American Alpine Club (AAC) Survey

First of all, I'd recommend that in the future each page of the on-line survey have both a "next" and a "previous" button. A little detail, but useful.

I've been a member of the AAC for only a couple of years. My viewpoint is still largely that of an outsider. With this disclaimer in place, here is my semi-serious list of gripes.

The Global Rescue thing is unattractive. I don't really care about climbing grants. The AAC doesn't really care about safety. The AAJ articles I tried to read put me to sleep. (Yes, I'm old and jaded.)

The AAC is small--very small when compared to its counterparts in the Alpine countries. Kevin has a good suggestion about the convergence of local and national organizations. He may be right that there would be resistance to merging all those into a large body--I've no idea myself--but there may be pragmatic alliances to be forged to deliver better services.

I definitely agree with Mike and Kevin that the AAC ought to be organizing and sponsoring climbing camps and/or mentorship programs. I know this has been discussed at the club, but based on the survey I think it must be a relatively low priority. Seems to me it should be near the very top.

+1

Websites are cool, and attract people to the sport, and AAC, but won't give them the skills they need to ethically engage in the sport. AAC might focus on a free curriculum body, thus provide mountain visiters with the competence to freely and safely enjoy and protect the mountains.

Mike Larson wrote:Even the new Copp-Dash Award is self-limiting. It is described as a grant for climbers who are going after climbs in remote ranges of high difficulty and committment AND who plan on documenting said climb in a variety of media. To me this sounds like nothing more than the Spitzer grants with a media requirement. How many amateur climbers can meet these high standards? Even the few that do, how many have access to the editors at Alpinist/Climbing/Rock&Ice to place articles? The amateur climber who did an FA and who thinks it's easy to get his write-up published in one of the glossy rags has obviously never tried. I foresee another round of 'name' climbers getting these grants since they're the only ones that can overcome such high barriers to entry. The MacNeil-Nott Awards are a step in the right direction but are still only 3 grants, a small percentage when compared to the others that are open to (and monopolized by) 'name/sponsored' climbers.

Resurrected this thread (unfortunately) to gloat that I was proven right WRT the Copp/Dash Awards. For those who don't feel like going back and reading through previous posts, the argument centered around the 'pros vs. joes' nature of AAC grants with the recipients leaning very heavily toward the former.

The ridiculousness of who was granted these new awards simply astounds (at least to me). One team (Stifler/Sorkin) already was awarded a Spitzer Grant only a few months ago. Another team (Mahoney/Gilmore/Wilkinson) are regular contributors to climbing mags/videos. Wilkinson is actually on two teams awarded grants. Most of the names are 'known' quantities who have been awarded grants in the past, are sponsered, and who have contributed to mags and other media. Why these people would need 'mentorship' (as stated in the mission statement for the grant) in those areas makes little sense.

This just further proves, at least in my opinion, that the vast majority of AAC grants are there to allow professional/semi-professional climbers to get their suffer on in remote ranges. Amateur climbers who pay their dues play next to no part in the program. And as a disclaimer, this is not the perspective of some guy who has been passed over for these grants. I've never applied for an AAC grant, mainly because their are so few grants that amateur climbers actually have a chance of winning (the McNeil-Nott Awards go to only two or three teams). I just get ticked off that AAC does so little for the amateur climbers who constitute the overwhelming majority of dues paying members. European clubs put together full-on expeditions to the Greater Ranges that their amateur members can join yet we have nothing of the sort coming from the AAC. If only the Slovenian Alpine Club allowed foreigners (sigh)

Hmmm... would have been nice if the AAC had released the results of the survey to at least the participants, if not the wider community on here.

Mike L.: The Copp-Dash awards are not "AAC grants." The club volunteered to handle the administrative process for these grants because it has well-established systems for handling applications, etc. (and because Copp and Dash were long-time AAC supporters and friends), but the actual recipients were chosen by a group from the cash sponsors: Black Diamond, La Sportiva, Mountain Hardwear, and Patagonia. In this way, these grants are closer akin to the Mugs Stump Awards than to AAC grants.

Although the Alpinist story you cited says the "American Alpine Club announced" the 2010 winners of the Copp-Dash award, this is not strictly accurate. Black Diamond announced the winners on its website, and subsequent news reports, including the AAC one (which I wrote), all used BD's info.

