If you can see Mt. Baker, you are part of The Experience
Mount Baker Experience took home five awards, including four first place awards, at the 2024 Washington Newspaper Publishers Association (WNPA) Better Newspaper Contest for its great work over the past year.
The Mount Baker Experience team won first place in the Lifestyle/Culture category for the Winter 2023/24 edition of Mount Baker Experience, featuring Grant Gunderson’s astounding 25-year career photographing the Mt. Baker backcountry, the Glacier Ski Shop, winter surfing in Tofino, and many other stellar winter stories.
Colin Wiseman won first place in the Cover category for his Spring 2024 cover in Mount Baker Experience. The popular cover featured the Pacific Northwest’s two favorite things: mountain biking and friendly dogs. Grant Gunderson’s cover photo in the Winter 2023/24 edition earned third place in the same category. Jasmine Long’s gallery of the 2023 Northwest Tune-Up festival also earned first place in the Photo Essay category.
Rounding out the awards for Mount Baker Experience, Andrew Grubb won first place in the Photography category for his parting shot in the Spring 2024 edition of the magazine, a stunning shot of light of a snowcat peaking through the chairlift at Stevens Pass.
All told, Point Roberts Press publications (which include The Northern Light newspaper and special publications) took home 62 WNPA Better Newspaper Contest awards, a record for the company.
Longtime Mount Baker Experience contributor and reader-favorite Tony Moceri has released his first book, “A Wandering Mind: Lessons and Laughter from Life’s Amusing Adventures,” a collection of essays and poems from his life as an avid adventure writer.
Moceri has been a writer his entire life, and has run his own blog at TonyMoceri.com for years, but has just now introduced himself to the world of book publishing. First published in Mount Baker Experience in 2019, Moceri focuses on international and local travel, family activities, and has always punctuated his writing with witty humor, self-deprecation, and a universality that has made him one of the magazine’s most prolific contributors.
“I have loved sharing my random thoughts over the years, often including some sort of life lesson at the end of each post,” Moceri wrote in an October 27 blog post. “When possible, I like to instill self-deprecating humor to hopefully get a laugh and show how we can all learn when the best-laid plans go awry.”
The book is similar to his blog in that it’s a light-hearted collection of musings and “wandering” thoughts over the years, but is also interspersed with original poetry to keep readers engaged and amused.
“I hope ‘A Wandering Mind’ reaches new people and that some of my less glamorous moments can be lessons for those who pick up my book,” Moceri wrote. “Most of all, I hope that all of you who have been readers of my blog enjoy it. You are the ones who encouraged and helped direct my writing.”
“A Wandering Mind” is published by SBDM Publishing, and can be found at Village Books in Fairhaven and Lynden, and wherever books are sold online. Autographed copies are also available. For more information, visit TonyMoceri.com.
Vail Everett, the 18-year-old Bellingham local, won the 2024 Boulder National Championship on October 16, defeating a field of over 100 athletes in Salt Lake City.
Everett not only earned the crown of national bouldering champ, he was the only male athlete to break through to the final round in both bouldering and lead climbing, finishing eighth overall in the lead category final.
This wasn’t the first time Everett has made it far in the national bouldering world. In 2023, he finished second place in the lead category at nationals, won the youth bouldering nationals, and has consistently placed among the top in multiple youth world championships.
Everett trains at Seattle-based climbing gym Vertical World, and competes on its climbing team, which boasts multiple national champions – Everett being one of the most recent.
In an October 18 social media post after winning the championship, Everett said becoming a national champion was a lifelong goal finally achieved.
“Going into boulder finals I knew that winning was not only a possibility but something that I have been working towards my whole life,” Everett wrote. “I had visualized and truly believed that I was going to win.”
Everett graduated from Sehome High School in 2024 and now attends the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, one of the premier climbing towns in the world, and hopes to continue his climbing career in the professional sphere.
“In the final all the pressure was on me to perform, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel it because I had already visualized my success and exactly what I needed to do to reach it,” Everett wrote. “In the deciding moments of the comp, pressure wasn’t a factor. This led me to having one of the greatest rounds of my life where at the end, I was crowned the Boulder Open National Champion.”
Acclaimed outdoor adventure author Jon Waterman recently toured bookstores around Bellingham and the Pacific Northwest to promote his most recent work, “Into the Thaw,” a dazzling and evocative first-hand look at the effects of the climate crisis on the Arctic Alaskan wilderness.
Waterman’s book was written over the course of decades as he made multiple trips to the Alaskan arctic and features in- depth reporting with the Indigenous communities of northern Alaska, beautiful-yet-haunting photos of thawing permafrost along his many backpacking trips, and endearing anecdotes from traversing some of the harshest climate on the planet.
The book centers on Waterman’s journeys through the Noatak National Preserve, a massive river valley north of the Arctic Circle. On his first trip in 1983, Waterman witnessed thousands of migrating caribou and a pristine artic climate. By his most recent trip in 2022, Waterman saw not only a decimation of the caribou population, but a strangely lush, warmed and melted wilderness.
