Annual Charity Climb
Each year, Alpine Ascents donates a climb to a local charity, where 100% of the amounts paid by the climbers go directly to the organization. The charity is selected through nomination and then a vote by our administrative team. If you would like us to consider your non-profit for a future charity climb, please email [email protected] with an overview of your organization and how it positively impacts our community.
This year’s charity climb will be in support of The Sophia Way.
The Sophia Way is an organization dedicated to providing hope and change for women experiencing homelessness. Since opening its doors in 2008 with just eight mats at Bellevue First Congregational Church, The Sophia Way has grown into a vital resource, helping women move from homelessness to safe and stable living. Their shelters, Sophia’s Place and Helen’s Place, offer a warm and safe space for more than 100 women every day, providing essentials like showers, rest, nourishing food, and compassionate care.
With a commitment to trauma-informed care, The Sophia Way’s case managers work closely with women to address their physical, mental, and financial well-being, supporting them on their path to stability.
Join us for this charity climb and help make a lasting impact on the lives of women in our community!
Objective: Dahkobed (Glacier Peak)
Climb Date: July 18 – 22, 2025
Suggested Donation: $1950.00 (standard cost for the climb)
Minimum Donation: $1,000.00
100% of proceeds from this climb will be donated to the charity!
Here are the other organizations we’ve supported in the past.
2024 Climb of Glacier Peak for Big City Mountaineers
2023 Climb of Tahoma for Unkitawa
2022 Climb of Shuksan for the Ukrainian Association of Washington State
2021 Climb of Shuksan for Got Green
2020 Climb of Shuksan for Facing Homelessness
2019 Climb of Shuksan for Jubilee Women’s Center
2018 Climb of Shuksan for Girls on Ice
2017 Climb of Shuksan for New Horizons
2016 Climb of Shuksan for SheJumps
2015 Climb of Eldorado for KEXP
2014 Climb of Eldorado for Roots
Highlights from our 2024 Big City Mountaineers Fundraising Climb
In 2024, Alpine Ascents partnered with Big City Mountaineers for our season’s fundraising climb. We climbed Glacier Peak (Dahkobed) to fundraise for Big City Mountaineers, a non-profit org committed to providing youth from disinvested communities with meaningful outdoor experiences that they would not typically have access to. The team spent 5 days in on a remote Cascades volcano, learning introductory mountaineering skills and enjoying the remote wilderness. The full team summited Glacier Peak in style. We’re long-time fans of Big City Mountaineers and are thrilled to have teamed up to help their mission of creating more opportunities for youth to connect with themselves, their community, and the natural world.
Highlights from our 2023 Unkitawa Fundraising Climb
As part of the Alpine Ascents commitment to equity and inclusion, we work to lift the voices of Native people upon whose ancestral homelands we now work and recreate. In this spirit, our annual fundraising climb for 2023 supported Unkitawa, an indigenous led organization centered on traditional practices to support communities through ceremony, art, and culture. We raised $16,000, which all went towards outdoor programs for indigenous youth, created to help foster connection and access to outdoor spaces. Unkitawa (uhn-kéy-tawa) is the Lakota word that embodies the concept of what belongs to each of us individually, equally belongs to all living things. It translates to “ours” “yours” “mine”, and signifies what is mine is equally yours, therefore we are equally responsible to care for each other. For the last 6 years, Unkitawa has brought traditional ceremonies to the people in King County, Washington, and various states.
Current Outreach Partners
Alpine Ascents is proud of our continuing involvement in partnering with non-profit organizations both in our community and abroad. From Seattle’s esteemed Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to the Sherpa Education Fund, we help non-profits reach their goals. Here are the outstanding organizations Alpine Ascents partners with in their fundraising efforts.
Climb to Fight Breast Cancer
Contributions play a pivotal role in propelling the Hutchinson’s Center’s efforts to prevent, detect and treat breast cancer, saving countless lives in the process. Every year, outdoor enthusiasts join together to ascend some of the world’s most breathtaking mountains in honor or memory of loved ones who have battled breast cancer. The Climb to Fight Breast Cancer ® allows you to touch the top of states, countries and continents while raising vital funds and awareness toward finding a cure.
Climbs with Alpine Ascents include Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus and the Everest Base Camp Trek. Contact: www.fhcrc.org/climb, email: [email protected] or call 206.667.1398
Tomorrow’s Air
Tomorrow’s Air is the world’s first collective of travelers, travel service providers and travel brands who clean up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to clean and preserve our air for future generations. Incubated by the Adventure Travel Trade Association, Tomorrow’s Air combines the wisdom and connections the ATTA has established over nearly 20 years of supporting sustainable travel businesses and their entrepreneurial leaders with innovation to remove carbon from the atmosphere via direct air capture and permanently store it. Visit www.tomorrowsair.com to take climate action into your own hands today.
