The Mountaineers - 1940 Summer Outing, Olympic Mountains Home
This film is silent, in color, with a running time around 25 minutes. The film depicts the 1940 Mountaineers summer outing to the Olympic Mountains.
The film opens in downtown Seattle as outing participants load busses for the Olympic Penninsula. Next are scenes of the party camped in a large clearing, possibly the Enchanted Valley. A long line of hikers ascends a meadow and the party reaches the icy snout of a glacier, probably the Anderson Glacier. They ascend the glacier, a snow slope and a ridge to a summit with a six-foot cairn, probably Mt Anderson. There are views of distant peaks including the Mt Olympus group to the west.
Back at camp, horses are loaded with the party's large metal camp stoves and other provisions. The pack train crosses a bridge over a river and reaches a new campsite, probably Dose Meadow Camp. The party is shown eating in a meadow then climbing an open shoulder to a high viewpoint, possibly Sentinel Peak near Hayden Pass. Mt Anderson and its Eel Glacier can be seen in the distance. The party descends and returns to their meadow campsite for dinner.
On another day they travel to Hayden Pass for views of Thousand Acre Meadow. Mt Anderson and its Eel Glacier can be seen in the distance beyond an intervening ridge. Mt Olympus is seen to the west. There are scenes of wild flowers, streams and Sentinel Peak. Back in camp are fine scenes of camp activities: cooking, a cobbler working on spiked boots, and men sawing wood. In one scene, Bill Maxwell sits on a log being sawed and is surprised to find himself being filmed. Party members queue up in an assembly line to pack sack lunches.
Following scenes of a waterfall, hikers pass under a snow/ice archway over a stream, probably below the Elwha snow finger, then climb to Dodwell-Rixon Pass for views of the Humes Glacier. There are scenes of elk, probably in Queets Basin. Climbers ascend the icy snout of the Humes Glacier and cross to the Hoh Glacier. There is a fine scene of climbers crossing the glacier, roped in close formation. The ratio of ice axes to alpenstocks is about 50/50. They ascend to the summit of the Middle Peak of Mt Olympus for views of the West Peak and the Hoh Glacier cirque. They scramble down the rocks of the Middle Peak, glissade down snow, and return through the snow/ice archway to camp.
Back in camp, there are good shots of food service and the dinner menu. Florence Dodge and Linda Coleman (see Kjeldsen, "The Mountaineers: A History," p. 185) are shown enjoying the meal. The entire party of more than 50+ persons assembles for a picture and finally they load busses to return to Seattle.
(Digital transfer of this film was made possible by a donation from Olympic Mountain Rescue. Film notes and video clip by Lowell Skoog.)