Lori Heath
Until I checked my membership date recently, I hadn’t realized I’ve been a Mountaineers member for 30 years. Wow! My career in environmental protection carried me from my Midwestern flatlands birthplace to the Pacific Northwest — a place I had dreamed about since childhood. After several years in Oregon and then Olympia, another career move brought me to Seattle.
In Seattle, I went looking for experienced paddling partners and found them in The Mountaineers Sea Kayaking course. Soon after graduating the course, I was helping teach and leading trips. Then, as now, I’ve valued adventuring with people who take preparedness seriously — physical readiness, training, gear, emotional steadiness, and emergency awareness — and understand the importance of working together as a group.
It was several years before I tried another Mountaineers activity, but the memory of my first day hike still makes me smile. Because the organization is called “The Mountaineers,” I assumed that day-hiking involved mountaineering. So, I registered for an “easy” day-hike and showed up mentally prepared to climb an easy mountain. The destination was Mud Mountain — which, to my surprise, turned out to be a gentle walk along the White River. The trip gave me new Mountaineers friends and plenty of laughter with the leaders about my Midwestern assumptions.
One of my greatest joys is learning new things. With The Mountaineers, I learned to hike, snowshoe, recognize wildflowers and plants, and navigate off trail, and I eventually became a trip leader and instructor for many of those activities. At this point, I’ve led or participated in hundreds of trips. My favorite memories are the ones shaped by connection with kindred spirits: sharing awe at a high mountain vista, meeting weather challenges with good humor, playing in fresh powder on a snowshoe outing, or standing together in quiet appreciation before a brilliant wildflower meadow.
