Having decided beforehand to take their course to Eldorado Basin and climb El Dorado Peak, the group met their guide at AAI's Bellingham office on Sunday morning, sorted gear, and drove to the Eldorado Creek trailhead. They used the day to hike up to the base of the Eldorado Glacier and build camp for the night.

The next day, Seth reviewed glacier travel skills, and the group ascended the glacier to 7,800 feet, where they made another camp at the base of Eldorado's East Ridge. After building their camp, the climbers spent the rest of the day practicing glissading and various self-arrest positions.

The third day was dedicated to skills. Seth reviewed snow anchors and snow climbing techniques, and spent several hours with the climbers on crevasse rescue. Each climber took a turn jumping into an enormous crevasse while their teammates "rescued" them by building snow anchors and setting up a z-pulley system to pull out the "fallen" climber. The group also spent some time learning basic ice climbing techniques and practiced front-pointing up the steep ice walls from inside the crevasse.

Wednesday was summit day, and the team left camp at 6am to begin the climb up Eldorado's East Ridge (or shoulder). They crossed snow and talus, then climbed to the final snow slope at 8,400 feet, a very narrow and exposed arete. After ascending this final snow ridge, they reached the summit rocks at 8:30am, feeling triumphant.

On the descent the team enjoyed some exciting snow-face rappels, and arrived safely back in camp later that morning. The remainder of the day was spent discussing various aspects of the alpine environment, including snow and mountain ecology, and map and compass navigational skills.

On their last climbing day, the group decided to mix it up and climb an alpine rock route. With the students leading and Seth following, the team traversed the upper portion of the Inspiration Glacier to the base of Klawatti Peak. From there, Seth took over and lead the southwest ridge, a loose 5.4 route, which eventually mellowed out into lower fifth class and fourth class terrain. The group scrambled easily to the summit, then descended the route and traversed back to camp.

Until then, the weather had been perfect and the skies constantly clear. As the group returned to camp, however, they saw that a thunderstorm was on the near horizon. Just in time, they prepared their camp for the storm and spent the rest of the day in their tents waiting out the storm.

On the final day, the group woke early and packed up their gear for the hike out. After five hours, they were back at the trailhead and ready to drive home to showers and a hot meal.

Seth said, "It was a great trip. Everyone was stoked - they all got what they came for, and learned essential skills that will be useful to them on their own climbs in the future. Plus, we climbed two peaks."