REI Climbs for Mount Rainier’s Search and Rescue
REI’s climb with Alpine Ascents, International was established in 2014. Their focus? To help Mount Rainier’s Search and Rescue rangers and volunteers. 2014 proceeds will fund a much needed telecommunication system at Rainier’s more remote Camp Schurman. For the first time ever, rangers and mountain rescue teams will be able to communicate to others as together, they work to save lives and help those in need. Funds flow through Washington’s National Park Fund. For more information, call 206-623-2063.
KEXP
Alpine Ascents was proud to have a 100% donation climb for the new KEXP offices. While we always want to be involved in great causes, we loved being helping the best radio station in the world and our new neighbors build their new – and awesome – home in lower Queen Anne. Our fundraising climb up Eldorado proved a fantastic experience for all.
The Climb for Cancer Foundation
Created to help end cancer and to improve the lives of individuals fighting this deadly disease. The Climb for Cancer Foundation is now forming a team for their Kilimanjaro 2013 expedition and looking for partners for other climbs. View the website at: www.cfc-foundation.org or call 352-333-9663 for more information.
Summit4stemcell
Summit4stemcell is a grass roots group of individuals commited to funding Parkinsons research where a patient’s skin cells are converted to IPG cells and then reprogrammed to become dopamine producing neurons. With FDA approval these cells will be transplanted back into the brains of the eight chosen Parkinson’s patients in our project. This is a joint project between Dr Melissa Houser at the Scripps Clinic and Dr Jeanne Loring from the Center of Integrative medicine at The Scripps Research Institute.
We are looking for climbers that either have Parkinson’s Disease or are related to someone who does to join our team as we trek to base camp of Everest in October of 2013. All funds raised through our efforts will go directly to the Summit4stemcell project. Please email: [email protected] for more information.
The Alpine Ascents Sherpa Educaton Fund
The Alpine Ascents Sherpa Educaton Fund would like to partner with climbers or trekkers to raise funds to finance a first-class education for a group of Sherpa students who hearken from the rural, mountainous areas that surround Mt. Everest in Nepal. Please visit www.sherpaedfund.org or email [email protected] for more information.
Ronald McDonald House Charities
At Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Western Washington & Alaska, we support seriously ill children and their families by providing a “home-away-from-home” during medical treatment.
When a child has a serious illness, many families have to travel hundreds of miles from home and spend months undergoing treatment. RMHC provides these families with clean and comfortable accommodations, everyday essentials, volunteer-cooked dinners, and more.
Earlier this year, we opened the first-ever Ronald McDonald House in Anchorage. Operated in partnership with the Alaska Native Medical Center, it provides housing to expectant mothers with high-risk pregnancies, pediatric patients, and their families.
We’re so grateful for the continued support of local businesses like Alpine Ascents, who allow us to continue helping families in Seattle and Anchorage.
Outreach History
Our history with fundraising climbs:
For over twenty years, Alpine Ascents has been working closely with non-profit organizations in an effort to support community-based programs. As of 2012, we have helped raise $4 million for worthwhile causes. Our endeavors have included climbs to Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Olympus, Mt. Baker Glacier Peak, Denali, and Everest Base Camp Trek.
We are proud to have worked with:
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The Climb for Cancer Foundation
The Survivor Fund
Ronald McDonald House Charities
The Red Campaign
The Susan G. Komen Foundation
The Emily Griffith Center
KEXP
Roots
She Climbs
Team Survivor Northwest
Passages Northwest
C.A.N. (Cure Autism Now)
Hats Off For Cancer
The American Red Cross
Generous Adventures
Seattle Academy
PAWS, King County Search and Rescue
The Center for the Prevention of School Violence and S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violence Everywhere)
Through these climbs, Alpine Ascents works to transform the individual goals of mountaineering to positively affect the lives of many. Alpine Ascents is proud to be affiliated with such outstanding organizations and we will continue to expand our work in this area.
If you are interested in any of these programs, or have an organization you support, please contact us about fundraising and awareness ideas: Gordon Janow
The logistics were perfect, a big key for such a long trip. The Treks were just the right distance and the views were spectacular. Jose Luis was very organized and kept the group together and having fun. All guides were great. Excellent knowledge of plants, wildlife, and glaciers. All Lodges and ECO camp were great.
