By Matt Gadow
Participants:
Tom Herron
Liz Coleman
Kara Mickelson
Ken Kruger
Julie Zeidman
Sheila Pyott
Matt Gadow
Rod Jacobson
First off, Sheila Pyott gets credit for making sure this one got put together!
Timberline Mountain Guides recently offered a 50% discount on their 2-day Advanced Snow and Glacier Rescue Class for Cascades Mountaineers members. 8 of our members took advantage of this opportunity to learn from the professionals about techniques for safer travel in the Alpine Environment. Timberline Mtn Guides Pete and Bob were incredible teachers, and good demonstrators of the best practices for roping up, belaying, building snow anchors, and rescuing a fallen climber from a crevasse.
The first day of the course gave us a chance to polish up on steep snow travel, crampon technique, boot-axe belays, snow anchors, running belays and friction knots for rescue and fixing ropes. The second day stepped up to a re-creation of a fallen climber (using a filled bag of snow as the climber, and the parking lot as a crevasse) and the steps necessary to arrest the fall, anchor the climber, and create a system to pull the climber out of the crevasse. Each of us had to take the rope, and belay and rescue the bag from the brink, using the weekend’s lessons in a great simulation of an actual rescue.
Needless to say, all of the skills acquired will be another useful addition to all of our upcoming alpine adventures and will be a great reason to get back together to continue practicing these skills.
Timberline Mountain Guides has offered to schedule more classes later this summer, including some summer Ice Climbing on Mt. Hood’s Elliot Glacier, as well as a repeat of this valuable Advanced Snow and Crevasse Rescue course. Please look for more information on the upcoming Outing events section for these classes!