The foregoing definition says nothing about why some of us find dumpster diving so satisfying. Let’s see what my asylum mates are all about.

Stefan Feller is probably the most ardent dumpster diver among us. He’s done more dives than anybody and he’ll get up really early in the morning to dive before work. It’s not unusual for Stefan to get up at 3:00 a.m. and drive for more than an hour, then maybe hop on his bike for an hour, eventually finding his summit (sometimes while it is still dark), and then return to his desk at work in Renton by 8:30 a.m. Now that’s dedication! Of course, Stefan has pretty much done everything close to his home and office by now so the regularity with which he gets up early for diving exercise has diminished. Or he simply gets up even earlier.

“I do not look at it as dumpster diving. I look at it as peak bagging. My climbing goal is to get to and summit as many different mountains as I can. I can’t tell you why so many different mountains have allure to me except that I know I have one life and I would like to experience as many different points on this Earth as I can. Sometimes you get quality peaks along the way and sometimes you have to stretch the definition of a mountain. Many people climb one peak or another because it has been named. I do not discriminate between unnamed and named peaks. I don’t even discriminate based on their height.

“I have decided that all high points with at least 400ft of prominence shall be included in my peak bagging. Even the so-called dumpster dives offer challenges. Many are behind gates and quite a few are on gun-toting, dog-owning private property. So I say, do not discriminate what constitutes a mountain. Be happy you are in a continual pursuit of something that gives you energy in life.” —Stefan Feller

Paul Klenke and John Roper discuss the route in Fort Lewis while Fay Pullen checks the GPS. Photo © Michelle Rowley Klenke.		Approaching “The Cork” (2002ft) near Marblemount. Photo © Paul Klenke.		Trophy-sized bug on Green Mountain, Kitsap Peninsula. Photo © Michelle Rowley Klenke.
Paul Klenke and John Roper discuss the route in Fort Lewis while Fay Pullen checks the GPS. Photo © Michelle Rowley Klenke.		Approaching “The Cork” (2002ft) near Marblemount. Photo © Paul Klenke.		Trophy-sized bug on Green Mountain, Kitsap Peninsula. Photo © Michelle Rowley Klenke.

The elder statesman of peakbagging in Washington is surely John Roper (known as “the Rhino”). He was romping and stomping his first dumpsters before many of us were born. Roper has reached so many summits in Washington that now, to keep his climbing mind grinding away, he salts it with a unique pursuit not even his asylum mates find appealing: he bags quad highpoints (QHPs)—the highest point on every quad. Talk about some potentially lame destinations!

“My first-ever summit was Little Si in 1953, at the age of nine. Nowadays I guess this could be called a dumpster dive, but Little Si is really more of a ‘blob’ than a ‘dive.’ The difference is that a ‘blob’ is cute with a distinct and somewhat attractive shape. Other Blob examples would be Fuller Mountain, ‘Young Love,’ Bald Mountain (the one by Lake Cavanaugh), Cedar Butte, and ‘Toc Rock.’ If the landform looks like it could have come out of an ice cream scoop, it’s a blob. A dumpster dive has no redeeming aesthetic qualities, but they still get you out of the house for some exercise and into the woods, often too much into the woods.

“I climbed nothing but real mountains for the next 34 years until 1987 when, on a year’s sabbatical from work, I set out to visit and chronicle the named features in the Skagit River watershed, and started poking around down by Skagit Bay, first with 934-ft Little Mountain near Mount Vernon, then carrying on from there. Upon climbing a few of these lesser summits, it became obvious that one could rack up some good numbers on peaks climbed (in a year or a lifetime) by salting in puny peaks with the real ones. ‘Quantity over quality’ became my mantra.” —John Roper

Then there is Fay Pullen, the asylum patient who escapes the most. If it seems like Fay is out there twice a week that is because she is. But, to her credit, she generally only does the dumpster thing in the off-season (call it the “wet season” if you like; you know—September to July here in western Washington).

