Summit For Someone

Raise Funds! Raise a minimum of $3500 or donate the amount directly. Your pledges go towards getting more youth involved in Big City Mountaineer's wilderness mentoring program.

Get Gear! Receive $2700 in mountaineering gear and apparel donated from our event sponsors. The gear package includes an ice axe, mountaineering boots, inner and outerwear technical apparel, backcountry stove, hybrid footwear, pack, sleeping bag and pad, tent, trekking poles, headlamp, sunglasses, climbing harness, and climbing helmet.

Go Climb! We chose the most reputable mountaineering guides to lead you on the most sought after climbs in North America; Mt. Rainier, Mt. Whitney, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Olympus, Mt. Hood, North Palisades Peak, Longs Peak, the Grand Teton, Mt. Moran, Gannett Peak, Mt. Washington and Mt. Shuksan. Be part of the awesome experience all the while changing lives of at risk youth nationwide! Additional venues coming soon in 2008!

Change Lives! Your fundraising will support the recreational mentoring program of of Big City Mountaineers. BCM, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is the country's leading volunteer organization devoted to providing significant mentoring during wilderness trips for urban teens. Click here to learn more about Big City Mountaineers.

Big City Mountaineers (BCM), a 501(c)(3) non-profit, provides urban teenage youth in need of positive adult mentoring with challenging, safe outdoor experiences designed to build self-esteem and positively impact their beliefs about themselves and others. Using the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets model, BCM’s program has been shown to improve our teens’ beliefs with regard to positive values, social competences, positive identity, and support.

Although BCM conducts its program in a wilderness setting similar to some other ‘recreational’ programs, our agency remains unique in its program curriculum and goals. Unlike other outdoor programs that focus on recreation or education, BCM’s program uses its innovative format for traditional youth development goals. The setting of our program, inspirational in and of itself, is compounded by the significant interaction with adult volunteers that results from our 5-to-5 ratio of adults to youth for each outdoor outing.

Our teen participants are drawn from pre-existing youth development organization in many urban centers throughout the country. These agencies recognize the benefit a program like BCM brings to their youth and have incorporated BCM programming into their offerings as a means of reinforcing each of their respective organization’s goals. BCM currently runs programming in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Colorado Springs, Madison, Chicago, Miami, Washington DC, New York City, and Boston.

Examples of agencies that incorporate BCM into their program offering include:

• Boys Girls Club Seattle
• City Year
• ROCK - San Francisco
• East Oakland Boxing Smartmoves
• East Oakland Youth Development Center
• Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch
• Girls Inc Alameda County
• Denver Kids
• College Track - East Palo Alto
• Rawhide Boys Ranch
• Christopher House
• CO Youth At Risk
• Colorado I Have A Dream
• Harlem RBI
• Sequoia Teen Resource Center
• YMCA Urban Services - East Bay
• Youth Organizations Umbrella

Backpacker's Magazine's Summit for Someone event series is a fundraising program to benefit the at-risk teen participants of Big City Mountaineers. Each participant of this fundraising program has committed to raise at least $3500 in tax-deductable donations for our organization.

The following is a list of the professional guide services sponsoring Summit For Someone. For more information regarding each guide company, click on the names below to visit their web sites.

All Summit For Somone benefit climbs are led by internationally recognized and proven guide services. Each guide service operates with the support and permitting of the United States Forest Service. Most importantly, all guide services used for the Summit For Someone benefit climb series are accredited members of the American Mountain Guides Association.