Little-Known Endurance Competition Subject of New WSU Press Book

WSU Press has released a new book this fall on the stunning history of an early 20th-century endurance competition from Bellingham, Washington, to the 10,781-foot summit of Mount Baker—more than 55 miles away—and back. The races drew thousands of enthusiastic spectators before they ended in 1913.

In The Mountain Runners: America’s First Adventure Race, 1911-1913, historian Todd Warger reveals the story of the Mount Baker Marathons, one of the greatest athletic achievements of the time, yet relatively unknown today. The competition was a grueling challenge of strength, stamina, resourcefulness, and skill.

The mostly amateur athletes navigated the rugged trail to timberline in darkness, with only the wobbly light of handheld lanterns. At first light, they braved savage summit storms, crossing snowfields with hidden deep crevasses and jagged glaciers. Contestants continued despite cuts and bruises, broken bones, torn ligaments, twisted ankles, snow-blindness, hypothermia, and intense exhaustion.

In the end—despite days of festivities and lucrative crowds—incompetent decision-making and the extreme risks to participants made the competition too dangerous to continue. The Mountain Runners rescues the Mount Baker Marathons from obscurity, utilizing descendants’ oral histories, correspondence, government and news reports, and more to tell the tale.

Warger discovered the competition through his 33-year career at Whatcom Museum’s visitor services. Bellingham’s mammoth international Ski to Sea race, established in 1973, stemmed from the Mount Baker Marathons, and the museum’s longtime education director gave slide programs about the original race. Some 20 years ago, Warger took over the task of preserving its history.

There wasn’t much to go off of, just two dozen photos, some newspaper articles, and a few interviews with relatives of the race’s organizers. Warger pieced together more details through his dedicated sleuthing.

“Twenty years later, working the research like a jigsaw puzzle, I found enough material to make a documentary and eventually a book,” he said. “I can only imagine that somewhere there exists a treasure trove of material in an attic.”

Warger is a 2013 Emmy Award nominee for the documentary film The Mountain Runners and 2008 recipient of the Washington State Historical Society’s David Douglas Award for the documentary film Shipyard. He is also the author of a series about true homicides in Washington state during the 19th and early 20th century: Murder in the Fourth Corner; More Murder in the Fourth Corner; and Murder & Mayhem in the Fourth Corner. The Bellingham resident is also co-author of Images of America: Mount Baker.