Marianne Sinclair Kearney

MARIANNA SINCLAIR KEARNEY

October 3, 1923–July 8, 2021

Marianna Sinclair on the summit of Mt. Hood, 1945 Image: Mazama Library & Historical Collections

by Rick Craycraft

Whether for riding a bike on the summit of Mt. Hood, or running for her life from the fury of Mount St. Helens eruption, or for her professional-level artistic contributions to the Mazamas, Marianna Sinclair Kearney was one of the most visible Mazama members in the last half of the twentieth century.

Marianne was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan in a family that traveled a bit but limited their outdoor activities to sledding and skating. Marianna attended high school in downtown Detroit, then art school, preparing herself for a career as an illustrator and graphic designer. She worked in various industries to support the war effort, and for a time was under the tutelage of Max Fleischer, the creator of Betty Boop.

Then, suddenly, in 1944, her family decided to pull up stakes in Michigan and move to Oregon. They made an adventure of this move, visiting western wonders like Yellowstone, the Badlands,

and Crater Lake. When they arrived in Portland they only knew two families. While visiting one of these families, Marianna let it be known that she wanted to join a hiking club. They directed her to the Mazamas. Long before the internet, Marianna went to the Portland Public Library and found a Mazama Bulletin, which led her to the Mazama clubrooms, at that time located downtown in the Pacific Building on Yamhill Street. Once there, she ran immediately into Don Onthank. He advised her to hike with the Mazamas over the winter, then climb Mt. Hood the following June. Marianna did as he suggested and went up Hood her first time with 59 other people.

That was all it took for her. By the end of 1945 she had earned her Guardian Peaks award and had written a playful article for that year's Mazama Annual about a bike trip with a friend entitled, “We Push High.”

The next year, on a climb of Mt. Jefferson with a friend, she ran into Ty Kearney, whom she had heard of, and approached him for a ride back to Portland. Thus began a lifetime ride for them both. Part of that journey took place in August of 1947 when Marianna and Ty, along with seven friends, disassembled a bicycle and packed it up Hood, then took turns riding it along the summit ridge. That accomplishment landed them in Ripley's Believe It or Not and has been Mazama lore ever since (and is described in the 2002 Mazama Annual). That same year, Marianna produced the poster for the Mazama Lodge that became a symbol for decades to come.

Marianna and Ty were married in 1948, but only after backpacking 100 miles on the Skyline Trail, arriving at Mt. Hood just in time to participate in that year's Round the Mountain hike. Later they had a reception of sorts on the Hardesty Trail in Forest Park and planted two trees side by side. From there the couple launched into a plethora of activities for the next five decades. They led hikes, backpacks, and Outings that included the nascent sport of ski mountaineering, hiking and climbing in England and Wales, a conservation outing in the Blue Mountains, and a whirlwind tour of Hawaii. In 1970, they and Bob Peirce were the first people to reach two Mazama climbers, who had been stranded on Mt. Hood for five days. In 1971 they pioneered a new route on Mount St. Helens called Moonbase. (Documentation of all these adventures can be found in older Mazama Annuals.)

In 1980, hoping maybe to slow it down a bit, they volunteered to monitor conditions on Mount St. Helens through the Washington Department of Emergency Services (but only after returning from a tour of New Zealand). On the morning of May 18, Marianna and Ty felt a jolt beneath their feet and soon realized the mountain was blowing up. Thus began a harrowing escape, chronicled in the 1980 Annual, with the beautifully understated title “One Sunday in May.”

In her long and interesting time in the mountains, Marianna had always wanted to visit the Himalayas. In 1991, with her son Alan, a climber of some renown in his own right, she trekked around Nepal. Even at 67, she still had the pluck to make it to 13,000 feet.

Ty Kearney died in 2001, and Marianna settled into being a Mazama “elder.” The next year, she was awarded the Redman Cup in recognition of her skills as an artist. Here are the sentiments expressed so beautifully on that occasion.

Marianna painted colorful posters to promote participation in local walks and Mazama Lodge events. In the late 1950s, she illustrated a cookbook to raise funds for a new clubroom. Her whimsical sketches and caricatures enhanced several articles in the Mazama Annual. Her scrapbook of the [Hardesty Trail Project], created when Forest Park was developed, is a historically significant record that inspired Jane Miller to create scrapbooks during the more recent restoration of the trails. Perhaps her most unique, precious, and personal work of art donated to the Mazamas is her illustrated diary of her first mountain climb, in 1945.

Marianna had one more appearance in the public eye. In February of 2007, as the Mazamas prepared to move into their current home, she joined the march from the old clubrooms in northwest Portland and, as our longest tenured member present, symbolically passed along an ice axe to our youngest member present, an eight year old, to assure we will continue to “Climb High.”

This page: Top left, Marianna Sinclair and Ty Kearney on the summit of Mt. Hood, 1947. Middle: Marianna’s illustration of the Mazama Log Lodge. Bottom right: Page from Marianna’s Mt. Hood journal. All images from the Mazama Library & Historical Collections