“So why do I like dumpster diving? Well, golly gee whiz—what’s not to like? I get to flex my 4X4 driving muscles wandering barely passable unmaintained roads abusing my poor Jeep in the process with scratches, dents, cracked windshields, and multiple flat tires. Or I get to pedal (or push) my bike for miles up gated, steep logging roads, usually in the rain, only to crash horrid, and usually wet, brush to reach an insignificant low summit with no view whatsoever whose high point, when it can be determined at all, is frequently a ‘picturesque’ rotting stump or slash pile. But hey, I get to make another checkmark on some obscure list.

“But the real fun of dumpsters is the challenge of finding a way up by any means of travel that works, armed only with a map and determination. Therein lies the lure. And if it can be done with or in the footsteps of other demented divers, so much the better.” —Fay Pullen

Fay Pullen at Rooster Rock near Morton. The gate was locked. Photo © Paul Klenke.		Sofy making a mountain out of an ant-hill, Fort Lewis. Photo © John Roper.		Bagging the greatest prominence point in Franklin County, WA. Photo © Paul Klenke.
Fay Pullen at Rooster Rock near Morton. The gate was locked. Photo © Paul Klenke.		Sofy making a mountain out of an ant-hill, Fort Lewis. Photo © John Roper.		Bagging the greatest prominence point in Franklin County, WA. Photo © Paul Klenke.

Beckey Aint Never Been There

I have noticed for myself that, since I became a dumpster diver, I now view the world around me differently. I now find myself seeing things I never saw before. High alpine peaks are often not visible from valleys and roads. We don’t see them until we get higher up. But these little dumpster peaks are frequently right there beside or in front of me, next to the highway or filling up my windshield with their forested hillsides. If I am traveling through a place I’ve been through before, I can see these little peaks and know which ones they are, and, if I have climbed them, I can say with contentment (or sometimes with bemusement), “I’ve been up there” or “I’ve done that one” to those in the car who might care to know, which isn’t many of you.

If I am traveling through a place I’ve never been, I’ll see a little summit and wonder if it “has prominence” (≥400ft in Washington) and invariably ask myself how I would go about getting up it. Is there a logging road? Is it on private property? Is it cliffy at the top? It gives me something to think about when there might otherwise be not much to think about on a boring road.

With dumpster diving, you never know what man-made oddity you may discover, sometimes literally stumbling upon it. I’ve seen everything from a rusty sheet metal rhinoceros to a fugitive’s old hideout to cords of wood stacked in the middle of nowhere. I’ve seen my share of gravel pits doubling as firing ranges. I’ve come across squatters without guns and squatters with guns. I’ve done summits crowded with old RV trailers. I’ve found my way onto many dubious summits.

One difficult dumpster I have on my goals list is Jorgenson Hill on Indian Island near Port Townsend. Jorgenson Hill is inside one of the Navy’s ordnance depots. I have this notion of asking to be taken up to the summit by MPs. I’d even do it blindfolded. There is also Gable Mountain on the Hanford Nuclear Site. For this dumpster, my plan is to write a letter to the site manager seeking a special one-time permit to enter. There’s always a way.

Closing the Lid

In closing, I'll offer a continuation of Howbert’s report for the day he and Roper snared Sares Head:

“Things were getting desperate. I looked out the window again and it was still there, falling....rain, rain, and more rain. It was the same almost every weekend for two months. November and December in Seattle are meant to be wet and I’ve learned to love it and go out anyway.

“The final two months of 1998 went into the record books as the wettest November-December ever in Western Washington. They also went into my personal annals as the lousiest end-of-year climbing season ever. But this volume of rain, the droning consistency, was eroding my determination. Heretical thoughts flickered through my head…wouldn’t it be easier to stay home, stay more…comfortable?

“Yet my motivation still simmered, if on low heat. I had dedicated the past year to a perverse quest: to bag as many peaks as I could. And this would be my last chance to go out in 1998. How could I resist pushing the total a little higher? I knew I wouldn’t come this way again. What was another short round of misery against that immortal goal?

“So I researched a few more maps for my Master List. Then I tried to find company for the anticipated misery. I called the only person I knew who wouldn’t laugh right away—the Rhino.” —Jeff Howbert

I’m sure that Fred Beckey has never visited Sares Head. Neither have I for that matter. Hmmmm…