Oct 5, 2026 · 30 min · 13 segments
Standing at 14,410 feet, Mount Tahoma is the tallest mountain in the Pacific Northwest. It’s also known worldwide as Mount Rainier, and is often a stepping stone for mountaineers with their sights set…
Jen ChavezHost
Jessie Sears
At almost 14,500 feet, Mount Tahoma is the highest mountain in the Pacific Northwest.
It's the site of a national park and often a stepping stone for mountaineers with their sights set on Denali or Kilimanjaro.
It's also surrounded by the ancestral homelands of six Indigenous tribes, including Tayla and Rachel's.
And that's a big part of why, in June 2026, Rachel led an all-Native youth climb up the mountain to Camp Muir, a base camp perched just above 10,000 feet.
I want visibility of Native people back on the mountain, but I believe that in order for that to start happening, we have to get our younger generation out on the mountain.
Our colleague Jessie Sears, an Oregon Field Guide video producer and Karuk tribal member, chronicled their journey for OPB.
What better way of getting your community outside than to bring the next generation out? She was hoping that the younger generation would fall in love with the mountain like she has and inspire others to show up in those spaces.
It's really important for us to climb up the mountain because we're going to do it in a different way, in a sense that we're going to honor the mountain.
Hilary Penfield is an 18-year-old from the Blackfeet Nation and another one of the Tahoma youth climbers.
George Vancouver actually named all the mountains in the Pacific Northwest after his friends.
So he named it after his friend Peter Rainier, who never even traveled to the Pacific Northwest.
But of course, this mountain's significance goes way further back than two buddies from the British Royal Navy.
There are six tribes around the base of the mountain.
All of those tribes had different names for the mountain.
Tacoma, you'll also hear Tahoma, Tacoba.
A lot of our rivers that are significant to our tribal communities are directly fed by the mountain.
The mountain had hundreds and hundreds of villages around it because of the life support that was created by the mountain.
You'll hear different names, but a lot of them actually mean like mother of all waters.
You know that feeling that you get when you're actually like outside on an adventure and you're seeing new things and you just like feel so excited? That's how I felt just even from our first phone call.
Rachel started climbing during the pandemic.
Before COVID had happened, I was going to the gym.
At almost 14,500 feet, Mount Tahoma is the highest mountain in the Pacific Northwest.
It's the site of a national park and often a stepping stone for mountaineers with their sights set on Denali or Kilimanjaro.
It's also surrounded by the ancestral homelands of six Indigenous tribes, including Tayla and Rachel's.
And that's a big part of why, in June 2026, Rachel led an all-Native youth climb up the mountain to Camp Muir, a base camp perched just above 10,000 feet.
I want visibility of Native people back on the mountain, but I believe that in order for that to start happening, we have to get our younger generation out on the mountain.
Our colleague Jessie Sears, an Oregon Field Guide video producer and Karuk tribal member, chronicled their journey for OPB.
What better way of getting your community outside than to bring the next generation out? She was hoping that the younger generation would fall in love with the mountain like she has and inspire others to show up in those spaces.
It's really important for us to climb up the mountain because we're going to do it in a different way, in a sense that we're going to honor the mountain.
Hilary Penfield is an 18-year-old from the Blackfeet Nation and another one of the Tahoma youth climbers.
George Vancouver actually named all the mountains in the Pacific Northwest after his friends.
So he named it after his friend Peter Rainier, who never even traveled to the Pacific Northwest.
But of course, this mountain's significance goes way further back than two buddies from the British Royal Navy.
There are six tribes around the base of the mountain.
All of those tribes had different names for the mountain.
Tacoma, you'll also hear Tahoma, Tacoba.
A lot of our rivers that are significant to our tribal communities are directly fed by the mountain.
The mountain had hundreds and hundreds of villages around it because of the life support that was created by the mountain.
You'll hear different names, but a lot of them actually mean like mother of all waters.
You know that feeling that you get when you're actually like outside on an adventure and you're seeing new things and you just like feel so excited? That's how I felt just even from our first phone call.
Rachel started climbing during the pandemic.
Before COVID had happened, I was going to the gym.
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