Intro to Intermediate
What is Intermediate?
Before Intermediate, there's the Mountaineers Basic Alpine Climbing course, which generally fits within a single year and essentially teaches someone how to not be a liability in the alpine, giving them the minimum skills to safely come along on someone else's mountaineering trip. The Intermediate Alpine Climbing course completes you as a self-sufficient climber. It teaches you how to lead, in every possible meaning of the word. You'll learn how to place trad gear, lead on rock, build anchors that your and other's lives will depend on, organize and implement a rescue on technical terrain (assuming a climbing team of 4 or more,) to assess danger and make educated decisions about avalanche terrain, to teach and to be a leader to others, and even climb technical ice in the alpine if you choose too. For a climbing team to succeed on a challenging alpine objective, every member of the team needs to act as a leader, willing to take on the mantle of making decisions in the service of the group when necessary, yet also exercise good "followership." (Meaning to intelligently support the decisions of someone else for the sake of expediency and team cohesiveness, as long as those decisions are reasonable and safe.) Intermediate gives you the skills to be a leader, whether you officially carry that title or not.
Format of the course
It's essentially a giant checklist of things to complete. Once you complete everything on the checklist, you graduate! At first you're given five years to complete everything, and you can work your way through the checklist as fast or as slow as you're comfortable with. If you're insane and make Intermediate your highest life priority, it's possible (but not recommended) to complete the course in a single year. Or, if you need more than five years, extensions are possible. In my opinion, the sweet-spot to aim for is three years. I highly recommend completing enough lectures and fieldtrips in your first year to get through the "Rock 2" field trip, as it is the gate you must pass through before you can really act as an Intermediate student on climbs (including being a rope lead on most Basic climbs.) However, be aware of the dangers of leading on rock, and feel free to hit pause and wait for the next year's field trips if you don't feel you're ready for lead climbing, it's far better to wait than to get injured. For the list of lectures, field trips, and climbs required to graduate, check out the Intermediate Course Handbook, downloadable under the "Course Materials" tab here.
Mentor Groups
Intermediate Mentor Groups are sort-of the equivalent of Basic SIGs, but they tend to be less active and more hands-off. I'd encourage you to self-study and discover a lot of the knowledge and skills on your own. I'm not necessarily trying to guide you through everything in the Intermediate course, but as the course goes on, I'll set up some mentor-group-specific events, and I encourage you to take advantage of them. All of those events would be optional, though if you pass up a practice session I offer, it's completely on you to be ready for the field trip it would have prepared for. Of course, if you have questions, or would like to request additional practice, let me know and I'll be more than happy to help!
Gear
Here's my advice on gear for the Intermediate course: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4al5e9xmt5hlx62/Rob%27s_Mountaineers_Intermediate_Gear.rtf?dl=0
Beginning of the Course
First, there'll be an Intro Lecture on a weeknight in November for the new 1st-year Intermediate students at the Mountaineers Program Center. Please aim to arrive at 6:50 or 6:55, as the lecture starts at 7:00pm. Second, there'll be a field trip called the "Intermediate Eval" sometime in early December. You'll all have to pass this evaluation, proving you remember the things you learned in Basic (like belay escape & crevasse rescue,) and that you can demonstrate it clearly, as if you were teaching a new Basic student. Two eval dates are offered, and you only need to attend one or the other, but if you sign up early enough to get a spot on the earlier date, then you have the option of coming back and trying again on the second eval date if for some reason you do not pass. Fortunately, we want everyone to pass, so we try to offer a few weeknight practice sessions in the Mountaineers Program basement before the eval, where we can go over & review key skills that are on the eval. While it's your choice how many of these practice sessions you go to, I'd recommend two. If you go over it twice, you'll be perfectly ready for the eval. Even though I may refer to different people as "students" or "instructors" when organizing the practice nights, in the end it doesn't really matter. We're all a bit rusty, we all need the review, and we'll all learn something from each other.
