I applied for the WAC climbing course this spring, but unfortunately wasn’t accepted (they implied that it was because I had too much rock climbing experience and wouldn’t benefit from that portion of the course as much as others would). LUCKILY, I have some real awesome friends who are part of an informal climbing group that is planning on attempting Baker and Rainier. They pulled some strings with the leaders/organizers of the group and I was allowed to join them in their training, which involves reviewing knots, roped glacier travel, ascending and crevasse rescue – basically the portions of the WAC course that I was hoping to get the most out of!
Needless to say, I was stoked! We had some meetings in a member’s garage where we practiced techniques in domum (yeah, I used google translate for that one), and made sure everyone was on the same page fitness-wise, gear-wise, and psyche-wise. Then it came time to take our skills outside! I could complain about how the weather window for our in foris training was less than ideal, but if there’s gonna be bad weather, might as well be training rather than attempting a complicated real life objective, right?
Nevertheless, that line of thinking didn’t necessarily keep us any drier or cozier when we spent the whole snow day in the rain. We divided up into two rope teams of three each and headed up to Source Lake in the Alpental area at Snoqualmie Pass. We set up our tents and found some steep slopes to practice self arrest on, moved through somewhat complex terrain while roped up and placing pickets as protection. Then we found a facsimile of a crevasse to practice rescue in, digging deadman anchors and building pulley systems. All while getting more and more soaked! Luckily we had warm clothes so it was bearable, and we could even take some time to smile 🙂
We finished all our skills/tasks early (just under 13 hours!) which allowed us to make the call to NOT camp in the rain, and instead we headed to North Bend to grab a beer and burger. Special thanks goes to Vlad for taking a day to teach us his mountain ways! Looking forward to getting my buddy-dentist Luke up on the Tooth later this season as well!
patricknygren.wordpress.com 
2 thoughts on “Climbing team training at Alpental – 5/14/16”