How to contribute

Your reports, comments and questions are wanted. If you’ve been hiking, skiing, climbing or just plain hanging out, please send them along.

We’re looking for:

  • Condition reports: snow and ice conditions, slope angles and steepness, protection and gear needed, glacier conditions, camping and bivy locations, water sources, special access issues, and other any sort of special advice or information for an area or route. If there is anything that you think may be useful to others, please tell us!
  • Photos: everyone likes pictures that show the route or specific area, so feel free to share. Cool climbing shots are DEFINITELY welcome! Though we can’t use all images, it’s good to send a selection. Ideal file size is 200-300K, thanks!
  • Stories: what happened, anything of interest, wildlife sightings, near misses, newly gained mountain wisdom? If it’s humorous or serious, share your tales.

We provide links and byline/credits for all contributors, unless you’d like to remain anonymous.

Behind the scenes...

Stefan Lofgren is the current alpine district ranger at Mount Rainier National Park. He oversees all upper-mountain search and rescues, manages the climbing ranger program, and even finds time to get out and ski. He has been involved with the climbing program since the early nineties and was born and raised in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Mike Gauthier is the former climbing program manager and rescue coordinator for Mount Rainier National Park. He's successfully climbed the peak over 170 times via 29 routes or variations. Mike is also the author of Mount Rainier; A Climbing Guide and publisher of this blog.

Joseph Puryear is a professional athlete, author, photographer. In his spare time during the summer, Joe is also a Climbing Ranger on Mount Rainier and helps with web design. Joe recently wrote a comprehensive guidebook to the Alaska Range called Alaska Climbing.

Doug McKeever provides web editing for the blog.
He lives in Bellingham where he has taught geology at Whatcom Community College for more than 35 years. His fondness for the mountains is evident in that he has summitted Mt. Baker 63 times, but as a Tacoma native, is frequently drawn back to "THE Mountain."


Rebecca Agiewich is a novelist, journalist, and blogger, whose blog Breakup Babe was the inspiration for her novel of the same name. You can find out more about her and her writing at RebeccaAgiewich.com or on her current blog.


Scott Jensen is software engineer for Microsoft who coordinates the Microsoft Climb fundraiser for Washington’s National Park Fund (WNPF). He also an active member of the WNPF board of directors. Scott is the technical guru when it comes to development of this blog. Of course, he prefers to be spotted on the mountain.

Doug Evans, NPS retiree grew up at Longmire during the Great Depression and World War II. He was Paradise area ranger in 1956-57. He retired as chief of interpretation, Southwest Region, Santa Fe, NM and now lives in Tucson, AZ. Doug considers Mount Rainier his home and returns as often as he can. He loves to reminisce about his unique experiences at Mount Rainier and will share some of these memories with us in this blog. Here's Doug on Pinnacle Peak in 1988.