The Mountaineers
Do you have tips on ways to avoid blisters during a hike? Are you the best at pitching a tent in the rain? Have you learned something unique from a Mountaineers course or activity? We want to know!
The Mountaineers is a community connected by a shared love and appreciation for the outdoors. As one of the oldest volunteer-led organizations in the country, we just so happen to be experts in the outdoors, too! Our skills and experiences have been documented in the pages of our books and in the memories of our members. We want to share your personal stories in our blog and magazine, because your voice is what makes us who we are.
About our communications
Our vision for our communications is to create a sense of community while highlighting our array of volunteer-led programs to inspire more people to get involved and get outside. We hope our blog and magazine provide a platform for members to connect with each other and the world outside our doorsteps.
Mountaineer magazine
The magazine is used as a platform to highlight our most important work and elevate stories from our membership. We publish Mountaineer magazine quarterly every winter, spring, summer, and fall to bring you stories, updates, and insights about what's happening in The Mountaineers and the greater outdoor community. We are always seeking personal stories from experiences within The Mountaineers community.
Blog
We publish 5-10 blogs per week, some of which are written by volunteers and members. Blogs are used to publicize upcoming events, find more participants for courses and trips, share tips and tricks, and highlight stories from our community. We share all of our blogs on social media, on our website homepage, and on relevant branch homepages to help publicize the amazing work of our volunteers.
Mountaineers Books
We publish 30-35 recreation, lifestyle, and conversation books each year through Mountaineers Books. This post is specifically designed to tell you about blog and magazine submissions, but you can find more information about how to pitch us a book here.
How to Submit
Contributors are generally members of The Mountaineers, or have a direct connection to our community or the Pacific Northwest. Blogs and features should be relevant to the PNW, but can expand beyond that geography if the story is pertinent to Mountaineers programs (for example, one climb leader wrote about how a Mountaineers course prepared them for a trip to the Karakoram).
We encourage you to be creative with your writing, as your name will appear as the author for any blog post or magazine article. We ask that you use a friendly, open voice that is not too technical. We prefer simple, easy-to-read posts. You may write about anything of interest to you that is relevant to our mission of conservation and recreation.
As a nonprofit and volunteer-led organization, all content is contributed on a volunteer basis. To submit a pitch, please email info@mountaineers.org with the following information:
- Article summary: In 3-5 sentences, what topic do you hope to explore in your article? How is it relevant to The Mountaineers, and how will it benefit our community? Does it directly tie into our mission, or one of our strategic priorities?
- Estimated word count
- Sample paragraph or two, to help us become familiar with your personal style
- Photo to accompany the piece (must be horizontal/landscape orientation if it's for a blog). Please note, if pitching for the magazine, images must be at least 1MB, or 1800 x 1200 PPI.
Pitches should present a clear concept and should reflect familiarity with our content and tone. With over a thousand blogs published, be sure to check our archives before submitting a pitch. If you're interested in pitching a magazine piece, we recommend looking at our magazine submission guidelines for additional information.
If you're already a Mountaineers volunteer, you can skip this step and submit your own blog.
We are most interested in personal stories of transformative experiences in the outdoors, guides to local outdoor spaces, how-to pieces, and stories from your time with The Mountaineers.
What to Expect
After submitting a pitch, you can expect to hear back from us within 5-10 business days. If we choose to go forward with your piece, we will work with you on edits. Depending on the story and the publication platform, there may be a few rounds of back and forth on edits before copy is finalized. Google Doc or Word Doc is preferred for submissions.
Once copy is finalized, we will transition it to an online blog or a print layout with the images you've provided. We will send you a final proof of the webpage or magazine layout to review before publication.
You retain ownership of the content, and are free to publish it elsewhere after it has appeared with The Mountaineers (using a canonical tag if posted online, or mentioning somewhere in the reprint that the article first appeared in Mountaineer magazine or on our website).
