Mountaineers catalog number: MTR.2025.4
Inventory notes by Lowell Skoog, October 6, 2025

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Women Climbers Northwest (WCN) is a Seattle-based, loosely organized outdoor activity group for women. The group was inspired by Woodswoman, a nonprofit adventure travel organization based in Minneapolis, MN, from 1977 to 1999. Kathy Phibbs, the Northwest director of Woodswomen, founded WCN in 1983. In 1990, Phibbs, wearing 1890s period clothing, led a group of 30 women to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first women’s ascent of Mt Rainier by Fay Fuller.

In February, 1991, Phibbs and her friend Hope Barnes were killed in a fall from Triple Couloir, an ice climb on Dragontail Peak in the Washington Cascades. Phibbs was well known as a climber, guide and local character (together with her alter ego, “Miss Dish”); Hope Barnes was known nationally as a two-time Olympic rower and locally as a serious ski mountaineer and climber.

Following their deaths, their WCN friends published several 5x7 inch, spiral-bound, “Women Climbing” engagement calendars, featuring photographs and writings about women in the mountains, including stories written by, or about, Miss Dish. Calendars were published for 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000. In 2004, the group published a Women’s Adventure Journal with writings, poetry, photographs, recipes, useful contact info, and pages for recording journal entries. Proceeds from calendar and journal sales were used to fund projects to encourage women and gay & lesbian youth to climb and to promote safe climbing.

From at least 1988 until 2007, the group produced a newsletter, for many years a monthly publication, it eventually dwindled to an annual edition in the fall. (I don’t know whether a newsletter was published prior to 1988.) After floating several alternates, the newsletter name settled on “Chock Full O’Nuts” in January 1993.

In 1998, WCN member Rachel Da Silva released Leading Out: Mountaineering Stories of Adventurous Women, a book of short stories and articles, with some entries based on previous WCN writings. A copy of this book has been included in the collection.

This collection (MTR.2025.4) was largely compiled by Stephanie Subak, a longtime member of WCN, with contributions by WCN member Colleen Hinton. (Steph was my wife from 1983 until 2015, when she passed away in a mountaineering accident. This collection has been donated to the Mountaineers Archives in memory of Steph and her WCN friends. --Lowell Skoog)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodswomen,_Inc.

Other Elements of the Collection

• Women Climbing Engagement Calendar, Women Climbers Northwest, Seattle, WA: 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000.

• Women’s Adventure Journal, Women Climbers Northwest, Seattle, WA, 2004.

• Da Silva, Rachel, Leading Out: Mountaineering Stories of Adventurous Women, Seal Press, Seattle, WA, 1998.

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