In the 1950’s, club activities were informal. Over the years, meetings have taken place in member’s houses, the old fire station on Arkansas Street, the LANL HRL building auditorium, the Los Alamos High School Little Theater, the Los Alamos High School Speech Room, Fuller Lodge, and now the Nature Center operated by PEEC. Originally, the club met in the Newtons 3-bedroom Western area house, since they were the only ones with a place big enough. During the 1980’s the Mountaineers were also affiliated with Club 1663 at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The majority of the Mountaineers were concerned that such rules would not be feasible for them because of the long driving distances from Los Alamos to Colorado. Sometime in 1973 to 1975, the Mountaineers voted to break this connection because of concerns about new CMC safety rules that limited how far CMC members were allowed to drive on weekend trips. In December 1967, the club membership voted to accept affiliation as a Group of the Colorado Mountain Club. The club is incorporated as the Los Alamos Mountaineers, Inc., and is registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization with the State of New Mexico. The club has had a formal written Constitution since at least 1962. Ken Ewing, the first treasurer, kept the treasury in a paper bag.įounding members Stan Landeen, Liz Gittings (later Marshall), Wally Green, Bob Mulford, Emily West (later Wilbanks), and Ken Ewing on Lake Peak, winter 1957. They began meeting with like-minded Los Alamos friends to organize trips. Tom Newton, the first president, met his wife in the rock climbing section of the Sierra Club in California before they moved to Los Alamos in 1949. The Los Alamos Mountaineers were founded in late 1952. Tom Newton on the highest point of the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces on a climbing trip with John Ramsay and Stan Landeen, April 1955. Above all, our mountainous environment raises us as individuals to more exalted heights.”
Without the mountainous regions of this beleaguered planet, our senses for pulchritude and awe would be diminished, our love of the delicate and eternally enduring would be less developed. Always a barrier to expansion, always a challenge to conquest, always a sanctuary for beauty and grandeur, always a test of endurance and acceptance of hardship on nature’s terms, always a reminder of beauty and wonder, the mountains play a crucial role in our collective humanity.
The Mountaineers have come to know and love many beautiful local areas, as well as mountains, canyons, and climbing areas in the wider region.ĭon Liska captured importance of mountains to our lives: “I believe that the mountains symbolize the conjunction of humanity and nature in some very special ways. The club is a place to meet other people with a love of the outdoors and to adventure together. Throughout the decades, Los Alamos Mountaineers have been important to many in Los Alamos and beyond. This weekend, the Mountaineers are celebrating their 70 th anniversary. John Sarracino, Mark Felthauser, and other club members on a Blanca-Little Bear traverse trip led by Don Liska, July 1978.
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