Waterman said the book is an attempt to not only show readers what the climate crisis is doing to the Alaskan frontier through images and firsthand accounts, but what is being done to learn and adapt to it by the native Inuit and Iñupiat peoples, climate scientists and researchers.
In an interview with Mount Baker Experience, Waterman described himself as “a connoisseur of wild places” and said that vast Alaskan wilderness kept drawing him back over and over again for decades, culminating in “Into the Thaw.” Waterman has written 15 other books on exploring the wildest parts of America, but has always had an intense interest in the Alaskan wilderness.
Despite seeing firsthand the ravages of melting permafrost and warming climates on the ecosystem and lifestyles of those living in Arctic Alaska, Waterman said he didn’t intend to write a book to scare or discourage anyone. Rather, he said he wants the book to inspire action and change.
“I think a lot of people understandably turn to grief when confronted by the climate crisis,” Waterman said. “But I don’t think that we have to feel grief. I think that by taking action, and it starts with voting and speaking out, there’s so many ways that we as citizens – even if the government is slow to reduce emissions – can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in our daily lives. They might feel like baby steps, but it’s a way to find hope and it’s a way to contribute.”
“Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder amid the Arctic Climate Crisis” is published by Patagonia Works, and is on sale at local bookstores around the Pacific Northwest today.
WA360, the 360-mile engineless, unsupported boat race through Washington’s waterways organized by Northwest Maritime Center, announced its return for June 28, 2025 and opened competitor applications on November 15.
The race debuted in 2021 with 56 teams making the arduous loop journey starting and ending in Port Townsend in catamarans, monohulls, kayaks, SUPs and more.
“WA360 is always a paper airplane’s throw away from a Puget Sound community,” said Jesse Wiegel, race boss at the Northwest Maritime Center. “It’s an incredible platform for your wildest on-the-water dreams. WA360 provides an accessible and exciting way to level up your nautical adventure game here in our own backyard.”
Applications are open online at WA360.org. The race is divided into two divisions: the Wind Division, for teams using sail and wind-powered boats, and the Muscle Group, featuring only human-powered watercraft.
According to the Northwest Maritime webpage, “anything that floats and abides by martime law is eligible – whether it’s a sailboat, paddle craft, or something you cobbled together in your garage, it’s welcome in WA360.”
This upcoming WA360 route will begin in Port Townsend, travel the length of the Puget Sound to Budd Inlet in Olympia, pass through Goat Island at Deception Pass, curve around Bellingham Bay, then turn back around after reaching Point Roberts.
The 2025 race will be the first since the race’s debut in 2021, and the organizers really mean it when they say unsupported.
Sailors must navigate 360 miles of the busy, bristling Salish Sea without the aid of food and equipment drops, and only allowing preplanned support that is available to every racer.
Northwest Maritime Center also puts on the Race to Alaska (R2AK), a 750-mile race from Port Townsend to Ketchikan. Organizers said WA360 and R2AK will now alternate years, and the next race is scheduled for 2026.
Washington State Parks (WSP) announced the closure of 14 Sno-Parks – trailheads reserved for motorized snowmobile recreation – across the state this winter, citing a drastic reduction in funding.
The parks will be closed only for the 2024-25 season, according to WSP, due to funds from snowmobile registrations – the main source of funding for Sno-Parks – reducing by a quarter since last year.
No Whatcom or Skagit county parks will be affected by the temporary closure, and the majority of closures were chosen due to low popularity, proximity to other parks, and recommendations from local communities and land managers, WSP said. WSP operates 89 Sno-Parks around the state, and the closure represents 16 percent of all parks closing for the season.
Over the past 20 years, the number of registered snowmobiles in Washington has more than halved, from a high of 38,331 in 2002 to 18,434 in 2024, according to WSP. The snowmobile program is funded through registration fees and a percentage of the gas tax, and the program receives $94.20 per registered snowmobile. Funds are used for snow removal, sanitation, education, enforcement and trail grooming, much of which is done with labor from volunteer groups.
The following motorized Sno-Parks will be closed for the 2024-25 season: Echo Valley, Skate Creek, Bethel Ridge/Soup Creek, Crow Creek, Cloverland, Elk Heights, Fish Creek, French Cabin, Nile, Taneum, Reecer Creek, Crawfish, Nine Bark and Clear Lake.
One of Bellingham’s independent outdoor retailers, Backcountry Essentials, recently moved from its hallowed but hole-in-the-wall venue on Prospect Street to spacious, airy new digs at 1417 N. State Street this fall.
Since opening its doors in 2006, Backcountry Essentials has become one of the most popular spots for all-season outfitting, and the move to the bigger venue came just in time for what looks to be a pristine winter at Mt. Baker.
In an October 15 social media post, the business thanked the local community for patronizing the shop for nearly two decades, and said it was excited to start a new chapter.
“Thanks to the support of our amazing mountain community, we’ve grown quite a bit,” the post read. “Enough so that we’ve been hunting for a perfect space to accommodate our expanded needs.”
The new location is nestled between 21st Century Bowl and Vital climbing gym in downtown Bellingham, and will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
“It’s so humbling to see the growth and success of our family-owned business, and we have you to thank for that!” the post read. “The best is yet to come!” X
