Mountain Madness gives back

These are a few of the lat­est projects we’ve been work­ing on. We hope you’re as excit­ed as we are to see how it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate an impact in our communities.

Togeth­er with African Envi­ron­ments, Moun­tain Mad­ness has been help­ing raise mon­ey and send sup­plies to the Mat­eves Sec­ondary School in Ngor­bob, Tan­za­nia to bring edu­ca­tion to the hun­dreds of stu­dents in the area. Each year, enroll­ment con­tin­ues to grow and the stu­dents show enthu­si­asm for their studies. 

The school receives only lim­it­ed fund­ing from the gov­ern­ment, mak­ing it very dif­fi­cult to meet the demands for school sup­plies, qual­i­fied teach­ers and to meet the require­ment set by the gov­ern­ment to find the nec­es­sary resources to build laboratories.

To help with their cur­rent require­ment for com­put­er stud­ies books, a fundrais­ing cam­paign was cre­at­ed. With the funds col­lect­ed – we hope to sup­ply 1,000 books to the stu­dents. This will allow one book for every two stu­dents. Fol­low the link below if you would like to contribute!

This climb was done in part­ner­ship with the Nature Con­ser­van­cy and spear­head­ed by Kristin Ben­net. The goal was to raise $5,000 to devel­op a net­work of trails in the pris­tine Sier­ra Val­ley Pre­serve in mem­o­ry of botanist Rebec­ca Wenk. We’re very hap­py to see that the 5,000$ goal was exceed­ed. Many thanks to every­one who donat­ed! Learn more or donate here.

The first day began as they often do in Seat­tle, rainy and cloudy. But the skies cleared up just in time for a beau­ti­ful sun­set. On day two, the group con­tin­ued up the Tur­tle snow­field towards high camp and enjoyed beau­ti­ful sun­ny weath­er. Trav­el­ling on this side of the moun­tain may be more of a bat­tle against grav­i­ty, but it is reward­ed by beau­ti­ful views unob­struct­ed by groups of oth­er climbers. The day end­ed with a nice Moun­tain Mad­ness-style din­ner, where the group could see the Kautz route that lay ahead.

Wednes­day morn­ing, July 4^th, 2 am. A prop­er alpine start! This part of the climb is where things get real inter­est­ing. The group down­climbed a rock step, and then worked through pen­i­tents (elon­gat­ed thin blades of hard­ened snow and ice). Then came a mod­er­ate ice pitch, where every­one need­ed to be roped up with an ice axe in each hand. Our climbers did great, nav­i­gat­ing each chal­lenge with high spir­its, bathing in a beau­ti­ful morn­ing sunlight. 

As the morn­ing hours were wear­ing thin, a turn­around point was reached at 13,000 feet, but the climbers had com­plet­ed the tech­ni­cal por­tion of the route. Every­one under­stood the need to play it safe and get with­in less than 1,500 feet of the sum­mit! The amaz­ing climb, the beau­ti­ful sun­sets and sun­rise and the tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments were all part of what was a mem­o­rable climb. 

Big City Moun­taineers (BCM) is a non-prof­it whose mis­sion is to instill crit­i­cal life skills in under-resourced youth through trans­for­ma­tive wilder­ness men­tor­ing expe­ri­ences. They part­ner with com­mu­ni­ty-based youth devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tions across the US; in the Pacif­ic North­west they work with the Boys and Girls Club of Belle­vue, Seat­tle Nativ­i­ty School, Police Activ­i­ties League of Van­cou­ver, Port­land Oppor­tu­ni­ties Indus­tri­al­iza­tion Cen­ter, Hol­la Men­tors, Vol­un­teers of Amer­i­ca, and Antfarm. 

Sum­mit for Some­one (SFS) is an ​“adven­ture fundrais­ing” pro­gram which gives peo­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to climb icon­ic moun­tains in the safe, capa­ble hands of expe­ri­enced guid­ing com­pa­nies while rais­ing funds that go direct­ly to BCM. 

Moun­tain Mad­ness has been a part­ner for the past five years and we just led our fourth SFS trip on July 13 – 15 on Mt. Bak­er via the Eas­t­on Glac­i­er. The eight climbers have togeth­er raised over $21,000! The funds raised from the climb will help youth par­tic­i­pate in week-long back­pack­ing trips to wilder­ness areas such as Glac­i­er Peak Wilder­ness, Mt. Hood Nation­al For­est, and Mt. Adams Wilderness. 

On these wilder­ness expe­di­tions, youth learn trans­for­ma­tion­al life-skills – effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, respon­si­bil­i­ty, self-esteem, integri­ty, con­fi­dence, deci­sion-mak­ing, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, and lead­er­ship – skills that will stay with them well beyond the wilder­ness trip. To learn more about the long-last­ing, pos­i­tive impact BCM has on the lives of youth par­tic­i­pants and adult men­tors, check out their blog. 

Whether you’re on a MM adven­ture and par­tic­i­pat­ing direct­ly with local projects we’re involved with while on your trip, or want to con­tribute from afar, we would love to get your help. You can learn more about some of our pro­grams here or let us know if you have an idea!