During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, men and women hiked and climbed together in the peaks and valleys of Snohomish County and throughout Washington. Nature recreation in Snohomish County has had enduring popularity, both with individual hikers and those in organized groups such as the Mountaineers. Accomplished mountaineers such as Winona Bailey, Mabel McBain, and Nan Thompson each lived and worked in Everett. The Monte Cristo area in eastern Snohomish County is a particularly beloved climbing area and is closely associated with multiple pioneering women climbers such as Dorothy Reid, Garda Fogg, and Enid Nordlund. Early women mountaineers were often held to strict standards of dress and behavior, even in remote wilderness areas. Some women confronted sex discrimination and fought to ensure mountaineering was more open and inclusive for future generations of women hikers.
The Mountaineers
The natural beauty of Snohomish County, from the shores of the Puget Sound to the glacial peaks of the Cascade Mountains, has long attracted adventurous outdoorsmen and women. Hikers and climbers from around Washington who had access to both leisure time and transportation were drawn to Snohomish County to explore its wilderness landscapes. The county has a richly documented history of climbing and mountaineering, with women in leadership positions in administrative roles and as climbing guides. Mountaineering, climbing, and hiking are pursuits unbound by geographic constraints. While many Snohomish County women climbed the local peaks, so too did they seek out and explore climbing challenges around the world. Likewise, Snohomish County's mountains, lakes, and other wilderness features have long attracted climbers and adventure seekers from beyond the county.
The Mountaineers, formed in 1906, is a Seattle-based group dedicated to outdoor recreation and nature preservation. From the beginning, the Mountaineers was a gender-inclusive club open to men and women interested in hiking and mountain climbing. It sanctioned the creation of its first local chapter, the Everett Mountaineers, in 1910, under the leadership of Everett dentist Dr. H. B. Hinman (1870-1944). Hinman wanted to provide Everett-area climbers with more opportunities to socialize, share photographs, and coordinate day hikes. Several women held formal leadership positions in both the main organization and in the Everett chapter. In Everett, women were often charged with hosting meetings and leading day hikes and long walks. The Everett Mountaineers' annual Rhododendron Walk at San Juan de Fuca on Whidbey Island was a popular event that was traditionally led by women in the Everett Mountaineers.
In many ways, the Mountaineers was an organization ahead of its time in the early twentieth century. Women held formal administrative leadership roles and board positions and served as hike leaders for large mixed-gender group outings in an era before women had secured the right to vote nationally. Yet, women mountaineers still faced expectations and prejudices typical of the era.
Domestic Responsibilities
In general, the most active and accomplished women mountaineers in the early twentieth century were single and childless. Married women and mothers carried extra familial and domestic responsibilities that made it difficult to participate extensively in outdoor recreation. Katherine Hinman (1864-1948), wife of Everett Mountaineers founder Dr. H. B. Hinman, participated in many short day hikes and outings with the organizations. In some years, she participated in the Mountaineers' weeks-long summer outings. More often than not, she stayed home while her husband participated in the long trips. As a mother to five children, she would likely have found childcare to be a barrier to more extensive mountaineering.
While childcare responsibilities typically fell to women, men and women shared food preparation on the trails.The exact division of this chore varied according to each group's traditions. Mollie Leckenby King (b. 1885) described meal preparation on the Mountaineers' Olympic outing during the summer of 1907. King wrote, "Our cook, Carr, was kind, busy, and helpful. His food was wonderful; it was fun to go in and help him make sandwiches for our lunches" ("Early Outings"). Everett Mountaineer Mabel McBain (1880-1977) agreed that meal preparation was often special and fun on overnight outings. "If it was an overnight trip, we'd cook our meals up there. If not, we'd have a great big kettle of soup of some kind or something special. I was on the committee for the food a good deal of time. It was fun" (McBain interview). However, food preparation was not always fun. It required careful planning and clear communication. In the 1940s, Priscilla Chapman (1909-2005) and her husband O. Kenneth Chapman (1909-2002) learned that lesson the hard way. The couple climbed Mount Pugh in the Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest for their honeymoon. The newlyweds came to the trip with gendered expectations about cooking. In the Seattle Mountaineers, men traditionally did the cooking. In the Everett Mountaineers, the women did the cooking. Priscilla recalled, "There we were with nobody cooking" (Cascade Voices, 15).
