A drizzly Monday morning greeted me as I stepped out the door of my apartment and began the ten-minute walk to work at the headquarters of the American Alpine Institute. This Monday morning was different than others. Instead of my normal streetwear, I was outfitted in schoeller and Gore-tex and was burdened with a heavy mountaineering backpack bulging with a week's worth of climbing gear. My appearance drew a few inquisitive looks from pedestrians and bikers, but soon enough I had arrived at AAI and felt relieved to be among other Gore-tex-toting climbers.

When the two other climbers scheduled for the course arrived, we greeted each other with blurry-eyes before turning to explode our packs under the careful eye of our guide and instructor, Dylan Taylor. I was excited to see that both climbers appeared fit and well-prepared. Yoshiko Miyazaki (Santa Monica, CA) was a 23 year-old Japanese woman with an unmistakable British accent and a backpack almost as big as she was. Her accent threw us all off until we learned that she had attended boarding school and university in Britain. Matthew Jenkins was a wiry, 22 year-old percussions student from Oberlin College (Ohio). I knew that the combination of our small group and our guide, Dylan, now in his sixth year of guiding for AAI, would make for a fun and highly instructional trip.

Typically, Part 1 of the Alpine Mountaineering and Technical Leadership course travels to Mt. Baker for the first five days of the course to practice glacier skills. However, being as late in the season as it was, Dylan was worried that there wouldn't be enough snow on Baker to practice snow skills like self-arrest, so we instead drove to Mt. Shuksan (9127'). The sky was gray when we parked the van at the trailhead (at 3,000') and began our four-mile hike to the base of the Sulphide Glacier. Though it had stopped drizzling it was still a drenching climb, gaining 3,000 vertical feet over a relatively short period of time. We kept our Gore-tex on for the first hour or so to avoid getting soaked by the water-laden alder branches and other bushes that crowded the trail. Staying dry, however, soon proved futile as we founded ourselves sweating like crazy with the climbing effort. Even Yoshiko was sweating, much to her own surprise. She commented, "I never sweat. I must be working hard!" This was an understatement; I would have put money on a bet that her pack was at least two-thirds of her total body weight.

When the trail petered out above tree line, we grew somewhat baffled by thick fog and very low visibility. It took us an hour or so of consulting Dylan's GPS before we reached the established campsite at the edge of the glacier. Ah, home! We gladly unpacked and set up camp, appreciating elusive glimpses of the icefalls and summit pyramid that appeared in pockets between churning clouds.

I was grateful the next morning when no early alarms broke the quietude of waking up in the mountains. One by one we rustled out of our tents, boiled water for tea and cereal, and made use of the composting toilet a hundred yards down the slope. Around 9am, we strapped on our crampons and headed out to the glacier. Once on the ice, Dylan showed us the specifics of French technique - I had no idea there were so many different ways to walk on a glacier!

After an hour or so of tromping up and down the ice, we ascended higher on the glacier in search of any remaining snow that somehow survived this late in the season. We found a patch surprisingly easily, then learned how to build several different kinds of snow anchors, including placing pickets and flukes and building bollards and "dead-men" (using anything from a buried ice axe, to a rock, to a stuff sack filled with snow!). We then practiced the three forms of self-arrest: feet first, headfirst on stomach, and headfirst on back. It was fun to continually slide down the "ramp" we had made, each time getting slicker and slicker, and though I had practiced self-arrest before it was nice to get a chance to refine my skill. It was a good thing we saved this one for last because it was certainly a wet endeavor - even Gore-tex couldn't completely protect us from getting snow down our pants or in our faces! Damp but happy, we packed up and headed back to camp where we enjoyed ditching our wet clothes and fixing a hot meal.

The next day was scheduled for ice skills. With ice screws, v-threader, and axes in hand, Dylan led us across a moat and onto a steeper part of the glacier where seracs and fins towered above us. This was intimidating for me, and I found myself asking more than once, "So, Dylan, we're safe here, right? I mean, these towering blocks of ice that are melting around us aren't going to just break off and take us out, right?" He reassured me that yes, we were very safe, and weren't going to get squashed. Still, my heart lept each time I heard a moan, creak, or thump in the distance.

As the day progressed and the sun beat down upon the glacier, the top three or four inches of ice turned to slush and little trickles of melt water. Dylan said it was good practice to have to climb in such conditions. Throughout the day, we practiced skills for steep glacier travel, including additional crampon and ice axe techniques, front-pointing, ice-screw placement, and building v-threads. Instead of taking the same path back over the moat to get to camp, we opted to climb up and over the steep glacier above us. Dylan led us three short pitches over seracs, up and down nearly vertical fins, across crevasses, past moulins, and finally to lower-angle ice where we could unrope and walk back to our camp. It was a fun and highly instructional day, though I must admit I was glad to leave the melt-fest behind.

Thursday was summit day. We woke at 5:30am to a perfectly clear sky, ate, dressed, and packed our backpacks. An hour later, we were ready to climb and we walked across the non-crevassed lower glacier unroped until it steepened and became heavily crevassed. The dawn made our headlamps unnecessary as we laid out the rope and tied in at fairly short intervals between each other. Dylan said that traveling closer together, without tons of slack in the rope between each climber, would allow us to move much faster. After double and triple checks of harnesses, prussiks, and locking carabiners we were ready to and began climbing.

