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Monthly Program:

Hiking Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail: the route and its natural history

Date: 
Tue, 2025-11-18

The November 18 Mountaineers meeting will feature a talk by Gwendolyn Gallagher & Don Krier on their adventure in Iceland.

The Laugavegur trail is Iceland's most famous hiking route through the southern highlands. The route is known for diverse and colorful terrain, ranging from mountains of colorfully altered rhyolitic tuffs to obsidian black sand plains, with views of icecaps and glaciers, hydrothermal springs, lava fields, deep river canyons, and glacial valleys and moraines. The trail starts in Landmannalaugar and ends in Þórsmörk. In this presentation, Gwendolyn and Don will explain the route and logistics, and describe the natural history of this region.

The speakers’ experiences include backpacking, mountain biking, climbing, mountaineering, trail ultra-running, and backcountry and alpine skiing. Together, they have enjoyed some epic mountain summits including Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, Cotopaxi, Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn. Both speakers love the outdoors because of their shared passion in natural history; Gwendolyn is a biologist, and Don is a geologist. So, a summit is exhilarating, but nature observed along the journey is what fulfills them

We welcome all to this Mountaineers’ meeting. While our meetings are usually on the fourth Tuesday of the month, this meeting will be on the third Tuesday because of the Thanksgiving holiday. The social hour, with cookies, begins at 6:45 PM and the program at 7:00 PM. The presentation will be in-person at Los Alamos Nature Center; the slides will be live-streamed on Zoom. Registration is required to Zoom and recommended for in-person – we would love to see your smiling face. Registration details will be posted once they are available.

Wild backcountry in Iceland

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Climbing School Update

Registration is Open for Los Alamos Mountaineers Climbing School

The Los Alamos Mountaineers are thrilled to announce that they will be offering a climbing school following last year’s successful revival of the school, in conjunction with Mountain Skills Rock Climbing Adventures of Taos. Details can be found on their climbing school page, here .
Mountain Skills, supported by Mountaineers volunteers, will teach rock climbing with a safety first attitude, including movement on rock, belaying, rappelling, cleaning protective gear, and removing anchors, with extensive on-rock practice. The course objective is such that successful students should develop the skills needed to participate in top roping, follow a leader in a multi-pitch trad climb, and be able to climb or descend moderate technical obstacles in unplanned backcountry situations using improvised gear (e.g. rope and carabiners). No previous rock climbing experience is required.

 

Ongoing Events


 

Monthly Public Meeting and Presentation:


Normally held in the planetarium of the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC)
on the fourth Tuesday of each month. Now offering hybrid meetings with in-person and zoom options! Sign up for each talk at the Monthly Program page.

Social at 6:45.  Reports of recent and upcoming trips at 7:05pm.   Program to follow.

Visitors are always welcome!  Free refreshments!

Past presentations, and occasionally future, can be viewed here

 

Future Club Speakers:  In addition to frequent presentations by nationally known adventurers, we love to hear from our own members....not that some of you aren't in that group.  A presentation gets you a free club membership and dinner at the restaurant of your choice in Los Alamos.

LAM Member Presentations Wanted! The LAM Board would like to encourage our members to provide more of our monthly presentations.  We understand well that club members are an active lot, with a wealth of activities in their repertoire that can and have been inspiring to new and old members alike.  We have often focused our monthly presentations on the elite of the outdoor adventure world, and perhaps created the undesired effect of squelching the voices of our own members who participate in frequent beautiful and exciting adventures of their own.  Although our own activities are not always "world class", they are representative of what we "weekend" athletes can and do accomplish.  We want many of our programs to inspire the "I can do that" attitude in our members, not merely entertain.  Shock and awe may have their rightful place, but inspiration to participate and shine is our true goal.

 

Trip Leaders:  Post your trip by logging in and then going here.  If you do not have an account, contact  the webmaster. For overnight trips, please ensure that membership waivers for participants are current and recorded by the club Membership Chairperson prior to your trip. Non-members may participate in day trips. All club sponsored trips require the trip waiver. After the trip, please scan and email a PDF of the waiver to the Trip Coordinator.

Trip Leader Awards: The club will recognize trip leaders as described here.

Borrow Equipment: We have a limited amount of mountaineering equipment for loan (e.g., avalanche transceivers). Contact our Equipment Manager listed on this page.

 

 

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