Gym Climbing
You should do it!! A lot! I often go to Vertical World in the Magnolia neighborhood. Stone Gardens in Ballard or Bellevue are good options too. As a goal, you'll want to be top-roping gym routes rated 5.10a or 5.10- by January, with a slightly loose belay so you're sure you didn't weight the rope at all before you got to the top. If you're not there yet, don't worry!! If you start going twice a week regularly, your climbing skill will improve quickly. I highly recommend practicing down-climbing some routes on top-rope too, it both makes you a stronger climber faster, and being capable of down climbing will likely someday save your bacon while lead-climbing. Belaying someone who is down-climbing is a lot like belaying a lead climber. If you climb at Vertical World and have not belayed a lead-climber with a GriGri before, watch this video and then practice cautiously.
AIARE Level 1 Course Credit
If you've taken an avalanche course before and you want to know if it counts for credit so you don't have to take the Mountaineers one, you'll have to ask Loren McWethy. ([email protected]) Still, I have to give two thumbs up to the Mountaineers one, it's very thorough, and the weekend spent in the Baker Lodge is a lot of fun. I'm half tempted to sign up for it again this year myself.
Facebook Group
There's a Mountaineers Intermediate students Facebook group. It's not an official part of the course, but there's a lot of community stuff on there. Feel free to join if you are interested. https://www.facebook.com/groups/342926262503602/
Succeeding at Intermediate
To be successful at Intermediate, you have to be a self-starter. While the scheduled Intermediate field trips and practice nights will teach you a lot, you'll need a great deal more repetition than any mentor group can provide in order to become fast, fluid, and proficient at those skills. Find ways that you can practice what you've been taught on your own, or with friends you've made within the Mountaineers. You don't need to wait for your mentor group leader to organize a practice night. Organize some of your own climbing trips too, my Route Suggestions page has some ideas for you. And do a lot of reading. Find climbing books and climbing articles on the Internet which interest you, and read a ton of them. Watch YouTube videos of people demonstrating climbing techniques. There's a lot of different opinions out there, so take everything with a grain of salt, and think through it for yourself. Does it seem like a good technique to you? Or would you feel safer doing it a different way? The Mountaineers and the Intermediate course will do a lot to support your climbing education, but your education ultimately comes from you and what you initiate.
Before Intermediate, there's the Mountaineers Basic Alpine Climbing course, which generally fits within a single year and essentially teaches someone how to not be a liability in the alpine, giving them the minimum skills to safely come along on someone else's mountaineering trip. The Intermediate Alpine Climbing course completes you as a self-sufficient climber. It teaches you how to lead, in every possible meaning of the word. You'll learn how to place trad gear, lead on rock, build anchors that your and other's lives will depend on, organize and implement a rescue on technical terrain (assuming a climbing team of 4 or more,) to assess danger and make educated decisions about avalanche terrain, to teach and to be a leader to others, and even climb technical ice in the alpine if you choose too. For a climbing team to succeed on a challenging alpine objective, every member of the team needs to act as a leader, willing to take on the mantle of making decisions in the service of the group when necessary, yet also exercise good "followership." (Meaning to intelligently support the decisions of someone else for the sake of expediency and team cohesiveness, as long as those decisions are reasonable and safe.) Intermediate gives you the skills to be a leader, whether you officially carry that title or not.
Format of the course
It's essentially a giant checklist of things to complete. Once you complete everything on the checklist, you graduate! At first you're given five years to complete everything, and you can work your way through the checklist as fast or as slow as you're comfortable with. If you're insane and make Intermediate your highest life priority, it's possible (but not recommended) to complete the course in a single year. Or, if you need more than five years, extensions are possible. In my opinion, the sweet-spot to aim for is three years. I highly recommend completing enough lectures and fieldtrips in your first year to get through the "Rock 2" field trip, as it is the gate you must pass through before you can really act as an Intermediate student on climbs (including being a rope lead on most Basic climbs.) However, be aware of the dangers of leading on rock, and feel free to hit pause and wait for the next year's field trips if you don't feel you're ready for lead climbing, it's far better to wait than to get injured. For the list of lectures, field trips, and climbs required to graduate, check out the Intermediate Course Handbook, downloadable under the "Course Materials" tab here.