Long excursions, such as the Mountaineers' three-weeks summer outings, required a wash day to launder clothing. Wash day was essential and considered women's work. Cleaning all the clothing in cold mountain streams was strenuous work. In her photo album documenting a 1919 climb of Mount Rainier, Garda Fogg (1878-1976) wrote, "We came across the glacier and have a camp here near the [Paradise] Inn. Not as tired as on wash day" ("Two Women a Generation Apart").
Discrimination
Toward the end of her life, McBain reminisced about all the climbing she had done in the 1910s and 1920s. She remembered several impromptu weekend trips in which she was "the only girl" climbing with a group of men. In McBain's view, men did not feel threatened by the idea of a young women hiking around the mountains. She could not recall any criticism or discrimination she faced as a climber. However, some of her contemporaries protested the discrimination they encountered on hikes and in Mountaineers policy. One such incident occurred on the Mountaineers' 20-day outing to Mount Rainier in August 1912. The group encountered unexpectedly difficult conditions. The Seattle Star reported simply, "The amount of snow on Rainier kept the women from making the ascent" ("Mountaineers Back"). Dr. Hinman, leader of the Everett Mountaineers, said the outing was unusually strenuous and dangerous. Where they expected to encounter snow fields, the climbers found large sheets of ice. The male climb leaders did not have enough time to cut steps, a mountaineer technique of using an ice ax to create a stable platform in snow and ice. Fearing a tragic misstep, the climb leaders forbade any women to continue.
According to Dr. Hinman, "Some of the girls with the party were cross because they were not allowed to make the ascent to the summit of Mt. Rainier … but while they were as strong and as experienced as the men they are not allowed to go in such dangerous places unless steps are cut" ("Hinman Has Hard Climb"). The policy did not prohibit weak or inexperienced climbers. Rather, it specifically targeted women. Climbers Lydia E. Lovering (1876-1966) of Seattle and Winona Bailey (1873-1938) of Everett, formally protested what they saw as an unfair decision. They were called before the Mountaineers Board of Directors on August 28, 1912, on allegations of attempting to lead an insurrection. Lovering and Bailey denied the charges. However, they admitted to protesting against an act of sex discrimination unrelated to technical skill or ability. In a letter to the board, Lovering wrote: "In making the protest we had been actuated by the feeling that we would blame ourselves in the future, as well as be blamed by other women not present if we allowed so arbitrary a decision to pass unnoticed. Had the danger been as great as was represented a ruling which would have prohibited all inexperienced members of the party from attempting the ascent would have been fair, but in a club where fifty-one and four-tenths per-cent of the members are women, sex discrimination should not be made; and if made, should not go unprotested" (Lovering letter).
Bailey shared similar concerns and concluded: "I acted in this as always, for what I regarded as the best interests of the club, and now, since I do not see how it could be possible for me to work longer with those who think I would do otherwise, I ask that you regard this as my resignation from membership" (Bailey letter).
The Board of Directors rejected their resignations and adopted a formal resolution to hold safety above all other considerations ("Early Mountaineer Women"). Lovering and Bailey continued with the Mountaineers for many more years. Bailey went on to hold numerous leadership positions within the organization. She remained an outspoken critic of policies and decisions she deemed unfair and unjust within the organization.
Dress and Image
In the early twentieth century, the Seattle-area women who participated in hikes were largely educated middle- and upper-class white people. They had the leisure time and resources to engage in demanding hobbies. Many were affiliated with the University of Washington. Like their Seattle counterparts, the Everett Mountaineer women typically held white collar jobs in careers such as teaching and banking. Most of the women who participated in the club were single, while several married women participated alongside their husbands.
The strenuous nature of mountaineering conflicted with climbers' daily lives and social responsibilities. Mountain climbing is a physically demanding activity, but women mountaineers maintained an air of respectability, cleanliness, and femininity. To protect themselves from sunburns or tans, women were instructed to wear broad-brimmed hats with veils on hikes. Women often caked mud directly on their faces for further sun protection. Even after days or weeks on the trails, the women returned to their office jobs without a speck of dirt under their fingernails or a hint of sun on their faces.
