Margo Earley (Margaret Dyckman Griffith), born June 24, 1931, in Syracuse, New York, grew up in Washington D.C., graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, and in 1951 married George Earley, her husband of 69 years. Settling in Bloomfield, Connecticut, Margo and George raised four children, David, Steve, Kate and Christine, and for the following 3 decades Margo organized family summer camping and backpacking trips, initially in the Appalachian and Adirondack mountains, and then throughout the Rockies, Sierra Nevadas, and northwest Cascades as well as into Canada, Alaska, the European Alps and New Zealand.
In 1989, Margo and George moved to Oregon, pursuing a love of the wilderness and a passionate advocacy for the environment, while living on the lower slopes of Mount Hood. Already a long time member, it was during the 1990s and into the 2000s that Margo served as trip leader for more than 15 years, as well as finance officer and trail maintenance crew member for the Sierra Club. It was also during this time and for the next 3 decades that she and George hosted family gatherings, countless friends, the Lincoln High School Constitution Class’ annual winter retreats, community meetings, and First Aid and CPR training courses, while also raising a number of beloved malamutes.
For more than 40 years, Margo hiked and backpacked up and down the west coast, summiting Mount Rainer (once) and Mt. Hood (three times), and hiking more than 800 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, including all of the John Muir Trail. She could recite elevations of mountains she had climbed decades earlier, and developed an encyclopedic knowledge of almost every trail she ever hiked, knowledge that she provided generously, throughout her lifetime, to family and friends as well as hikers and backpackers-just-met.
In addition, Margo served for many years on the Hood River Valley Residents Association (now THRIVE) board and The Wilderness Society’s President’s Council. Maintaining certification in either Wilderness First Aid or Mountaineering First Aid for close to 20 years, she also served as First Aid Shephard for Oregon Wild and The Wilderness Society and, more recently, for the Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
But it was a Sierra Club trip to the Everest region in 1999 that inspired Margo to leave one of her most lasting legacies, initiating and funding, for more than 20 years, health care at a Nepalese village 50 miles south of Mount Everest, eventually assisting the community to establish an ongoing medical clinic. Ensuring this year’s donation was sent to her former Nepalese trip leader was literally one of her final acts, before dying peacefully at home on February 5, 2021 with family by her side and in view of Mount Hood as she wished.