• Nature
  • Pemi West
  • Trips

Mountain leadership in Olympic NP: Pemi West

In 1997, when I was 18, I traveled out to Crested Butte, Colorado, to take part in Pemi West’s inaugural season. We had a base camp at 10,000 feet in the Maroon Bells, and spent almost a month living in the mountains. I still have vivid images in my mind from that summer—the tall conifers that surrounded the base camp, the fields of wildflowers we hiked through, the drama of the vast, snowy mountains that were our home. And the Pemi spirit, so distinctive in New Hampshire, was with us out in the Rockies.

The next summer, after my first year of college, I returned to Pemi in New Hampshire and worked as a trip counselor for the summer in the White Mountains. (We’ll have more about the trip program at Pemi in New Hampshire in a forthcoming item here.) Then, in the summer of 1999, I traveled back out to Colorado to work as a staff trip leader for Pemi West, co-leading a group with Scott Morgan.

Pemi West in 2006.
Pemi West in 2006.

My two summers out in Colorado built upon a love of hiking and the outdoors that I’d been nurturing for a long time, and vastly improved my technical skills and sense of confidence and independence in the wilderness, to boot. In college, I was a Mountain Club guide, and later, the president of the Mountain Club, and the fact that I arrived at Middlebury and felt ready to tackle anything in the outdoors has a lot to do with my training both at Pemi West and with Pemi in New Hampshire.

Since 2005, Pemi West has been located in Olympic National Park in Washington State. When I asked Pemi West Director Tim Billo to tell me some about the current program, he wrote:

“This setting offers all the challenge and beauty of Colorado, but also offers a superior wilderness experience. With one million contiguous acres of federally designated wilderness, Olympic National Park is one of the largest road-less areas in the Lower 48. It offers an unparalleled trail system, as well as extremely remote and challenging off-trail travel. Though the elevations are less lofty than Colorado, the Olympic Mountains have all the characteristics of some of the world’s highest peaks, including some of the largest ice fields in the Lower 48. Lower elevations have the added advantage of eliminating time spent for acclimatization. Pemi West is a great place to join your old Pemi friends on an adventure that will teach you how to become completely self-sufficient in any rugged mountain wilderness. The trip traverses some of the many distinct ecosystems that Olympic National Park encompasses, from temperate rainforest, to ocean beach, to alpine meadow, and glaciated peaks. Glacier travel is an awesome bonus experience in the Olympics that was not available in Colorado. Navigating the rivers of ice on Olympus, while roped to your teammates, is an unforgettable experience, and a skill needed for mountaineering in all of the world’s great ranges. To prevent the need for returning to civilization, and to lighten packs for a day or two, Pemi West in the Olympics also takes advantage of a backcountry re-supply by llama.”

(That last detail makes me jealous. We didn’t have llamas in Colorado.)

Find more information on the features and history of Pemi West, and information on how to apply. (Note that this year’s program is a two-week course, as opposed to the usual three weeks. The shorter course will cover all of the same skills in a more compact, but equally intense wilderness experience.)

The ranks of Pemi West alumni are constantly getting bigger, and there is usually a good number of people who participate in Pemi West as a camper or leader and then migrate back to Pemi in New Hampshire, their teeth cut on the bigger mountains out west. Some have moved on to work for other organizations, or have led gnarly personal trips of their own. If you’ve been a part of Pemi West, either in Colorado or Washington, what was the experience like? Did you come back to Pemi in New Hampshire and join the trip program, or was it “just” a once-in-a-lifetime experience for you?

Rob Verger

You may enjoy these, as well

Pemi Hut Trips: Part Two

If you missed Part One of our hut trip series, focused on Greenleaf Hut, here ...

Pemi Hut Trips: Part One

From their earliest days as Juniors, Pemi campers take to the trails to experience the ...

Cans from Campers Program Receives National Award

New Orleans, LA – February 6, 2024 Camp Pemigewassett is proud to announce that our Cans from Campers ...

Defining Photos of 2023

As we count down to the end of 2023, we want to take a moment to ...

Alumni News & Notes – Winter 2023

Greetings, Pemi Family! As we steadily march towards the end of an eventful 2023, I’m ...

Pemi West 2023

Pemi West provides former and new campers alike with the opportunity to hone their wilderness ...

Community Service & Engagement at Pemi

The Pemi experience provides innumerable opportunities for boys to have fun, try new activities, improve ...

2023 Newsletter #7

Greetings from Pemi! Hard as it is to believe, we’re well into the final ...

2023 Newsletter #6

Camp Pemi and our friends from Camp Tecumseh on Lake Winnipesaukee have engaged in a ...

2023 Newsletter #5

Hello from Wentworth! The second session of Pemi’s 116th summer continues to benefit from ...

2023 Newsletter #4

Greetings from sunny Wentworth! The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and it’s ...

2023 Newsletter #3

Hello from the shores of the expanded Lower Baker Pond! It’s been quite a ...

2023 Newsletter #2

Hello from the shores of Lower Baker Pond! On the heels of a wonderful celebration ...

2023 Newsletter #1

Greetings from Camp Pemigewassett! I’m thrilled to be sharing the first newsletter of the 2023 ...

2023 Pemi Staff

We’re under two days away from the opening of Pemi’s 116th summer! Our ...

Waiters & Camp Aides

As boys progress through their Pemi journey, the opportunities for new adventures and leadership increase. ...

Birthdays at Pemi

What could be better than getting to celebrate your birthday once a year, every year? ...

Reading After Taps

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever been around boys aged 8...

2022-2023 Pemi Board Updates

Last fall, Pemi’s Board of Directors welcomed two new members and also saw the ...

Defining Photos of 2022

As 2022 draws to a close and winter begins to rear its head in earnest across ...

2022 16s Trip

In many ways, the 2022 Pemi West trip could be described as a homecoming. Our first ...

Bertha Hofstra Fauver – September 23, 1920 – October 1, 2022

We are saddened to share the news that Bertha Fauver died on October 1, just one ...

115th Reunion Newsletter!

After a hugely successful 2022 season, including record attendance at our third annual Family Camp, members ...

fireworks at Camp Pemi

Welcome back Johanna Zabawa!

I’m thrilled to share that Johanna Zabawa, a veteran staff member and great-granddaughter of ...

Karl Grafton See – October 2, 1970-September 9, 2022

Karl Grafton See, consummate Pemi boy, counselor, and lifelong friend, has died in Duxbury, MA ...

banner image newsletter 8

2022 Newsletter #8

Greetings from Camp Pemigewassett! I’m writing, sadly, not from the placid shores of Lower ...

2022 Newsletter #6

Good afternoon from yet another beautiful day in Wentworth, The weather here at Pemi continues ...