Mentor Groups
Intermediate Mentor Groups are sort-of the equivalent of Basic SIGs, but they tend to be less active and more hands-off. I'd encourage you to self-study and discover a lot of the knowledge and skills on your own. I'm not necessarily trying to guide you through everything in the Intermediate course, but as the course goes on, I'll set up some mentor-group-specific events, and I encourage you to take advantage of them. All of those events would be optional, though if you pass up a practice session I offer, it's completely on you to be ready for the field trip it would have prepared for. Of course, if you have questions, or would like to request additional practice, let me know and I'll be more than happy to help!
Gear
Here's my advice on gear for the Intermediate course: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4al5e9xmt5hlx62/Rob%27s_Mountaineers_Intermediate_Gear.rtf?dl=0
Beginning of the Course
First, there'll be an Intro Lecture on a weeknight in November for the new 1st-year Intermediate students at the Mountaineers Program Center. Please aim to arrive at 6:50 or 6:55, as the lecture starts at 7:00pm. Second, there'll be a field trip called the "Intermediate Eval" sometime in early December. You'll all have to pass this evaluation, proving you remember the things you learned in Basic (like belay escape & crevasse rescue,) and that you can demonstrate it clearly, as if you were teaching a new Basic student. Two eval dates are offered, and you only need to attend one or the other, but if you sign up early enough to get a spot on the earlier date, then you have the option of coming back and trying again on the second eval date if for some reason you do not pass. Fortunately, we want everyone to pass, so we try to offer a few weeknight practice sessions in the Mountaineers Program basement before the eval, where we can go over & review key skills that are on the eval. While it's your choice how many of these practice sessions you go to, I'd recommend two. If you go over it twice, you'll be perfectly ready for the eval. Even though I may refer to different people as "students" or "instructors" when organizing the practice nights, in the end it doesn't really matter. We're all a bit rusty, we all need the review, and we'll all learn something from each other.
Gym Climbing
You should do it!! A lot! I often go to Vertical World in the Magnolia neighborhood. Stone Gardens in Ballard or Bellevue are good options too. As a goal, you'll want to be top-roping gym routes rated 5.10a or 5.10- by January, with a slightly loose belay so you're sure you didn't weight the rope at all before you got to the top. If you're not there yet, don't worry!! If you start going twice a week regularly, your climbing skill will improve quickly. I highly recommend practicing down-climbing some routes on top-rope too, it both makes you a stronger climber faster, and being capable of down climbing will likely someday save your bacon while lead-climbing. Belaying someone who is down-climbing is a lot like belaying a lead climber. If you climb at Vertical World and have not belayed a lead-climber with a GriGri before, watch this video and then practice cautiously.
AIARE Level 1 Course Credit
If you've taken an avalanche course before and you want to know if it counts for credit so you don't have to take the Mountaineers one, you'll have to ask Loren McWethy. ([email protected]) Still, I have to give two thumbs up to the Mountaineers one, it's very thorough, and the weekend spent in the Baker Lodge is a lot of fun. I'm half tempted to sign up for it again this year myself.
Facebook Group
There's a Mountaineers Intermediate students Facebook group. It's not an official part of the course, but there's a lot of community stuff on there. Feel free to join if you are interested. https://www.facebook.com/groups/342926262503602/
Succeeding at Intermediate
To be successful at Intermediate, you have to be a self-starter. While the scheduled Intermediate field trips and practice nights will teach you a lot, you'll need a great deal more repetition than any mentor group can provide in order to become fast, fluid, and proficient at those skills. Find ways that you can practice what you've been taught on your own, or with friends you've made within the Mountaineers. You don't need to wait for your mentor group leader to organize a practice night. Organize some of your own climbing trips too, my Route Suggestions page has some ideas for you. And do a lot of reading. Find climbing books and climbing articles on the Internet which interest you, and read a ton of them. Watch YouTube videos of people demonstrating climbing techniques. There's a lot of different opinions out there, so take everything with a grain of salt, and think through it for yourself. Does it seem like a good technique to you? Or would you feel safer doing it a different way? The Mountaineers and the Intermediate course will do a lot to support your climbing education, but your education ultimately comes from you and what you initiate.
Top picture: Traversing around towers while climbing the east ridge direct on Forbidden, 8/23/2015