Brett Kettering

Brett Kettering has been an active LAM member since 2011. In 2015 and 2016 he was the Trip Coordinator. In 2017 and 2018 he will be the Climbing School Director.

Brett was born in San Diego, CA and moved to Los Alamos when he was in the 10th grade. After completing college he landed at LLNL and lived most of that time in Tracy. In 2002, Brett returned to NM to work at LANL.

Brett has loved sports his whole life. Early on he was primarily involved in competitive team sports such as Basketball, Volleyball (Grass Doubles & 6-person), and Softball. Over time Brett gravitated toward Cycling and Triathlon. A couple of highlights of this involvement was a week-long cycling vacation in Spain’s Catalonia region and a vacation to northern Italy to see stages of the 2017 Giro d'Italia and to do some mountaineering and canyoneering.

While on a temporary work assignment in the eastern U.S. Brett became interested in visiting state high points. During that work assignment he visited many midwestern, southern, and east coast high points. A friend from Brett’s days working at LLNL had moved back east. Through him, Brett made another adventuring friend. The three talked about conquering the more difficult state high points.

To that end, Brett thought it prudent to get some rope and climbing training. In 2011 he took the LAM Climbing School. As of 2023 Brett has visited all, but Gannett Peak (WY, made it to the base but not the summit. Will try again.) and Denali (AK, he has no plans to attempt Denali.). See some pictures highlighting those trips attached to this Bio.

In 2011 Brett also took the Canyoneering specialty course and went on his first trip to Zion National Park. He became a Canyoneering enthusiast, took much more training, and has many canyons in many locations under his belt. The highlight of his Canyoneering experience was completing two Alpine canyons in the Bellinzona, Switzerland area in May 2014, and one canyon in the Sondrio, Italy area in May 2017.

Brett has also expanded his climbing repertoire to include Trad lead climbing and ice climbing, though he no longer actively does these activities. Brett has returned to his cycling love and that includes bikepacking. He also still does some backpacking trips.

Brett expects to be actively involved in adventurous activities until he is no longer with us. :-)