Barbara I. Bond discovered her love of the outdoors at an early age. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, she camped, backpacked, and hiked in the Sierra Nevada and Santa Cruz mountains. Barbara continued to explore the outdoors on hiking trips in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Peru. She even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Domestically, she has hiked in California, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and has explored Oregon extensively.

Barbara served in the U.S. Navy and worked as a deputy sheriff before receiving a degree in biology and chemistry from San Jose State University. She attended graduate school at University of Texas Southwestern. Around that time, she joined Mazamas, a nonprofit mountaineering organization established in 1894, and used her love of the outdoors to expand her career as a freelance writer and photographer. It was when she discovered the beauty of the Pacific Northwest that she moved to Portland.

In addition to hiking, climbing, and backpacking, Barbara enjoys long-distance running, biking, skiing, and kayaking. She has taught rock climbing in the Catlin Gabel School Outdoor Program and volunteered with organizations such as the American Lung Association's Reach the Summit program.

Barbara is the author of 75 Scrambles in Oregon and has written for several publications including the Oregonian, Backpacker, Walk About, and Outdoors NW. Her photographs have been shown in the Portland area and have appeared in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and in the Best of Oregon Common Ground-ads for the Campaign for America's Wilderness.