Mines student-athletes, faculty, staff, and fans are invited to join Blue Key Honors Society and Mines senior Sam Fynes in an effort to save the M Climb tradition.

Blue Key needs your help on a project that impacts everyone on campus, as well as incoming classes. "Our beloved hillside M is in trouble. Every year incoming students bring a rock up to the M, and as Mines has grown so has this tradition. The last two M climbs have exceeded 1,000 students. However, every year less than 200 students remove rocks during the senior M climb. You see where this is going...More rocks = more weight = more strain on the physical structure of the M," said Fynes.  
 
For the past several summers helicopters have removed rocks from the M and placed them next to Highway 6, between 19th Street and Highway 58. This method is expensive and no longer adequate for the problem posed by the ever-increasing number of rocks being placed on the M. 
 
Fynes said a variety of solutions were proposed to combat this problem, most heartbreaking of which was a proposal that students no longer carry rocks up to the M during the M climb. "The thing about a 60+ year tradition is once you break it, you can never get it back. So in rejecting this idea, I made a promise: that I, Blue Key, and we as a school could find a way to remove rocks from the M in a manner that allows us to sustain the M climb tradition into the future," said Fynes. 
 
Blue Key and Fynes believe that's where you, the Mines student, and the fraternities, sororities, honor societies, sports teams, and clubs, that make up this school, come in. "We need people power. We need to form a human chain from the M to lookout mountain road to move thousands of rocks to dump trucks."

Save-the-date for Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 10:00am.  Blue Key will arrange transportation from Mines to the M in accordance with the number of volunteer responses.
 
Please click here to sign up to volunteer for this effort to keep the M Climb tradition around for another 60 years.
 
All are encouraged to share this information with all in the Mines community that you believe could help. Blue Key encourages leaders/members of campus organizations to make this a service event for your organization. 
 
If you have any questions, please contact Sam Fynes at sfynes@mymail.mines.edu.