If you can see Mt. Baker, you are part of The Experience
Cascade Mountain Ascents is one of the newest guiding services operating in the North Cascades, and the crew of founders is hoping to make a difference with their co-op ownership model, offering a wide range of custom trips, and making a point to host a growing number of women’s affinity groups.
CMA was founded in 2022 by Alyssa Young, Mike Elges, Zack McGill and Phil Staub, all lifelong mountain people and certified mountain guides. Now, the guiding co-op employs roughly 15 other guides throughout the year.
CMA is unique in the climbing world by operating as a worker-owned co-operative, meaning full-time employees get a stake in the decisions, responsibilities and profits. Young said the decision to organize the company as a co-op means CMA can run a more sustainable, and safer, guiding operation.
Young said that having CMA’s owners also working as guides, out in the field constantly, means decisions regarding safety and route specifics can be made organically, responsibly, and without waiting for a response high up the ownership chain.
“What we do is inherently risky, and we’re operating in a workplace where there’s an imbalance of power (between guide and client),” Young said. “It felt like if the guides are also the ones choosing which routes to open, developing our risk management and emergency response plans, doing all the program development and deciding which type of client is a good fit for different types of trips, that creates a really high level of buy-in.”
CMA runs multiple trips per week between May and September, and during the winter months they are constantly running backcountry trips around Mt. Baker. Young said what really sets CMA apart is their dedication to educational opportunities, their use of custom trips to fit any client, and the women’s affinity programs that Young trailblazed.
The women’s affinity programs began in earnest last summer, with Young organizing as many classes as she could teach on her own as the only female guide working for CMA at the time. Since then, CMA has added a team of “incredible” guides that Young said are honored to get more women and minoritized genders out in the mountains.
“We need guides that are really on it and really sharp and capable in the mountains, but that’s just one tiny piece of the puzzle,” Young said. “Guiding is extremely relational. A huge part in determining outcomes is how you are with your guests.”
Young said she was used to working alongside highly qualified male guides, but it wasn’t until she participated in a women’s affinity program that she started to understand the power of affinity groups in outdoor recreation.
“Same curriculum, same expectations, same outcomes, but showing up in an environment like that, I didn’t realize how much more space I felt like I had internally,” Young said. “I learned a ton about myself. It was this transformative experience that’s not better, necessarily, just different.”
Since that trip, Young has worked to create her own women’s affinity groups with CMA, which is now offering multiple different women’s trips and a women’s AIARE 1 avalanche safety course.
“A difference I notice is that on the women’s affinity programs, in particular, people show up so completely,” Young said. “When you walk into a room full of strangers that you’re about to go climb a mountain with, it’s reasonable to have your hackles up. But people on these trips are often more willing to be vulnerable in a way that is really productive and conducive to learning.”
For more information about CMA’s affinity groups, avalanche courses, custom trips and more, visit cascademountainascents.com, or join the bi-weekly Bellingham Backcountry Meet-ups at Kulshan Brewing’s Sunnyland Taproom, 6-8 p.m. every other Wednesday starting November 26. X
