure. Being the year of the National Park Centennial, we hoped our campaign would inspire individuals to seek an adventure of their choosing in a National Park while fundraising for The Mountaineers youth programs. Read more…

Trail Tails is a special feature showcasing the mutts of The Mountaineers! This month we recognize Gumbo, owned by Mountaineer Chi Tran.  Read more…

Our twelve-year-old daughter loves to pester us with, “Are we there yet?”, “How much longer?” and “Can we take a break?” when we go on hikes. The solution? Bring a friend her age. If that strategy fails, we try to include a cool distraction like having a scavenger hunt, finding a geocache, playing in a snow patch, or identifying birds or plants. I recently stumbled on another technique you can add to your repertoire of distractions that can also work great on your pack carrying workouts. I call it “Gamify.” All it requires is a pair of dice and some creativity. Read more…

 On a boat it's imperative to know your whereabouts – failure might lead to anything from mild embarrassment (“What do you mean this is Jones Island, not James Island?”) to the danger of running aground on a lee shore by wind and tide.Those of us who sail the Salish Sea only rarely run out of sight of land, but it does happen, most commonly when running into fog or sailing at night. Join us for Marine Coastal Navigation, studying the art and science of navigating within sight of land. Read more…

The following is excerpted from David Guterson's new book Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest. Read more…

Some of the best trail running options in Washington can be found just minutes from bustling Bellevue, Redmond, and Issaquah. The Eastside is graced with a sprawling park system and extensive trail network that ranges from gentle paved rail trails to grueling single tracks up steep Cascades Foothills. Whether you’re looking for a trail for an easy jog, long run, or challenging training course, the Eastside has you covered. Here are three of my favorites for a great trail running experience. Read more…

I rose shivering in the pre-dawn dark and poked my head out of the tent. Frost coated every surface and glittered in a thick layer on the tent fly. Outside a faint glow was building over the ridge opposite our tents, and the donkey drivers on our support crew were hooting and hollering on the hillsides, bringing our donkeys down from their overnight grazing spot above camp. Another glorious day in Peru was about to start, and we were looking forward to greeting the sun at the top of  a  15,416-foot pass. Read more…

A climb-a-thon. Now, that’s an idea. I can’t take all the credit though. Gavin Woody was president of the board in 2012 when he asked me if I’d thought about doing some sort of climb-a-thon as a fundraiser to give members a fun way to support our new youth programs. This made sense as Mountaineers put in a lot of vertical feet all year round, but at the time I had just completed my first year as director for a new development program. We were already in early-stage planning for our next “first ascent,” a fundraising dinner in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jim Whittaker’s historic summit of Mt. Everest. Read more…

This summer I’ve been slowly marking off the 100 hikes that Ira Spring and Harvey Manning published in their second edition of 100 Hikes in Washington: South Cascades and Olympics. I completed my 41^st as we hiked to the site of the former Tatoosh Ridge lookout on Tatoosh Peak, made famous in Martha Hardy’s book Tatoosh. This hike is neither for the faint of heart nor the causal hiker. It is steep, with some exposure and drop-offs that leave one wondering, “What am I doing this for?” Read more…

I live with two realities that are mostly hereditary: aging-related hypertension and type II diabetes. My paternal grandfather died from diabetes complications in 1958 (he was 6'4" and thin as a rail). My dad has diabetes (he's 5'3" and only 107 lbs.). So, while I'm fatter than I'd like, my weight was not the determining factor in my diabetes. Read more…

Progressive Climbing Education (PCE) is a strategic initiative to advance our Mountaineers climbing programs, 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. This quarterly communication is intended to provide regular updates about each committees' projects, offer transparency, and ensure that all branches are able to provide feedback and input to proposed changes to the climbing programs. Read more…

Unsurprisingly, The Mountaineers community takes an astounding number of trips all around the Pacific Northwest in the summer months, and many of those yield great write-ups and photos.  That makes aggregating reports for these Top-10 posts a lot harder. After looking through every report dated between June 1 and July 31, I pulled out the best of the best, which left me with about 50 reports - way too many to turn into a top-10 list. Therefore, I dub the reports below the "best of the best of the best." Read more…

Did you know that The Mountaineers offers outdoor adventures not only across North America, but in far flung spots all over the globe? Our hardy team of Global Adventures leaders love outdoor adventure travel, and love to take fun and compatible groups of Mountaineers with them! If you're passionate about expanding your outdoor horizons and would love to share those experiences with fellow Mountaineers, you'll want to check out our trips that have recently opened for registration. Don't wait - trips can fill up months to a year in advance! Read more…

Give us your BEST - photos that is! It's time to update our chapter slide show and what better way to do it than to run a photography contest! This slide show is shown at all our public events and showcases all of our great activities.  Follow the instructions below to submit photos in any of the nine categories and win recognition and eternal bragging rights. Read more…

Steve Swenson, a Mountaineers Books Author and member of The Mountaineers Board of Directors, along with alpinists Chris Wright, Graham Zimmerman, and Mark Richey, completed the first ascent of Link Sar (7,041m) in the Central Pakistani Karakoram via its 3400-meter Southeast Face. The object of at least nine previous expeditions, the first ascent of this peak has been a highly sought-after achievement for the climbing community. The team is calling their route the Southeast Face (M6+ WI4 90°, 2,300m), but the grade poorly portrays the challenge of this route that Steve, a Karakoram veteran, calls “one of the most complex and difficult routes I have ever climbed.” Read more…

Purchasing outdoor gear can be a daunting experience. I understand. We’ve all been there, standing in the middle of a gear shop, surrounded by dozens of sleeping bags, a pile of backpacks, and enough sleeping pads to stack to the ceiling. It’s all a bit much. Read more…

Unprepared adventurers, if they’re not lucky, can find themselves struggling out in the dark, under deteriorating conditions — or worse. Perhaps they leave without appropriate clothing or gear. Or they go without being cognizant of weather or available daylight. A few face difficulty because they chose an objective they were not physically ready for. And some expose themselves and others to risk because they decide to continue the climb even though objective information suggests they would be safer turning around or choosing another destination. Read more…

By the end of the day, I was finally able to look squarely into the camera and say, “poop” without laughing. Our film team let out a collective sigh of relief. We were officially finished with one of the most challenging storytelling tasks of the Backcountry Impact Series film project: human waste. Read more…

The Seattle Photography Committee started the Behind the Shot series last fall with a goal of inspiring others to go on their own photo adventure. These presentations will not only show you gorgeous photos, but will give you information about camera equipment and planning trips. Join us September 24 to explore Costa Rica, and save the date for other upcoming presentations. Read more…