Cheers, Dougald

Idea - How about requiring AAC grant recipients to present/teach a climbing seminar (not just a slide show) after their trip so that they pass on the learning knowledge to those of us who did not get to go, and could use some coaching from the big dogs? Seesm like win/win/win:
- capable people get grants
- less capable people get mentored/taught
- builds stronger community in AAC

Jim Davidson wrote:Idea - How about requiring AAC grant recipients to present/teach a climbing seminar (not just a slide show) after their trip so that they pass on the learning knowledge to those of us who did not get to go, and could use some coaching from the big dogs? Seesm like win/win/win: - capable people get grants - less capable people get mentored/taught - builds stronger community in AAC

Not practical on a number of fronts, methinks.

Liability, risk.

Grant winners aren't necessarily guides or teachers. I'm usually more interested in their trip logistics especially if they went to an out of the way location.

I think the club has been trying to do climbing type events, especially in the last couple of years. I've attended two of the "Craggin' Classics" and really, those would have been great events for folks who wanted to learn and/or be mentored. Some of the guide tricks that were taught in SLC (Gate Buttress up in LCC) by the Swiss Miss last fall for example, were really cool to see and her group was pretty psyched. My partner and I just happened across them and watched from a distance. For those folks it was a pretty good deal to be climbing with Kate R. and her to be sure.

The AAC website has upcoming events planned. Plenty to attend.

Edit to add:

americanalpineclub.org/alle…

Cheers,

-Brian in SLC

Dougald MacDonald wrote:Mike L.: The Copp-Dash awards are not "AAC grants." The club volunteered to handle the administrative process for these grants because it has well-established systems for handling applications, etc. (and because Copp and Dash were long-time AAC supporters and friends), but the actual recipients were chosen by a group from the cash sponsors: Black Diamond, La Sportiva, Mountain Hardwear, and Patagonia. In this way, these grants are closer akin to the Mugs Stump Awards than to AAC grants. Although the Alpinist story you cited says the "American Alpine Club announced" the 2010 winners of the Copp-Dash award, this is not strictly accurate. Black Diamond announced the winners on its website, and subsequent news reports, including the AAC one (which I wrote), all used BD's info. Cheers, Dougald

Dougald, I appreciate your clarification. If what you state is the case then it's my opinion the AAC should state as much in the information posted on their website. I agree that these grants seem much closer to the Mugs Stump Awards with the defining characteristic being that pro/semi-pro climbers are the only ones really in the runnning. The way the awards are described on the AAC website makes it seem as if the award is designed for amateur and pro climbers who have little experience in documenting their climbs, be it in mags or on video, etc. Judging by the winners, this is obviously not the case.

And Brian while I agree that the AAC does run a decent amount of 'events', they are all very disperse and so do very little to foster any sense of community. Holding one event in GA per year does next to nothing for climbers in CO or CA or MA. If local chapters held events on a monthly basis I think you could make much more of an argument but this is definitely not currently happening. The Front Range AAC chapter, likely the largest in the country, does only a few events a year. As a point of comparison, local European clubs do trips and hold events on a weekly basis.

I'm sorry I missed this thread the first time around, I would have liked to participate in the debate.

I have been skeptical of the AAC grants (and all climbing grants in general) for a long time. I don't think they are appropriate in this day and age for a number of reasons:

1. The purpose (stated or otherwise) is to get American climbers out in the world snatching up as many FAs as possible.
a) This nationalistic, competitive approach to climbing has been roundly rejected by the majority of climbers.
b) What is the rush to "climb out" every range on the planet? Is it so horrible to have a few blank spots left on the map that we actually have to pay people to go fill them in? Shouldn't we save something for our kids to discover?

2. These grants in general (and the AAC contributes to this) greatly favor full time and/or sponsored climbers. The most impressive proposals are from those people willing to take many months off for a trip, which is a fantasy to anyone with a job. This encourages young climbers to be lazy and/or not contribute to society, and it discourages responsible people from participating...the same people that are likely to have the requisite disposable income to, say, pay membership dues and make donations to the club.

So, not only are we paying people to go fill in blank spots on the map, we are mostly paying specific climbers that we already pay to go climbing every time we buy that sweet new rope or pair of shoes. Aren't these golden boys fortunate enough?? If BD wants to get their hotshot on the cover of Alpinist, BD should pay for his trip to Patagonia, not AAC members that struggle to get one meager trip per year themselves.

3. There are a number of huge challenges facing climbers right now: global climate change is eliminating alpine areas all over the world, etc. It seems that spending the club's limited resources to send a few people on a climbing trip should be a low priority.

Dougald, thanks for being man enough to face the criticism, even if you don't speak for the club. You seem to be arguing that maybe if it weren't for the mountain fellowship grant, some of those badasses would have never been badasses, is that right? I think one could make the opposite argument, that if it weren't for those grants, maybe these badasses would be more self reliant. Maybe they would have learned how to pay their own way. Maybe then the Ogden/Synnot/Lowe team wouldn't have felt compelled to haul a satellite phone up Great Trango Tower so they could file daily internet reports on their progress to appease their sponsors.