It was a short two hours and thirty minutes of steady climbing before we reached the base of the summit pyramid. We were lucky not to have to do too much weaving in and out of crevasses. Along the way we had spectacular views of Mt. Baker, her bare glaciers lying like gargantuan dusty gems in between spiny ridges. It was a gorgeous day and the sun was brilliant on the snow - almost cruelly so. At the summit pyramid we crossed over from steep snow to loose talus and ditched our ice axes, pickets, and crampons.

To reach the summit, we had about 500 feet of 3rd, 4th, and some 5th class rock climbing to do. Dylan suggested we climb on the ridge instead of up the main gully as it was "much more interesting." (Upon probing I learned that this meant more exposure, harder and more fun climbing, and waay less loose rock.) It was pretty challenging to execute some of the rock moves in our clunky plastic boots and rather large packs, but we managed and reached the summit around noon. It was sweet to stand on top of a mountain I'd been looking at since I was a kid (I grew up in Bellingham). The summit had a pretty wide place for us all to move around on, take pictures, and have a snack. Dylan pointed out the Fischer Chimneys, the next most common climbing route on Shuksan after the Sulphide Glacier which we had just ascended. I peered over the northern edge of the summit platform and was surprised to see the entire north side of the mountain covered in several inches of rime ice. It looked like white, fluffy cotton candy.

Clouds were building in the sky, and we soon decided it was time to head down. This time we used the gully. After a couple hours of down-climbing and dodging flying rock (thank you helmets!) we were back on the glacier. It was an easy descent to camp, and we returned around 5:30pm.

We spent all of Friday morning practicing crevasse rescue. Matt, Yoshiko, and I were each lowered into an enormous gaping crevasse and then "rescued". It was totally beautiful in the crevasse - still, bright, and pristine. I took lots of pictures and ate a chocolate bar while hanging from my harness in midair. I was almost sad when I was rescued and hauled up. I could have stayed a lot longer down there; it was fun to hang out in a place usually so forbidden to humans.

Around noon we headed back to camp to eat lunch and pack our gear. An hour later we were on our way back down to the trailhead and the van, where the luxury of clean cotton clothes awaited us. That evening, we ate pizza in town and enjoyed short but hot showers. We then drove to Washington Pass where we found a campsite and promptly crashed in our tents.

Next on the schedule was rock climbing. First, we spent a day at Fun Rock, a roadside crag located right outside of Mazama. It was so nice to wear a t-shirt in the sun, and we all lapped up the reliably clear and windless eastern Washington weather. Dylan spent a few hours teaching us how to build all sorts of rock anchors, and then he showed us the basics of placing cams and nuts and let us experiment with the variety of pro on our team's rack while he put up a couple top ropes for us so we could do some climbing.

The rest of the day was super laid back and fun - we took turns belaying each other and climbing. I climbed my first 5.10, which was definitely exciting. Both Yoshiko and Matt had a lot more experience on rock than most people do who join this course. Matt and I enjoyed watching Yoshiko as she gracefully led a long 5.10c pitch on the Sun Slabs. Matt done quite a bit of top roping in Michigan, so he enjoyed a few harder 5.10 crack climbs. He was especially psyched about learning to lead (he had done tons of top roping), and so Dylan showed him how to clip in quick draws and then switch the top anchor into a rappel to get down. I was definitely the least experienced rock climber, and was content to just climb and learn through experiencing what the most effective ways to use my body on the rock were. That night we camped at a car-campground just minutes from the pass, where we planned to climb the next day.

On Sunday we drove to Washington Pass and began hiking towards the Liberty Bell via the Blue Lake Trail. Again we were blessed with perfect weather. We eventually broke off the main trail and started up a steep climbers' trail towards the beginning of the Becky Route. The last quarter mile was up a super narrow and steep gully, and all of us occasionally slipped and had to flail about to regain our footing on the loose 3rd class terrain. We reached the beginning of the route and donned on our helmets, harnesses, and rock shoes. Even though it was sunny we were in the shade and I had to wear my down coat for the first pitch to ensure that I wouldn't shiver myself off the rock. We met two other climbers on the route and one of them remarked, "You know it's autumn when you're freezing one minute and roasting the next!" He was right, and once we were in the sun I was plenty warm.

The route called for three pitches of 5.6, and Dylan led. The pitches went by pretty quick despite the fact that we had two ropes to deal with. The last portion was a combination of scrambling and a couple 5.6 and 5.7 boulder problems, and instead of placing protection we moved together as a group on one rope and belayed each other off the horns and flakes in the rock. This system was a cool method to use and learn, and was much faster that actually setting up an anchor system and belaying each individual climber up separately. We reached the summit around noon and gawked at the views. Concord Tower, Lexington, and South and North Early Winter Spires were adjacent to the Liberty Bell, and it was awesome to look across to each successive summit and see other climbers standing on a few of them.

Soon enough, it was time to head down again. A short section of down-climbing led us to our rappel, and each of us took turns rapping down the double rope and landing safely in the gully where we began. I was psyched to have done the climb, especially in such perfect conditions.

Sadly, that night my ride arrived at the pass and I had to bid Dylan, Matt, and Yoshiko farewell. It was a fun time with a great group, and I received a multitude of take-home skills I know I'll use in the future!

Dylan, Matt, and Yoshiko returned on Friday, September 30, after spending the last four days of their course on Mt. Baker's north side. The group hiked in on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday Yoshiko and Matt led Dylan up the Coleman-Demming route to the summit as a way of practicing and demonstrating their newly acquired glacier leadership skills. After returning from the summit, the three spent Thursday waiting out a storm in their tents, and then on Friday they utilized the day to practice two-tool ice climbing technique on vertical seracs. They hiked out Friday afternoon and returned to the Institute around 4:30pm.