Most Popular Blogs

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 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…

Happy February Mountaineers! As the weather gets warmer and we shed the winter blues, we look to February as the month of change and the beginning of those summer feels!  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…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to... Read more…

As the pandemic ebbed in 2022, five of us Mountaineers decided it was time to finally travel again. Our goal: the Ausangate Loop in Peru, a 60-mile, weeklong trek that ambles between 13,600 and 17,200 feet. We ranged in age from 43 to 68 and all identified as female-bodied. So, basically, we were five middle-aged ladies on a high-altitude adventure. Read more…

Waking early on my first morning of a five-day climbing trip in Canada, I quickly dressed and enjoyed the wonderful breakfast offerings that Steve and his partner Ann so generously supplied. Nibbling on a toasted slice of a local bread and slowly sipping my much needed coffee, I continued to pack  everything for the day until my phone vibrated on the counter. It was go time. I stepped out into the crisp cold of a clear morning still speckled with waning stars as the surrounding peaks were beginning to glow with the first light of a new day.  Read more…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to... Read more…

Mountaineering, an exhilarating and challenging pursuit centered around scaling towering peaks, transcends mere physical conquest. It embodies teamwork, resilience, and selflessness, all hallmarks of servant leadership. Read more…

ELearning plays a critical role in our community's efforts to teach and learn outdoor skills and build a shared culture of conservation. Three conservation-focused offerings on our eLearning management system, Coassemble, are some of the many ways we educate Mountaineers about conservation and cultivate stewards and advocates for the places we cherish.
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Each week we bring you a personal story from a member of our community. For our profile this week we talked to... Read more…

Outdoor advocacy can take many forms: from virtual meetings and policy letters, to events with members of Congress. These individual advocacy actions build momentum over time to address challenges facing our public lands, climate, and outdoor recreation. Read more…

Alan Kearney and his posse of bell-bottom clad buddies are obsessed with buildering. All the rage in 1973, ‘buildering’ is the art of bouldering on urban infrastructure, or in lay terms, climbing up a building. Inspired by the emerging ice climbers in the Alps, Alan and crew want to take their new passion a step further by buildering on ice. They look for ice anywhere they can find it, and stumble across a 15-foot frozen wall behind a local meat market in the dark of night. Ice axes in hand, they anchor a top-rope to a fence post and begin to climb. To call them “ice climbers” would be an overstatement, but they have a blast regardless. Ice buildering, as it turns out, is just as fun as they had imagined. Read more…

Today and tomorrow mark a celebration of community and generosity across the Pacific Northwest. Will you join us and GiveBIG to get more people outside? Read more…

In a continued pursuit of a safe, welcoming, and inclusive culture, the Board of Directors launched a new Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault (SHSA) Prevention Advisory Committee in December 2023. This is an ad hoc advisory committee chartered to develop recommended near-term and long-term improvements to our bylaws, behavior policies, and operational procedures to address the risk of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault of our members. The committee is charged with defining and understanding the risks of sexual harassment & sexual assault within The Mountaineers, identifying ways to prevent these behaviors, and identifying ways to respond to these behaviors. Read more…

This year’s Bellevue Mountainfilm on Tour film program, Big Green World, highlights films on environmentalism, ecology, stewardship of our lands and wild places, adventure, and emotional engagement with the outdoors. Travel to places such as the rain forests of the Amazon Basin, the coast of Scotland, and the Baffin Islands of Nunavut. Don't miss the highline rope walk between two hot air balloons at 6,300 feet! Read more…

In a North Seattle public school, 65 miles from Mt. Rainier, Kelsey Hoffman’s classroom is engaged in an unusual last-day-of-school activity. Read more…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to... Read more…

The Mountaineers partners with Seattle-area youth serving organizations to deliver single or multi-day experiences designed to get youth outside, expose youth to transferable outdoor skills, and impart a desire to explore and conserve the outdoors. We call these programs Mountain Workshops. Through our Seattle Mountain Workshop partner programs, The Mountaineers provides over 1,100 youth experiences a year. We couldn’t provide these programs without the support of our amazing volunteer community! Read more…

Mountaineers from all branches, their guests, and community members are invited to join the Olympia Mountaineers on the first Wednesday of each month from November 2022 through March  2023 for our much-loved Adventure Speaker Series! Olympia Mountaineers have hosted this amazing free event for many years, and are pleased to be able to return this year with a line up of new and familiar speakers. Read more…

Meet Our Parks | Your Adventure's Tom Vogl. Together with his oldest son, James, he will do a one day climb of Mt. Shuksan's Fisher Chimneys.  Read more…

As far as blind dates go, meeting at 9,500 feet on Wy’East (Mt. Hood) is about as good as it gets. Our mutual friend Johnny invited Theresa Sippel and I to attempt a summit ski in July of 2013. Going into the weekend, I was hopeful that the team would be successful, but I had no idea I was about to meet my future “skilationship” life-partner. Read more…

Goosebumps. The Babysitter's Club. Anything by Lurlene McDaniel or Dr. Seuss. My childhood was shaped by the stories and images in books, but I could hardly anticipate how much the books I read in college would change the course of my life. Read more…

Are you excited to start testing the waters of outdoor adventure this summer, but not sure how to do it in a way that’s fun and safe for everyone? Consider car camping, the most accessible way to get outside overnight - making it a great way to introduce kids and trepidatious friends to the outdoors. To ensure your trip is successful and open the doors to future adventure, here are a few tips for brand-new car campers to take their trip to the next level: Read more…

The following is excerpted from Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams, new from Mountaineers Books. Read more…

My knees sank into the snow. I had my face close to the quilt of white that covered the stair-step moss. In a few places, their feathery green leaves showed through. These are one of the biggest mosses in the Pacific Northwest. A new leaf grows each year from the stem of last year’s. An elegant bryophyte, with lacy foliage, it can form a matt a foot or more, thick. The combination of snow and moss made the forest floor look like a thick and fluffy winter comforter had been thrown across it. The leaf tissue looked frozen and shriveled, but it smelled alive; vibrant life was just waiting for a warm day. Read more…

Stephanie Lewis is a casting director working with Warrior Poets - Morgan Spurlock's production company responsible for a variety of award winning documentaries and docu-series - is seeking young people planning the adventure of a lifetime! Read more…

Did you know that The Mountaineers have a penchant for the theatrical, dating back to our earliest days entertaining each other around the camp fires? Since 1923, The Mountaineers Players have been bringing quality outdoor theater to the people of Puget Sound. Read more…

On their second summit traverse of Mt. Rainier as part of the history-making Rainier Infinity Loop, Adventurers Gavin Woody and Ras Vaughan met Hakim and his two daughters on the Muir snowfield. Eight year-old Aisha and 5 year-old Anisah were joining their dad on their first hike to Camp Muir after years of hiking around the base of the mountain. Raised at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Hakim grew up hiking and climbing. He loves the mountains and wants his daughters to love them too.  Read more…

Meet Our Parks | Your Adventure's Mary Hsue. She plans to hike to a peak in each of Washington's 3 National Parks to inspire others to donate to support the next generation of adventurers and stewards of our public lands.  Read more…