Olympia Branch Blog Posts

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

At the 2022 Annual Awards Celebration, the Olympia Branch recognized outstanding leaders, awarded  hiking and climbing pins, and congratulated students who graduated from a wide variety of courses.  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…

Books make great gifts! Stop by the bookstore at our Seattle Program Center in Magnuson Park for deals on books, maps, and Mountaineers logo merchandise for your family, your friends, and yourself.  Read more…

As a values and mission-driven nonprofit, everything we do at The Mountaineers is in service of our vision to get more people outside and create advocates for our natural world. Earned revenue, like book sales and course fees, help us to provide world-class outdoor training, books, and experiences. These provide a strong foundation for us to grow our impact through philanthropy. Donations help to fund youth partner programs, conservation & advocacy work, shared services across all locations and activities, scholarships, and more. Read more…

We're pleased to present you with the outcome of the 2022 Board & Branch elections, and we're grateful to everyone who participated by voting and accepting a nomination. Your participation shows a deep commitment to the organization, and this year, we saw over 1,300 votes. Read more…

With Vision 2022, we developed a plan through high engagement from our community. Based on community feedback and support, Vision 2022 provided an important foundation for us as leaders in innovative outdoor education striving to engage future generations in advocacy, adventure, education, volunteerism, and community. We hope to build on that foundation as we look ahead to our  next strategic plan. Read more…

This month the Olympia Branch held its annual Social and Awards Celebration to honor 2022 course graduates and award pins, patches, and services awards to our outstanding members. Mike Endres was our guest speaker. A guide book writer and photographer, he captivated the crowd with stories about his travels climbing and adventuring from Colorado to Alaska. Although there was no banquet this year, light refreshments were served and plenty of radiant smiles were shared as members reminisced and celebrated the skills acquired, lessons learned, and memories made during this past year. Read more…

When climbing courses were canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19, the Olympia Basic Alpine Climbing Committee began incorporating new virtual educational methods into the program. Learn more about how these changes will be applied to our course moving forward, and how you can get involved.  Read more…

Last month, we shared our land acknowledgment statement and the process we underwent to develop it. Mountaineers staff and board members developed this statement in collaboration with Chairman Leonard Forsman of the Suquamish Tribe. We recognize that land acknowledgment is only a small piece of doing our part to help rectify historical wrongs and honor Native peoples. The actions we take as an organization are a more substantive way of showing Native peoples respect and gratitude. Read more…

The practice of stewardship brings Mountaineers together from across branches and activities to care for our natural places. By working together to restore and maintain trails, pick up trash, and remove invasive species, we help ensure healthy landscapes that thrive for future generations. Read more…

Whether you’re a total newbie, seasoned advocate, or somewhere in the middle, we encourage all Mountaineers to get involved in conservation and advocacy on behalf of the public lands we love and the outdoor experiences they provide. Read more…

It’s that time of year when our favorite places begin to change. The pinks and purples of summer are fading to fiery yellows and reds of fall. Trailheads are welcoming the blanket of autumn fog that keeps our hiking cool while obscuring summit views. Temperatures are dropping, and we’re preparing to exchange our backpacks and paddles for crampons and skis.  Read more…

Have you ever walked into a space, say a meeting room or a new bar, and known immediately that you were out of place? Read more…

As a 501(c)(3) volunteer-led organization, The Mountaineers depend on the generosity, initiative, and leadership of our volunteers to steward the future of our organization. We are humbled by the service provided by board and branch directors whose positions are confirmed by members each year. Thank you for all you do as members to elevate our mission, and for your participation in the forthcoming election process for these organization-wide leaders. Read more…

We are proud to share our fiscal year 2021 Impact Report, an annual publication highlighting the ways that programs, publishing, and people combine forces to impact our outdoor community and the future of outdoor recreation. Read more…