Alongside the more famous Sierra Club, Mazamas and Appalachian Mountain Club, the Iowa Mountaineers pioneered wilderness education standards and took thousands of Midwesterners to explore mountainous regions in a safe way with enjoyable companions. 

Yet unlike their more renowned counterparts, the club was unable to continue operations into the next century and their meticulous records of 16mm films, Kodachrome slides and hand-drawn maps were nearly lost to fire.  The club was an early advocate for environmental activism, gender equality and changing perceptions about people with disabilities. Club members would go on to found Climbing Magazine, start the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and participate in the first successful American expedition on Mount Everest.

But it was their distinctly inclusive approach, perhaps somehow born from their midwestern origins, for which they should be remembered, an outdoor philosophy whose cultural value may be more apt today than ever.

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