My brother and I applied for a mountain fellowship grant once and were rejected (nobody ever told us why, so if the goal is to mentor young climbers...opportunity missed). I felt we were very qualified (we had done the Cassin, Waddington, El Cap a couple times, etc.), so my only conclusion was that our objective wasn't awesome enough (we hoped to free-climb an existing route in Alaska). That year, they gave the grant to some jokers from Iowa who were planning to climb the East Face of McKinley...the last great problem of the Alaska range (yeah right!) I think they made it to snow line before they realized they were in over their heads. It seemed to me that the selection process had favored a team with little chance of success, but a very impressive sounding objective over experienced climbers with a good chance of success on something less sexy.

It's probably just my personal bias, but it seemed like a bad way to use other people's money. I feel like if I ever took someone else's money to go climbing, I would do everything in my power to ensure it was successful, and that in itself is sketchy terrain. I've since concluded that climbers should climb for themselves and pay their own way in order to avoid any conflicts of interest or perception thereof.

So we didn't get the grant, and we never did the trip, but we did many other trips, and it seems we've been able to have nice little "careers" ourselves without ever taking a dime from anyone. Maybe it's possible that others can do the same?

Mike Larson wrote:And Brian while I agree that the AAC does run a decent amount of 'events', they are all very disperse and so do very little to foster any sense of community. Holding one event in GA per year does next to nothing for climbers in CO or CA or MA. If local chapters held events on a monthly basis I think you could make much more of an argument but this is definitely not currently happening. The Front Range AAC chapter, likely the largest in the country, does only a few events a year. As a point of comparison, local European clubs do trips and hold events on a weekly basis.

Hmmm. Good thoughts. Part of the issue is, at least for me, the staff is fairly focused on staff issues and bigger dealio's, whilst the events especially for the sections are run/planned by folks who typically have full time jobs and their position within the club is as a volunteer. These volunteers do their own climbing too, not just coordinate events. A weekly basis? That's too often for most folks who also want to do their own climbing.

Solution? Volunteer. Most sections are looking for folks willing to host events, stage events, etc etc etc.

For some of these events, turnout is quite low. Maybe its hard to "foster a sense of community", but, maybe also, folks don't want to belong to an "American Alpine Club" per se.

Not sure the front range section is the largest. They're kinda broken down not only by region, but, population of members too. New York and New England sections are probably the biggest. I've seen the numbers and can't remember specifically. They've also increased the number of sections recently (in the last couple of years) to hopefully spawn more local type events too.

Some interesting comments. Thanks.

In terms of grants, shout out to local SLC'er Kyle Dempster! Piolet d'Or winner. Pretty neat. I guess we should have a local "event" where we all get to touch his new ice axes (a pair, silver and gold). Maybe take 'em for a run up the GWI...ha ha.

-Brian in SLC

Brian in SLC wrote:A weekly basis? That's too often for most folks who also want to do their own climbing.

Just to be clear. I don't mean the same people are running centrally organized climbing camps every weekend. It is similar to what the Mazamas do: ie. trips scheduled ahead of time by someone with experience to different objectives with these people doing only a few trips per year and other members of the club doing trips during different weekends. If that makes any sense.

More generally the European local clubs are a clearinghouse for local climbers to meet up and socialize and plan objectives inside or outside of the club's auspices.

What I envy however is not so much the degree to which local trips are organized but the international trips the clubs put together. Local European climbing clubs put together trips to the Canadian Rockies, Peru, Pakistan, Alaska, and Nepal that local members are able to sign up for. Most times less experienced members are paired with members with multiple expeditions under their belt. The clubs also many times have club equipment for these expeditions alleviating the need for the climbers to buy very expensive expedition gear that is only used for expeditions. This has the effect of drastically lowering the barriers to entry that most inexperienced Greater Range climbers have to overcome when trying to execute such a trip because they are paired with people who know how to navigate the burueacracy and logistics that are oftens times the crux of such big trips; this is not to mention to expertise older experienced members are able to pass along with respect to such simple things as organizing a meal menu, proper acclimitization, evaluating object hazard, and the like. Nor are these expeditions huge logistic seiges. Many are simply a group of eight or so climbers who pair up as they choose and attempt alpine style different objectives in whatever area they are basing out of.

This is a role I'd love to see the AAC take on (with the help of all those big name sponsers of theres). It essentially would be a way to facilitate amateur climbers in planning and executing trips beyond US borders. The pros could contribute by helping plan and mentoring the amateurs during such trips. Unfortunately I don't see it happening anytime in the near future.