Molenaar was born in
Los Angeles, California, to Dutch immigrant parents, Marina (van Paasschen) and Peter Molenaar. During
World War II, he served as a photographer in the
U.S. Coast Guard in the
Aleutian Islands and western Pacific. In 1950, he earned a BSc degree in geology at the
University of Washington, and then served as civilian adviser at
Camp Hale and the
Mountain Warfare Training Center. Molenaar worked as a
park ranger and
mountain guide in
Mount Rainier National Park, climbing the mountain over 50 times as a guide and on personal trips, via more than a dozen different routes including three
first ascents. He participated in the 1946 second ascent of
Mount Saint Elias in
Alaska. He was a member of the
Third American Karakoram Expedition, a 1953 mountaineering expedition to
K2 in which the party became trapped during a severe storm. Along with "Big Jim"
Jim Whittaker and
Robert F. Kennedy, he was a member of the 1965 climb and first ascent of
Mount Kennedy in the Yukon, named after
John F. Kennedy. His career with the
United States Geological Survey took him to
Alaska,
Colorado,
Utah, and
Washington, until his retirement in 1983. On April 7, 2012, the
American Alpine Club inducted Molenaar into its Hall of Mountaineering Excellence at an award ceremony in
Golden, Colorado. He met his wife Colleen on Mount Rainier and they had three children together. ==Art==