Jim Parker

Jim is from galaxy IC-10 which, from the people of earth's perspective, was discovered by Lewis Swift in 1887, and had been shown to be approaching the milky way at 350 kms/s. Jim is a renowned explorer from his planet who has discovered many other systems of the universe. While not officially recognized, he is actually the only being in the universe that knows definitively that there is other life bearing planets, besides me, now, of course, and i guess you now too.

Jim crash-landed on earth about 15 years ago because his spaceship broke down and ended up somewhere on the east coast of North America. Though this was not his initial destination, earth was a convenient landing site, as it is the only planet within billions of light years to sustain life and provide Jim with any chance of one day returning to his own galaxy.

He currently poses as a very good 6th grade teacher and administrator for a small middle school in Boulder Colorado. Jim has partnered with a beautiful (earthling) wife named Brenda. Together they are parent to two amazing girls, Yvie and Kate.

Jim took up traveling around the country and climbing steep faces and high mountains as a result of his lack of knowledge about earth’s gravity. Despite years of climbing and mountaineering, Jim still believes that if he gets far enough away from earth’s surface, he will hit the atmosphere and rise up into space where he can be seen by the mothership. Although, recently he remarked to me that he was considering just staying.

As an extraterrestrial, Jim's physiology is slightly more advance than most earthlings. As a result, Jim has the ability to hike what earthlings would consider hundreds of miles without rest. Here he's featured in Duct Tape Then Beers' production of Paul's Boots.

Toby Nitzsche

I grew up in Rochester, New York; a place where there were many things to do except perhaps hiking/climbing. 

The summer after freshman year, I road-tripped to Boulder CO where I got my first real taste of climbing the Rockies; I spent the summer climbing, hiking, bouldering and backpacking Pawnee Pass with Ben and his then girlfriend,  Lauren. The following years in college, I took up a Wilderness Studies curriculum leading rock & ice climbing, hiking, and winter camping trips.

My first glimpse of Mt. Rainier came as a 16-year-old in the midst of an earlier cross-country road trip. It was, in part, the incredible landscape that would eventually compel me to move to Washington in 2016 Where i now reside with my wife and daughter in nearby Tacoma WA.

It is often said and forgotten, that we only get this one life. For me, Mt Rainier was a calling that needed to be answered.

Ben Wilson

I was born and grew up in Rochester, New York. Since I can remember I've had a love for the outdoors; I was very much the kind of kid, even in my teens who spent more time barefoot in the summer than shoed. I was a Boyscout, briefly, but they only barely overlapped with my outdoor agenda. 

After high school, in 1999 i moved to Colorado to go to UC Boulder. I graduated from CU with an English Lit degree and then proceded to work for a tech/website company for 10 yrs. 

I spent a year establishing residency and in that year trained as a prospective candidate with the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, of which i have been a formal member now for 17 years. Only recently though have i begun to challenge myself with some more specific outdoor goals, specific peaks, distances, traverses and trips. 

I have an amazing and beautiful wife and son in Boulder, CO now and am back in school for a Masters in Education degree.