Part 1 left on the morning of August 8. Jason Seago (Zebulon, NC), Josh Bobber (Milwaukee, WI), Lars Keffer (San Francisco), Eric Ferguson (Austin), Tim Sowecke (Huron, OH), David Silverman (Brooklyn, NY), Tom Gray (Boulder, CO), Ian Golten (Mattapoisett, MA), and Dale Apgar (New Haven, VT) met guides Dawn Glanc and Matt Anderson at AAI's Bellingham office. Before heading out, they went through an extensive gear check and divided the group equipment between climbers.

The first five days of the course were spent high on the southern glaciated slopes of Mt. Baker. There the group learned and practiced essential skills for climbing in a glaciated environment, including the different crampon techniques, self-arrest positions, roped team travel, navigation, snow camping, and crevasse rescue. Despite clear skies, high winds with gusts up to 40 mph prevented the group from reaching Mt. Baker's summit crater. Nonetheless, Dawn said that everyone came away from the glacier clinic as fully competent rope team members, all able to perform the necessary skills for safe glacier travel.

Next the group drove east of the mountains to the town of Mazama, where they spent a day going over rock skills at a local cragging area called Fun Rock. Dawn and Matt demonstrated knots, belaying, rappelling, anchor building, and basic climbing techniques, and everyone spent time perfecting their technique.

With these skills under their belt, the group then drove to Washington Pass for some larger scale, alpine rock climbing. With sunny skies beckoning, the climbers broke into three smaller groups with Dawn, Matt, and Stephen Karney, who met up with the group to help instruct this portion. Each group set out to climb one of three alpine rock objectives: South Early Winter Spire, Liberty Bell, or Concord Tower. At the end of the day, each of the groups had successfully summited and had safely returned to camp.

Monday brought a similar situation - and similarly perfect weather - with each of the three groups venturing to a different rock-climbing site. Dawn took her group up the South Arete of South Early Winter Spire, which they summited and "had a blast on", according to Dawn. Matt's group went to climb the northwest corner of North Early Winter Spire, and Stephen's group went back to Fun Rock for a day of more advanced rock skills.

On Tuesday Stephen departed and Matt and Dawn drove the group back over the mountains to the west side of the Cascades, where they spent the day in Marblemount resting and planning for their next objective, Eldorado Peak. Because the emphasis in this course is placed upon leadership and trip planning, the students themselves coordinated and prepared for the next day's climb (with Dawn and Matt's observation and approval). Students had to consider a number of details for this glaciated alpine climb, including the what route to take, how they would navigate over the broken Eldorado Glacier, approximate climbing and summit times, what individual and group gear was necessary or excessive, how much food and emergency food to take, and what conditions they might encounter.

Wednesday was spent on the approach to Eldorado. It was a steep, long climb on talus in the pouring rain. Luckily, the skies began to clear as the group reached their campsite at the base of the glacier, and they settled down to rest for an early rise and climb.

The next morning, the team woke and prepared for the climb, splitting up into separate rope teams. They began climbing and the students very skillfully lead Matt and Dawn over the Eldorado Glacier, up the knife-edge ridge, and to the summit. "They did a great job leading," Dawn said. "They all really loved the knife-edge ridge, it was definitely their highlight and made the somewhat heinous approach worth it."

That night the group returned to their base camp, slept soundly, and woke the next morning to hike back to the vans. They arrived back at the Institute by early afternoon. "It was an awesome time," student Dale Apgar said upon arriving. "I can't believe I just finished 12 days of climbing. It was action-packed and went by very fast."

Dale enjoyed a day of rest in town and used it mostly to prepare for another twelve days in the field. "I enjoyed Part 1 so much that I decided to enroll for Part 2. I had been considering it before I came out to Washington, but hadn't yet decided. But I learned so much on Part 1 and had such a good time that I decided that I wanted to continue learning, and so I signed up for the Part 2."

Dale was one of two students in the Part 2 departing on August 21. Loren Henry (Baker City, OR) was the second. Loren had taken the first twelve days of Part 1 back in June, and had a similar story to Dale's - he liked the Part 1 so much that he decided to sign up for another twelve days.

Dale and Loren met their guide, Jason Martin, on the morning of August 21. Once again, they discussed equipment and sorted the group gear amongst themselves before heading to the northern slopes of Mt. Baker.

"We spent the first two days doing an intensive ice clinic with emphasis on leading pitches," Jason said. "We practiced creating and placing ice anchors on seracs - including both ice screws and v-threads - and Loren and Dale made an ice bollard which they rappelled from. They were also both able to pull off an overhang, which is very impressive for beginning ice climbers."

The group then drove to Leavenworth , where they planned on spending the next four days developing leading skills on rock. "We spent the first couple days on anchors. I had them mini-pitching a few routes to practice building anchors over and over so they could really get it nailed. They'd climb a mini six-foot pitch, build an anchor, climb six more feet, build another anchor, and so on. We literally did the Mountaineer's Dome, a sixty-foot route, in ten pitches. They were glad to get so much practice."

Loren and Dale also worked on their leading skills, and eventually led Jason up the R & D route on the Icicle Buttress (5.5, traditional). "They led the entire four pitches swapping leads and did great." Jason said. "After that we touched briefly on rock rescue, and then climbed two more routes the next day, Saber and Midway, both 5.7."

The three then left Leavenworth and drove to Fun Rock, east of Washington Pass, where they worked more extensively on rock rescue. Jason said, "By the end of the day, both Dale and Loren were able to escape a belay, rappel down to a fallen climber, safely lower a climber to the ground, re-ascend the rope, and pass a knot. They both did very well and were excited to learn the specialized methods of technical rescue."

Leaving Fun Rock the next day, they drove back up to Washington Pass and climbed the north face of Kangaroo Temple (5.6). Once again, Dale and Loren lead the climb while Jason followed and gave advice if needed.

Next the group tried for something more demanding. "I had heard about a new route that was just put up outside of Mazama," Jason said. "It is an eleven-pitch 5.9 bolted route called Prime Rib that seemed like a perfect challenge for Loren and Dale. They did a great job leading all the pitches and were psyched to be on a harder route."

For their last objective of the course, the group decided to climb Black Peak (8,970'), a massive granite mountain located in the North Cascades. Jason said, "We hiked into the base of the peak on Wednesday, about a 3.5 mile hike, and made camp. It was a complete white-out, and we could barely make out the mountain above us through the fog. Periodically we'd get a glimpse of what we thought was our peak, but we couldn't be sure until finally, late in the evening, we saw what was clearly Black Peak and were able to plan our route up."

The group left camp the next morning at 7am. Luckily, the fog had cleared. "The first pitches were mid-fifth class and pretty loose," Jason said, "but eventually the climb turned into this super-exposed knife-edge ridge with thousand-foot drops on either side. Loren and Dale were psyched to be on such a dramatic 'real' alpine climb. The views were jaw-droping."

After 12 full pitches the three were on the summit enjoying the views and resting. Though the tentative plan was to hike all the way out that day, they returned to camp at 6pm and hit the tents early. The next morning they woke, packed, and hiked out to the vans, arriving back at AAI's Bellingham headquarters by 2:00 that afternoon.

Upon returning to the Institute, Dale said, "I'm very glad I decided to do Part 2. Jason was a phenomenal teacher, and learning to do all the things that we did was so amazing - vertical ice, exposed climbing on 8,500-foot ridgelines, and lead climbing 11 pitches was sweet. I can't wait to put all that I learned into practice."

Congratulations to both Dale and Loren for completing Parts 1 and 2 of AAI's Alpine Mountaineering and Technical Leadership course, and good luck to them in their future climbing ventures.