Maryanne Reiter, 64, is an avid outdoorswoman. Although she enjoys almost every outdoor activity, her passion is mountaineering, or climbing mountains. She has summited every major peak in Oregon multiple times. For her birthday this year, she and her wife, Trina, climbed to the top of Mount Hood.

Reiter moved to Oregon from Minnesota in her 20s. “I knew I was home the first time I walked out onto the beach in Oregon,” she said. But it wasn’t until years later that she discovered more extreme ways to enjoy the outdoors. Today, Reiter is a respected mountaineer in the climbing community and climbs mountains in all seasons and almost all conditions. She also backcountry skis, bikes, runs, hikes and kayaks.

Growing up, the outdoors was her safe space. Her father died when she was three, leaving her mother single and alone in the early 1960s. Her mother had a temper, and Reiter would climb up garages and churches to avoid the aggression. After trying mountaineering, she said, she learned that summiting mountains “is a lot better than church roofs.”

Reiter’s main outdoor community comes from the Obsidians, a local recreational organization focused on education and community building. The Obsidians was formed in 1927 as a rescue and recreational organization but began focusing solely on recreation in 1968 as the rescue and recreation areas split. The recreation maintained the name, and the rescue side become Eugene Mountain Rescue. EMR is an organization of trained volunteers, which Reiter volunteered with for many years, until her retirement. She was even featured in 2018 as a local hero in the 63rd issue of the prominent climbing magazine the Alpinist.