Even in the wilderness, women climbers were held to high standards of dress and behavior. Serious mountaineers had special outfits made for their outings. McBain, who joined the Everett Mountaineers around 1913, described her hiking clothes and how they made her feel: "I had a suit made. I had pants and a heavy blouse with white gloves I could wear with it and a skirt I could wear with it. Lots of times, if we were going through a large city and we were going to be there for a while, we'd slip the skirt on over the others. If it was an easy trip we might just wear the skirt. We did not wear pants all around everywhere like they do today. It was something special. I was always tickled to do it because I thought, 'Oh, we're having a good time. They don't know what they're missing'" (McBain interview).
Mollie Leckenby King, who hiked with the Mountaineers as a teenager, described the older women she met on climbs: "It seems to me most of the women members were teachers and many of them a little stuffy. They all started out in the big full bloomers, determined to be 'LADIES'" ("Early Outings").
Everett's Mountaineering Women
With easy access to both professional jobs and nature, Everett was home to several capable climbing women in the early twentieth century. Many of the Everett Mountaineers' most accomplished women were never married. They led careers and participated in church and civic clubs alongside their mountaineering activities. In an era when most women married, mountaineering women exhibited a high degree of independence and a desire to live life outside – both outdoors and beyond social conventions.
Winona Bailey, Mabel McBain, and Nan Thompson (1878-1960) were three such exemplars of Everett's early women hikers. Bailey was one of the most well-known women mountaineers in Western Washington during the early twentieth century. She spent her childhood in Maine and Colorado before moving to Seattle with her parents around 1905. She lived in Everett, where she taught high school Latin, from about 1906 to 1912. She later moved to Seattle and taught at Queen Anne High School.
Bailey made headlines in 1907 during the Mountaineers' first summer outing to the Olympic Mountains. The climbing party encountered a blinding snowstorm at an elevation of 7,000 feet. Bailey slipped and fell down a 75-foot precipice of ice and snow. She was carried to an improvised infirmary at the Elwha Basin, where she was cared for by fellow climber Dr. Cora Smith Eaton (1867-1939). Bailey did not break bones or suffer internal injuries. However, given the seriousness of the fall, "That Miss Bailey is not dead as the result of her terrible experience is considered little less than a miracle" ("Teacher Falls Down Mountain"). Bailey returned to teaching in Everett a month later and she returned to the mountains as soon as she was healed. Even a brush with death could not keep her from climbing.
Bailey was a brave and bold woman, both on and off the trails. She was a champion of women's rights and a member of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association. Along with fellow mountaineer Dr. Eaton, and suffrage leader Emma Smith DeVoe (1848-1927), Bailey gave an impassioned speech in favor of woman suffrage at the fair in Puyallup in October 1910. During her long association with the Mountaineers, Bailey held positions on the board of trustees, the publications committee, and as a historian, writer and editor for the club's annual publication, The Mountaineer. Bailey traveled extensively and climbed mountains all over the world, including Alaska, Italy, and Greece. Together with Mrs. L. R. Frazeur, Bailey is thought to be the first woman to summit Mount Olympus in Thessaly, Greece, in 1922. Winona Peak, near Mount Olympus, Washington, is named "in honor of Miss Winona Bailey, whose earnest devotion to the ideals of The Mountaineers has gained for her the deep respect of nature lovers everywhere" ("1926 Summer Outing").
McBain also made significant contributions to mountaineering in Washington. Born in Michigan, McBain moved to Everett in 1907 and joined the Everett Mountaineers around 1913. She taught in the Everett School District until her retirement in 1947. Her evenings, weekends, and summers were spent in the mountains. In addition to participating in and leading climbs, McBain held numerous formal leadership positions in the Everett Mountaineers, including a term as president and as a trustee. She attracted national attention in 1918 when she became the first woman in the Pacific Northwest to staff a fire lookout station. McBain applied for the job at the Skykomish lookout station on Mount Cleveland on a whim. She was hired due to a shortage of qualified men during World War I. McBain served in the position twice more, during the summer of 1919 and 1920. She would have been content to do it again had the war not ended and the men returned home. In 1974, she told a reporter, "I was just pert'n near ready to do that for the rest of my life" ("Mountains Memorable").
Thompson climbed alongside her friend McBain for decades. The two women socialized, attended bridal showers and other celebrations together, and served in administrative roles on the Everett Mountaineers together until about 1930. Thompson worked in banking and was active in the Everett Altrusa Club and the Snohomish County Chapter of the American Institute of Banking. She used her financial skills as the Everett Mountaineers chapter treasurer until 1930. During the Mountaineers' 1926 summer outing to the Olympic Mountains, McBain and Thompson were among an esteemed cohort of 12 climbers to be honored as Six Peak graduates. The award recognized climbers who completed the remarkable feat of summiting Washington's six major glaciated peaks: Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Olympus, and Mount Rainier.
