Olympic National Park Rocks – Olympic Mountain Project


March 17, 2020

By Guest Blogger Nate Brown, Friend of the Fund

Nate Brown in his climbing gear

I am definitely what you would call a goal-driven person. I know this because I find that I am the best version of myself when I am striving toward something. It’s hard to say if this is just a natural inclination of myself, or maybe it’s those 12 years of Army indoctrination that left me with a certain affinity for having some sort of a mission to accomplish. Regardless of where this drive comes from, it’s something I truly enjoy.

A bush in Olympic covered in snowWhen I came to Washington back in 2013, I came here specifically for the access to the outdoors. The outdoors was always something special for me growing up in the Midwest, but we certainly don’t have epic mountain ranges there. When I arrived in Washington, I began working on my outdoor education and experience. I joined clubs like The Mountaineers to learn glacier travel technique, wilderness navigation and other essential outdoors skills. I learned how to ski as a 30+ year old just so I could experience the joy of skiing, rather than walking, down a snowy summit I had just climbed. I bought my first camera after growing increasingly frustrated that the photos coming out of my phone never did the landscape any justice.

I was developing these two skill sets, expanding my technical knowledge of safe outdoor travel as well as technical knowledge of my camera and how to improve my photography. But I was missing something… every so often a friend would ask me, “what’s your goal here? What are you trying to accomplish?” and I’d typically just shrug my shoulders and say I was having fun and that’s that. Then one day it finally clicked for me. What I was missing was that overarching “so what?” reason to each of these ever-expanding skill sets. Over the years I’ve earnestly followed along on other people tackling big projects, everything from epic National Geographic expeditions to local backyard ones. An example of that is right here in Washington when another native Midwesterner, Scott Kranz, set out in 2018 to climb 50 peaks in the North Cascades to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the park. I had been drawn to these types of stories for years and years, but I never entertained the thought of maybe trying my hand at my own version until it all clicked into place.

I had finally found my big picture that I had been unknowingly working towards the past several years– all that time spent working my hiking endurance up, learning technical climbing, backcountry route finding, the art of photography, even leaving the Army to allow myself the freedom to put down roots and immerse myself in an area I loved. All of these individual goals brought me here, to my Olympic Mountain Project.

Black and white photo of Nate looking out over the Olympics

The Olympic peninsula and I have a special connection. When I came to the Pacific Northwest in 2013, I was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and lived in Olympia. Two weeks after arriving, it was a four-day holiday weekend so I thought a really cool way to check out my new home was by taking a 4-day road trip on Highway 101 all the way around the peninsula, stopping to see whatever looked cool as I went along. The absolutely stunning beauty I witnessed during that weekend is where I first cultivated my absolute love of the PNW. The stark contrast of lush rainforest, the snowy high mountain alpine areas and the coastline with its epic sea stacks was overwhelming and intoxicating; I had never experienced such a variety of beautiful terrain in my life and I was hooked, especially to the mountainous peaks which seemed to just go on and on endlessly into the interior of the peninsula.

Therein lies one of the unique challenges the Olympic mountains pose to those who would see them: they are hard to get to. It’s not your typical mountain range running in a long line with access from either side and roads passing through it. It is a circular cluster of mountains, with no road access through them. The closest most people ever come to seeing the interior is from one of the many viewpoints on the outskirts, like the gorgeous panoramic view from the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center. Standing at one of these overlooks, scanning over the countless mountain ridges and river valleys of the interior, it looks so close yet remote and wild. The Olympic mountains truly invoke a sense of mystery and remote wilderness and I want to experience that and see for myself what’s going on in there. I wanted to climb enough mountains in the Olympics to say that I had truly seen every nook and cranny of that mountain system.

Clouds scattered over mountain peaks

So where do I begin in accomplishing this goal? This wasn’t an easy question to answer when I initially hatched this idea. I knew from the start that I wasn’t interested in including only the tallest or most technically challenging mountains. The tallest mountains in the Olympics are in clusters which only make up a fraction of the entire peninsula, so I wouldn’t feel like I had actually seen and experienced every part of the Olympics with that method. Going for the most technically challenging peaks wasn’t a great goal for me either for that same reason, and also for the honest fact that I am not a great alpinist. If there’s an easy way and a hard way up a mountain, I’ll happily take the easy route. This decision was also made because the majority of these mountains require an expensive entry ticket in the form of 20-50 miles just to get in and out of the area. This means that I’m already carrying a heavy multi-day overnight pack, so if I don’t need to worry about also hauling a rope and all the associated hardware with technical climbing, that’s all the better for my back and knees who are already a tad mad at me for the weight of my camera gear. I also wanted to avoid doing neighboring peaks. I wanted to spread out the peaks amongst the major ridges and clusters in such a way that I will cover every part of the Olympic mountain areas without too much overlap.

Nate walks through snow on a peakAfter a ton of planning and scrutiny, I have created a list of thirty mountains that highlight the diversity of the range and cover the most ground, serving my purpose of seeing as much of the Olympics as I can. I started this project last June and completed eight of those summits, with three additional re-summits this winter to gain an appreciation for how varied the same terrain can be in vastly different seasons. I climbed Mount Washington in early March and I have to admit that between the summer and winter, my favorite was the winter route.

This will definitely be a lengthy project that will have to be accomplished with consideration of multiple factors such as weather, seasonal availability of the interior, my “normal life” requirements outside of the mountains, availability of climbing partners and any other unforeseen obstacles I might encounter along the way. I would like to complete my 30 peaks within three years, but being safe and having fun are my top two priorities here, so I will always err on the side of those. Speed can so often lead to poor choices.

Climbing these peaks and seeing them for my own enjoyment didn’t seem like enough though; I wanted to use my photography skill set to document the journey and use it to shine a light on these areas of the Olympics that aren’t seen as much, as well as to help give back to the National Park that has meant so much to me. I decided to partner up with the Washington’s National Park Fund because they get the most done for our parks here in Washington state, which includes the Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic National Parks– all which I love dearly (though the Olympics are clearly the best in my opinion). They are the official philanthropic partner of the parks so I know that support given to the WNPF is support given directly to the parks to help with science and research projects, stewardship, and other important programs that the National Parks need, but have a hard time accomplishing on their own with major budget deficits and the other issues they face. 

Which is why I’m raising funds in a few ways. You can support Olympic National Park by making a donation to the Olympic Mountain Project. Also, I donate 25% of the profits from all photography prints purchased from my website to WNPF. However, for the next two weeks, I will be donating 100% of the money raised from purchases in my shop to WNPF to support Olympic National Park. This special will end on March 31st and is a great way to invest in your parks.

Nate and a friend climb through snow

Also, there’s one more easy way to support Olympic National Park that I encourage you to take part in – go vote for Olympic National Park in the Landmarks Worth Saving contest. It only takes a second, and your vote could help Olympic National Park win $20,000 to preserve this loved national park.

Photos by Nate Brown, www.natebbrown.com, @natebbrown