2002 Honorary Member Profile : Steve Reynolds

Accolades abound at mention of the Mountaineers' newest honorary member: 43-year-old Steve Reynolds. But few more powerfully explain his standing ovation at the 2002 annual banquet than excerpts from Eric Christianson's nomination:

Six of us climbed Cascade Falls this winter. Steve drove a couple of us there and dropped us off. Steve loaned all of his gear and ropes, and gave us the beta for the climb…Steve was there waiting for us in the parking lot to make sure we all returned safely. Coming down off of the climb I began thinking about how much of an influence Steve has had on so very many lives. All of us on the climb were either students of Steve, or students of his students. Steve has been involved as either director or as a lead instructor for Mountain School each of the last 12 or 13 years. Add in the years he worked with Rock School, Ice Climbing School, Winter Camping, Backcountry Ski School, Avalanche training, and his years as Climbing Committee Chair, and it becomes obvious how much Steve has added to the lives of so many.

None can dispute that Steve is the first to offer to help with any issue. Steve answers the most ridiculous questions from Mountain School students as though they were the most brilliant and important questions. Steve never makes anyone feel small for either mental or physical failures. Steve's strength and leadership have made a tremendous impact on my life, and on the lives of many others....

Minnehaha Rocks and Beacon Hill are clean of age-old graffiti and trash due to Steve's initiative, enthusiasm, energy and organizational skills. More than 150 individuals-more than 100 from the club-turned out for the big May clean-up day. Steve convinced city, county, and state park departments and 20+ businesses to contribute and resume security monitoring. His "intensive follow-up" includes a futile pursuit (astride his mountain bike) of a motorized litterer. WSU landscape architectural students will have a site development plan ready soon, Steve says. Typically, Steve gives most of the credit to others. "It couldn't have happened without the Spokane Mountaineers. What a great group of people!"

In 1997 he headed up an ambitious effort to gain new members and make existing membership more worthwhile. Steve, trustee from 1994-98, now serves on the Conservation, Climbing, and Skiing committees. He's helping revamp Mountain School manuals and update the curriculum. A four-time school director, Steve founded Basic Rock School and has worked on the Adventure/Exploration and Membership committees. He ardently supports the Access Fund and belongs to the American Alpine Club and the Alpine Club of Club of Canada.

Born in Wisconsin in 1959, Steve lived "all over the country" due to his dad's service as a U.S. Air Force physician whose last military stint was at Fairchild AFB in 1965-68. "He and mom (Dr. Frank and Sally Reynolds) loved the Northwest." Steve was 12 when his dad finished 4 years of Seattle training in pediatric hematology and oncology and moved the family to Spokane in 1972.

Steve credits the family's "hobby farm" in Glenrose at the base of Tower Mountain for his responsible nature. Describing the "FFA project that went wild," Steve is sure his dad meant it as more than a hobby for Steve and his three younger siblings. "The responsibility for the animals (two horses and what eventually came to be 60 sheep) fell to me."

Although Steve's introduction to the mountains came when he was 10 via a Seattle neighbor who took his two sons and Steve hiking, scrambling and downhill skiing, two Ferris High School summer field trips to Glacier Park led by biology teacher Al Finley were significant. "Glacier was where I first developed my route-finding and decision-making abilities," Steve points out, citing loose rock and chancy weather. Al's son, Tom, 1 year older and a Mountaineer, led the climbing. The next summer (1976), Steve was Tom's assistant. "I've topped 30 peaks in all at Glacier," he recalls. "It was another turn on."

After graduating in 1977 from Ferris, where he edited an award-winning newspaper and captained the soccer team, Steve attended WSU, Spokane Falls, and EWU. His BA in English & Technical Communications came from EWU in 1987. He worked as a grants coordinator for the Ronald McDonald House, but his intention to go for a health administration graduate degree was soured by politics encountered during a couple of hospital internships.

Landscaping looked attractive. "I made good money until winter," Steve muses, "then no work, no money." After a check to Mountain Gear bounced, Steve talked owner Paul Fish, a fellow Mountaineer, into a winter sales job that stretched over 4 years.

By 1984, after roaming with friends through the Cascades, Rockies, Wallowas and Canadian and Idaho Selkirks, Steve realized he was "held back by not knowing how to use rock and safety protection." He began bouldering, and took a lead rock climbing class from Mountain Gear manager Dane Burns. Realizing he still lacked rope and glacier skills, and recalling a talk at Sacajawea Junior High in 1972 by Mountainneers Rich Landers and Virgil Emery, he signed up for the 1987 Mountain School. "Don Hutchings (then school director) was my climbing mentor, in addition to Bill Erler," Steve says. "I'll never forget that first climb of Idaho's Chimney Rock via the Cooper-Hiser route with Bill!"