Among her notable climbing achievements, Thompson was the only woman in a group of eight climbers to summit Mount Rainier with Swiss guide Hans Fuhrer (1888-1958) on August 29, 1923. According to a news article, "Fuhrer reports that Miss Thompson made the difficult trip in excellent shape" ("Everett Woman Climbs"). Earlier that same summer, Thompson and a few other mountaineers led a group of 10 boy scouts on a climb of Whitehorse Mountain near Darrington. The hike was dense with fog and wet underbrush, and many mountaineers turned back. Thompson and the children pressed on. At the time of their ascent, the boys were the youngest ever to reach the summit of the nearly 7,000-foot peak. In 1929, 51-year-old Thompson joined a group of mountaineers for an outing in the Canadian Rockies near Banff and Lake Louise. Thompson and 10 others traversed eight passes between 8,000 and 11,365 feet in elevation during the course of only two days.
Thompson shared details of her climbs in public lectures and meetings hosted by The Altrusa Club and other civic groups. She documented her excursions and personal activities in photo albums. Her albums included many photos of fellow mountaineer Mabel Hudson (1899-1974). The two likely met at an Everettt meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star in 1925. They developed a close relationship that would last for the rest of Thompson's life. Hudson was described as Thompson's "close friend" in her obituary, one with whom she shared a home. These words and their living arrangements – two unmarried women sharing a home for decades –implies an intimate sexual relationship that may have been difficult to define in their era.
Monte Cristo
The old mining community of Monte Cristo is one of Snohomish County's most beloved mountain recreation areas. Nestled in Eastern Snohomish County in the Cascade foothills, Monte Cristo has long been associated with prominent women climbers and naturalists. In the 1890s, Monte Cristo was the center of a gold and silver mining boom. Thousands of people flocked there to seek fortune and jobs. Readily accessible from Everett, Monte Cristo soon became a popular recreation destination for weekend hikes and picnics.
By 1907, trains frequently brought tourists to the Monte Cristo area to enjoy its scenic beauty. In late July 1907, Everett and Seattle residents came to Monte Cristo on one such excursion and climbed Cadet Peak from Glacier Basin. On July 31, 1907, the local newspaper reported: "A party of young ladies camping near Monte Cristo claim the distinction of being the first party of ladies to climb to the summit of Cadet Peak, the highest mountain peak in the vicinity, having an altitude of 8,000 feet. The ladies were Miss Anna Cuthbertson of Everett, and the Misses Hannah Kingston, Edith Stead, and Florence Otto of Seattle" ("Campers Reach Top of Peak"). The women were accompanied by four male relatives.
In 1921, Dorothy Reid (1909-?) visited Monte Cristo with her family. At the age of 12, Reid was enamored with the natural splendor of the area. She returned in 1924, at the age of 15, and found work as a secretary at the Monte Cristo Inn. Reid loved to explore the basins and lakes surrounding Monte Cristo and became a guide for visitors. According to historian Philip Woodhouse, "Dorothy Reid escorted the more hardy visitors into the intimate niches of the mountains. Glacier Basin was her favorite place, and she introduced people from the world over to the magic alpine valley, to its crags, glaciers, snowfields, and cascades" (Woodhouse, 246). As a teenage girl, Reid carved a reputation for herself as one of the area’s best guides and explorers.
Garda Fogg and Enid Nordlund
Garda Fogg was one of Monte Cristo's most well-known residents. Born in Illinois, Fogg moved to the Tacoma area with her family when she was young. Fogg never married and lived with her mother for much of her life. She worked as a stenographer in Tacoma and was active in her church. Fogg was eager to leave the office and explore the trails as a mountaineer. She first visited Monte Cristo in 1911 during a hike from Index across Poodle Dog Pass. Although she had explored many other mountain areas in Washington, her memory of seeing Monte Cristo from Poodle Dog Pass stayed with her for over a decade. In the spring of 1924, Fogg secured summer accommodations at the Monte Cristo Inn for herself and her mother. Fogg was deeply enamored by the old town and the rugged mountain community. In 1926, Fogg built a cabin on Dumas Street near an old saloon. Although she lived and worked in Tacoma, Fogg felt truly at home in her little Monte Cristo summer cabin. She was unofficially dubbed the Mayor of Monte Cristo due to the outsized influence she had in the small community.
