Writing and Researching Four Women and a Mountain Legends and Legacies of the Sierra

The Research That Became a Life of Its Own

To do justice to Sandy Poulsen, Jeanne Reuter, Sherry McConkey, and my mother, Neata Arnbrister, I needed more than memories. I needed history. Context. Witnesses. So my bibliography grew into a map of the Sierra’s cultural DNA:

• Early Olympic Valley histories and family archives

• Books on ski mountaineering, avalanche science, and Western women pioneers

• Oral histories from the families themselves

• Regional newspapers, museum collections, and mountain-sports journalism

• Classic Sierra authors—from Robert L. Frohlich to Tim Hauserman—whose works helped me understand how individual stories thread into the larger tapestry of this region

Every book I read expanded the frame around these four women. Every interview deepened the emotional stakes. Every archived detail pulled me further into a world I felt responsible for documenting with care, accuracy, and heart.

2½ Years of Digging, Listening, Feeling

I thought researching a book would look like note-taking and cross-checking dates.

Instead, it felt like excavation.

To write about these women—especially my own mother—I had to dig into places I wasn’t always prepared to go. I relived avalanches and triumphs, births and losses, risks taken in love and on the mountain. I listened to family stories whispered through tears. I traced the fingerprints of resilience across generations.

Some days the emotions came in like a storm front.

Some days the writing felt like prayer.

And some days, especially when writing about my mother, I had to step away, breathe, and gather the strength to continue.

But I always came back. Because their stories deserved that.

The Moment It Was Finally Complete

When the manuscript finally reached its last page—2½ years after I began—I didn’t feel done. I felt transformed. The women in this book had become more than subjects of research; they had become companions. Their grit had steadied me. Their wounds had humbled me. Their visions had reminded me that legacy is built not in headlines, but in the day-to-day courage to keep going.

Finishing the book felt like the mountain itself exhaling.

Like I had finally placed their stories into the world where they belonged.

Why This Book Exists

Four Women and a Mountain is not simply the product of research.

It is the product of devotion.

Devotion to a place.

To the people who shaped it.

To the women whose names deserve to be spoken alongside the legends of the Sierra.

And to the truth that history is not complete until every voice is heard.