Fay Fuller is famous for being the first woman to climb Mount Rainier, but the role she played in the history of Mount Rainier National Park goes well beyond that.

Fuller was Tacoma's first female journalist, and she was the first Northwest reporter to write extensively about mountain climbing and Mount Rainier.

Her "Mount Tahoma" stories and "Mountain Murmurs" columns, written for her father's newspaper, Every Sunday, in 1892 and '93, served as a unifying force for early mountaineers and others concerned about protecting the mountain from overuse and development.

In 1894, she helped found the Mazamas, an outdoors group that was influential in the establishment of the park and later in moving National Park Service policy away from development and toward conservation. Fay Peak, near Mowich Lake, was named in her honor.

Fuller made her first ascent of the mountain in a climbing party of four men. She was single and 20 - a Yelm schoolteacher - and for her to be alone with four men was considered scandalous by Tacoma society, as was her climbing costume.

In newspaper accounts of her 1890 climb, Fuller's clothing drew almost as much attention as her successful ascent. Her family dressmaker had outfitted her for the trip in ankle-length wool bloomers, a jumper blouse and a long, full-skirted coat. Goggles and a straw hat topped it off. For an alpenstock, she carried a shovel handle with a spike on the end.

No boots or heavy shoes were available for women at the time, so she wore boys shoes.

Fuller's appearance was made more striking by her choice of sun screens. She received conflicting advice on what provided the best protection, so she experimented with two concoctions at once: coal dust on one side of her face and a paste made of cream and flour on the other.

Neither worked, she said.

Years later, Fuller said her reputation in some Tacoma circles suffered permanent damage because of the climb.

"I was very nearly ostracized in Tacoma because of that trip - a lone woman and four men climbing a mountain, and in that immodest costume."

Fuller gained national attention for her ascent of Rainier - she reached the summit again in 1897 - but she was unusual in other respects. She was an early feminist and worked briefly collecting taxes from ships calling at the Port of Tacoma, an unprecedented job for women at the time.

Fuller also helped found the Tacoma Women's Guard, an all-female drill team in which she marched and did rifle calisthenics. She was active in the women's suffrage movement.

She left Tacoma for Illinois in 1900 to cover the Chicago World's Fair for her father's paper and for the Tacoma Ledger. She later worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and New York before giving up her career to marry Fritz von Briesen, an attorney. They had a son and a daughter.

She died a widow in 1958 in Santa Monica, Calif.

Fuller paid her last visit to Tacoma and Mount Rainier in 1950, 60 years after making her first ascent.

Asked by a reporter if she intended to do any climbing during her visit, Fuller said no.

"I've been 60 years living down that first trip to the summit," she said. (Published 1999)