Fogg was occasionally criticized by friends and family for being too wild. It is clear from Fogg's scrapbook entries that Fogg drank alcohol and "that Prohibition was not high on her list of necessary regulations," according to historian Louise Lindgren ("Two Women a Generation Apart"). Fogg sold her Monte Cristo cabin at the age of 88, after living there for 40 years. When the buyer criticized the cabin's clutter, Fogg quipped, "You're looking at the mud when you should be looking at the sky" (Woodhouse, 258).
Fogg was a sharp and outspoken advocate for the preservation of Monte Cristo and its natural beauty. In 1964, developers sought to transform the old resort area into a vibrant tourist attraction. Fogg, one of only a few long-time property owners with memories of the old Monte Cristo, implored the developers: "Don't ruin 'our' town" ("There's New Life"). Fogg's mountaineering legacy lives on in Mount Rainier National Park, where Garda Falls, on the north slope of Mount Rainier, was named in her honor.
Like Fogg, Enid Thrall Nordlund (1906-2003) and her husband Ed Nordlund, are inextricably intertwined with the history of Monte Cristo. Enid Nordlund first visited Monte Cristo in 1924. In 1951, the Nordlunds built a small cabin in the woods on the end of Dumas Street near Fogg's cabin. Although Fogg and Enid Nordlund were born nearly 30 years apart, the two became close friends who bonded over their shared love of Monte Cristo and climbing the Cascade Mountains.
The Nordlund cabin was pieced together with salvaged materials from the abandoned townsite. Historian Woodhouse described the Nordlund cabin as "a potpourri of Monte Cristo history, with timbers from the concentrators, window frames from the old assay office, and a door from the Monte Cristo Inn" (Woodhouse, 255). Just as the Nordlund's Monte Cristo cabin became a scrapbook of Monte Cristo history, so too was Enid Nordlund herself a collector of local mountaineering memories. She saved photo albums from friends and fellow mountaineers and built a large personal collection of photographs and ephemera documenting Snohomish County's mountaineering heritage.
Unlike many other mountaineering women who traveled far and wide to find adventures, Nordlund never strayed far from home. She left Washington only once in her life, in 1932, to visit a relative in California. She was content to enjoy the natural beauty at home.
When Enid was a girl, her family ran a local nursery, Thrall Flower Gardens. Through her work in the family business, she developed extensive knowledge and skills related to flowers and gardening. The Thrall family took many weekend hiking and camping trips. The family took native wildflower seeds with them, planting them carefully into the crevasses and of natural rockery walls. In 1934, Enid married Ed Nordlund, who shared her love of mountain exploration. Together, the Nordlunds literally transformed and beautified much of the natural landscape of Snohomish County's cascade regions by planting native wildflowers to restore the landscape. Enid Nordlund became Monte Cristo's leading naturalist, and she often led trail tours and gave illustrated lectures on Saturday nights.
Modern Era
While we lack specific labels or insights into the private lives of Everett and Snohomish County's early twentieth century climbers, we have ample evidence that these women lived bold lives unconstrained by social convention. By taking to the trails so fearlessly and living independently, they blazed trails for future generations of women climbers in the region. Casual outdoor recreation and formal organizations such as the Mountaineers continued to grow in popularity into the late twentieth century. Snohomish County women became increasingly involved in a number of organizations, such as the Mount Baker Ski Patrol and the Everett Mountain Rescue. The Seattle Mountaineers and the Everett Mountaineers continue to grow and attract new male and female members.
Following in the footsteps of early mountaineering women, modern Snohomish County women have continued to carve out paths for themselves outside the mainstream mountaineering organizations. For example, when Lucie Johns (b. 1945) moved to Snohomish County from Colorado for work in the early 1990s, she wanted to find a hiking group with other lesbians over 40 years old. Johns created the group, which became known as "Lucie's Snohomish County Dyke Hikes." For more than 13 years, Johns planned hikes in the North Cascades, arranged carpools, and created a newsletter to publicize plans and share trip reports. In so doing, Johns created a safe community for Snohomish County lesbians to enjoy the outdoors together. She is one in a long line of Snohomish County women to blaze trails – real and metaphorical – for the next generation of women climbers.
