• The other 8 participants are MITOC leaders, there is just one place left on this trip-

Overnight Sat 3/11 + Sun 3/12

This is a compact advanced course about crevasses and bivouacing in preparation for all fashions of mountaineering on glaciers: hiking up glacier mountains, backcountry skiing on glaciers and getting to alpine big walls on a glacier.

Caroline and I will go over the basics rather quickly and spend time with risk minimizing strategies in special situations. What if the conditions are bad and dangerous but you have to go (to get the hell down of that mountain)? In such cases you may be able to take advantage of some additional equipment you have for your climbing or skiing. Or you end up digging a bivvy…

We will train: rescue and self-rescue from crevasses, clever route finding to minimize risk in a creviced section, have to self-rescue but an important piece of equipment is lost in the crevasse? how to manage the transition from the glacier approach to a rock or ice climbing through the mountain cleft, building anchors in the snow, discuss decisions about when to use a rope (e.g. with ski), particular challenges in ski alpinism on glaciers, skiing roped (if you don’t hate each other after that you will be friends forever :-) ).

The course will be in the area of Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington. We will dig a bivvy hole somewhere around Hermit Lake and sleep there. I will hold a lecture about all these things the week before which will also work as pre trip meeting.

:-) If you are not a good skier don’t feel embarrassed, the others aren’t either! If you can’t ski at all you are also welcome, just communicate it to us in advance, there might be a non skiing group :-)

This is a training for real big mountains on little Mount Washington. Washington is not so harmless though! Typical skill set for participating this advanced trip include: very good physical shape (winter hike onto Mt Washington with extra big backpack should not be a particular challenge for you), being familiar to climbing and/or ice climbing, being used to camp outside, above tree-line trips should be absolutely routine for you. Pre-trip meeting and lecture will be held on 3/09 Thursday.