Hi John,

This is definitely frustrating.

At the end of May we had a special section in our Leader Lines monthly e newsletter that specifically talked about this

"
Leader Logistics: Private vs “Public” Trips
We’re heading into summer trip season, and at this time of year our Member Services team gets a number of questions about pre-filled trips. Please remember – all Mountaineers activities should be open to any guest or member who meets the stated prerequisites. If you wish to hand-select a group of friends, this is a private trip. Please do not list private trips on The Mountaineers website! It creates confusion and disappointment for our members who are looking to get outside with their Mountaineers community.

The most important piece of this process is transparency. If you’d like to give registration priority to a certain group of individuals – for example, students who are in a certain class – please note that on the trip listing, and also note when the trip will become open to all members. If you require Leader’s Permission, please clearly state what information you’d like to receive from each participant."

But what also needs to happen is for our scrambling (and other chairs) to work with their leaders to not pre-register people. I also wouldn’t hesitate to mention to leaders as well where you see this happening. Many leaders are also asked by their chairs to lead trips for specific groups of students which often leads to pre-registering but those trips need to be clearly defined as such using the summary and leaders notes.

These are the scrambling chairs I’d reach out to.

Seattle scrambling (Bill and Brian) can be reached at scrambling.seattle@gmail.com

Tacoma Scrambling (Allan Maas) amaas@parametrix.com

Olympia Scrambling (Tom Eckhout)
teckhout@msn.com

Everett Scrambling (Andy T) atangsom@gmail.com

Foothills Scrambling (Richard Bell)
foothills.scrambling@gmail.com