Rock Climbing with Rainier Athletes
Mt Baker Snoqualamie Forest, WA
Challenge by Choice
The Nature Project x Rainier Athletes x The Mountaineers
The forest on the way up was green and lush, the kind of quiet that asked you to slow down and pay attention. We asked the teens to walk in silence through the woods to the rock wall. Silence is not something any of us get very often in our lives, and there was something in that walk, just the sound of feet on the trail and trees overhead, that began to shift something before the day had even officially started.
Once the group arrived, TNP volunteer and mindset and yoga instructor Angeline Corpuz gathered everyone together to circle up. Before anything else, before the harnesses and the helmets, there was breathwork and intention-setting. What did you want to carry with you today? What did you want to leave behind? The Rainier Athletes teens arrived as individuals and left the circle as a group ready to move together.
They carried their gear up as a team. Not because they had to, but because that's what being part of something means.
The Mountaineers led the safety skills portion of the morning, walking everyone through what they needed to know before they touched the rock face. But before the first pitch, TNP led a conversation that might have been the most important part of the day: how did you want to be supported? Did you want cheers? Did you want silence? How did you ask for what you needed, not just there on the rock, but at home, at school, from your friends, from your teammates? How did you let people in when things got hard?
It's not a question most teenagers get asked. It's not a question most adults ask themselves either.
The rock face became a metaphor for every hard thing. The challenge of a new school year, a difficult relationship, a moment when you didn't know if you could take the next step. TNP athlete mentors shared honestly about how they navigated that, how they asked for support, how they pushed into things that were new and uncomfortable and did it anyway. Their stories made space for the teens to think about their own.
Then each teen got on the rock. Multiple pitches, challenge by choice, every step their own decision. Some moved fast. Some moved slow. All of them moved.
In the orchard, the group harvested apples and took part in a meaningful ritual: each person wrote on an apple something they no longer wanted to carry, something to release, and launched it with the big slingshot. There were plenty of giggles and laughs, but the intention behind it was real.
Being out in nature, in the quiet and the peace, gave everyone space to connect: with the land, with each other, and with their own culture. That sense of belonging and rootedness was at the heart of the day.
Every teen said yes that day. Yes to showing up, yes to new experiences, and yes to something bigger. In the woods and on the trails, they said yes to physical challenges that pushed them past what they thought was possible. And in the quiet moments of reflection, they said yes to thinking about the hard things in life, difficult times, family struggles, the pressures of school, and to carrying the confidence they built on those trails back with them.