What followed is overwhelming-More than 200 ascents in the Cascades, Sierras, Tetons, Idaho and Canadian Selkirks, Canadian Rockies and Rocky Mts. of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, plus Popocatapetl and Ixtacciuatl in Mexico; ski descents of Shasta, Hood, Adams and St. Helens; rock climbing more than 500 routes throughout western North America and Venezuela, including a 24-hour free ascent of the West Face of Yosemite's El Capitan (Grade VI, 5.11c, 20 pitches); ice climbing 30+ routes up to WI5 in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Canada; winter backcountry ski trips...

Steve took special pleasure in Leavenworth, Smith Rocks and Tuolumne Meadows climbs with world-class Czechoslovakian mountaineers here in 1991 for the Mountaineers' unique exchange with the IAMES Mountaineering Club of Bratislava.

Romance bloomed when Mountain Gear customer Sharon Underwood asked Steve to teach her how to telemark. (Sharon, a past club trustee and for years a leader, is a nurse practitioner at Northpointe Medical Center.) "It turned out to be a complete failure as far as the telemark skiing was concerned," Steve jokingly says. "She sprained her ankle after her first run at Whitewater, and on a second try later that winter at Mt. Spokane, she sprained her other ankle before we even made the first run! [The problem was due mainly to the lack of supportive telemark boots available at that time.] We still ski together: she on alpine, me on tele." Already a rock and alpine climber, Sharon went through Mountain School with Steve as one of her instructors. A new climbing team emerged.

"Sharon and I did a first ascent of a little rock route called 'Wedding Party' in the Feather's area of Frenchman Coulee in spring 1989," Steve remembers. "Then we announced to friends there that we were getting married." At their wedding, Steve recalls fondly that Sharon and he left the church under an ice axe arch of steel, thanks to their climbing friends and Steve's then co-workers at Mountain Gear.

Snow thwarted a Tetons honeymoon in September 1990, so they headed for California instead. "That began our love affair with Yosemite and the Sierras," Steve points out. They've returned to climb there almost every year since. "I still wish that I could get her out backcountry skiing," Steve says wistfully.

Few would suspect that enthusiastic Steve was once shy and uncommunicative. "Instructing at Mountain School got me over my great, great fear of speaking in front of people," he reveals. "Now they try to put a time limit on me!"

"One of the great joys of instructing is to let others know the sky's the limit," Steve says with passion. "If this works for their climbing, it should be true for their general life, too." After two years as instructor, he was asked to codirect the Mountain School with Kelsey Loughlin. "It grew into a partnership: a great experience!"

Steve is proud of his mountaineering literature collection. "Sharon and I have a couple walls full of anything significant written since the '60s," he says.

Horseracing is another interest. In his early 20s, Steve spent two years working at Playfair Race Course doing landscaping, maintenance and operation and acting as the owner's fill-in secretary. Steve's youthful delight in his families' two horses and his Playfair job piqued his father's interest in thoroughbreds. Dr. Reynolds now breeds and trains a number of horses near Deer Park, and sells and races them throughout the west. "He's a good horseman, and I think he might even make a buck or two at it," says Steve. A highlight was watching one of his dad's horses, Dr. Carson, run with the leaders most of the way at the California Derby, one of the last prep races for the Kentucky Derby.

Outdoor experience led to 6 years with Exploration Products, a supplier of gear for remote campsites for oil, mining, and movie companies, plus military and other government agencies. Steve wore multiple hats as salesperson, bidder, shipper, designer, writer, framer, plumber, etc. He made a presentation to the United Nations in Geneva in 1995 and further represented the company in Europe and North and South America. But the firm moved to Bellingham in 1998. His next big job was as a construction coordinator for Spectrasite Communications, the third largest cell tower company in North America, until approaching bankruptcy wiped out the Development Division last year. Now he's a contractor, free-lance writer/editor, and private guide who's looking for a stable company that can use his technological project management and specialized construction experience.

What's ahead for Steve and the Mountaineers? "I'd like to see the club embrace more families and children," he reveals, "teaching them skills associated with the outdoors." He points out that the local indoor climbing walls don't provide outdoor experience to the children who use them or to their parents. "The club could easily fill that niche."

Get ready! With Steve's history of success, it's a safe bet a new program is brewing.

Lorna Ream