With new club, The Mountaineers reach out

A rock-climbing wall made of steel and fiberglass, painted and molded to resemble a mountainside in the Cascades, rises along the southern face of the building, visible from Sand Point Way Northeast.

The climbing wall looks down upon a courtyard surrounded by boulders, creating an outdoor plaza open to park visitors — a place to practice rock climbing and alpine scrambling, or to just sit and have some lunch in the fresh air.

"You can't drive by that building and not see the outdoors," said President Eric Linxweiler.

The building, which the Mountaineers will occupy in November, also is a sign that the century-old private club is turning outward and looking ahead.

Since deciding to make the move from a nondescript clubhouse on a Lower Queen Anne side street, The Mountaineers has become more active in encouraging all to explore and conserve the natural environment of the Pacific Northwest.

"Now that we are in a city park, I feel like we have even more of an obligation to reach out to the community — including those who have never climbed or even gone hiking," said Executive Director Steve Costie.

With the new exposure, the club also wants to conquer the perception that to be a Mountaineer, one must be willing to hang off a steep cliff or glacier while tied to the end of a rope.

"We don't want anyone to think we are a stodgy group of people who inhibit others from being a part of our organization," Linxweiler said. "We don't want to be thought of as people who love the mountains and don't tell anyone about it."

Club membership peaked in the 1990s at 15,000 and is 10,000 currently, the drop in membership similar to what recreation and social clubs are experiencing nationwide.

But The Mountaineers, hoping to use the new building as a draw, have set a goal of 30,000 members by 2017. Costie said the club is targeting more of its activities at families, such as setting aside days on the outside-climbing wall specifically for kids to learn the skill.

A Pacific Northwest institution, The Mountaineers was begun by a small group of outdoor enthusiasts in Seattle in 1906 — a year before Pike Place Market opened and the city annexed Ballard, Columbia City, Rainier Beach and West Seattle.

The first outing was a hike to the West Point Lighthouse in Discovery Park, and the first climb was up Mount Si.

Among the 151 charter members was Asahel Curtis, whose photographs documented the history of Washington state. Longtime members who are still active include Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Classes, activities

The Mountaineers has seven branches in the Puget Sound area and is the third-largest club of its kind in the U.S. A nonprofit, the club has a publishing division that over the years has released 500 titles, from a guide of the best kayak routes along the Pacific Northwest coast to a backcountry-camping recipe book.

It perhaps is best known for its classes, taught by volunteers, that instruct hundreds of people each year on techniques to explore the wilderness, peaks and waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Climbing classes, in particular, can be quite demanding, both in time and physical exertion.

But the club also offers plenty of low-impact recreational activities, such as a moderately easy day hike on Mount Pilchuck or an early-morning stroll at Kubota Gardens in South Seattle to photograph fall colors, both scheduled for later this month.

The new building is a former Navy motor-pool garage undergoing a $4.5 million renovation. Inside, an auditorium is equipped with a second rock-climbing wall and another wall made of synthetics for practicing ice climbing.

That wasn't the case with The Mountaineers' former headquarters on Lower Queen Anne, which had one portable climbing wall used more for demonstration than practice. The old clubhouse, built in 1950 as the Norway Center, also included a lot of space that didn't suit The Mountaineers, such as a 900-seat auditorium and a banquet hall.

"The old building had a very institutional feel to it," said Nick Lyle, of Whidbey Island, one of several volunteer climbing instructors for The Mountaineers. "It was a good size but it didn't lend itself to the kind of teaching that we do."

More than a clubhouse

The Mountaineers sold the old building to a developer for $4.5 million. The developer also is covering some construction costs of the Magnuson Park building, a share currently about $1.8 million. The Mountaineers, which is spending about $2.7 million of their own money, has a 30-year lease with the city on the new building. Members prefer to think of the new building as an education and training facility more than a clubhouse. Its square footage is less than half that of the former headquarters, but it seems big because all of the space has been customized for club use.

In addition to the climbing walls and field of boulders, which are from the devastating November 2003 rockslide along the North Cascades highway, the new building features a lobby with a fireplace, an auditorium that can divide into three sections, meeting rooms, a bookstore, library and staff offices.

The new building also will allow basic-skill instruction to take place year-round at Magnuson Park instead of seasonally in the wild. That way, neophyte climbers ought to be more confident and skilled by the time they go on their first field trip.

The idea of being trained in a controlled environment also could attract outdoor enthusiasts intimidated at the thought of learning basic ice-climbing skills on a glacier, for example.

"Getting the whole thing out in the public eye really is going to help us," Lyle said. "The Mountaineers are enthusiastic people who love the outdoors and who really care about teaching others to enjoy the adventures awaiting us out there. And that's the way it ought to be, because we live in an area that truly is paradise for what we do."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com