Road to the Alpine

Hey All,

I'm an avid climber looking to make the transition to alpine climbing and mountaineering. I'm comfortable leading trad up to gunks 5.7, but that should soon expand to some harder grades. This winter will be my second season on ice, but last season I felt comfortable following on 4 and 4+ terrain.

Now I have little experience in winter camping, glacier travel, or snow travel. Also, I have no experience above 6000 ft, so I don't know how I do with altitude.

Basically, I would like to get to the point where I can comfortably do an unguided trip up mountains like The Grand Teton and Mt Rainier. Obviously the two are different in style, but you get the point.

I've picked up training for the new alpinism already, and have already started to implement the training, but this does not help me with the technical aspect of my goals.

I would expect that the best thing to do right now would be

A) During the fair weather months hike and climb as often as possible, get comfortable with my gear, and continue building up my fitness

B) Come winter start taking winter backpacking trips and get comfortable in the cold

C) Work on getting more comfortable on ice (work into leading)

D) learn snow/glacier travel

Now anyone from New York have any recommendations on how to practice the latter goal in the catskills/adirondacks?

I will not be able to travel to big mountains until next summer, but I will be able to relocate anywhere as of next fall.

Lastly, I still need to pick up ice tools, crampons, softshell pants, gloves, and an upgraded shelter system. Any recommendations on these would also be great. IE for the Mountains I listed do I need a full on 4 season tent, or would tarp and bivy be more appropriate?

Whoa, where to start...

About four years ago I was in your shoes. As a climber in TN, I had experience on roch, but primarily in a single-pitch setting. Unfortunately, there isn't very much you can do to prepare yourself for something like the Grand Teton. It's always a sharp learning curve, the best way to learn the skills is to just do it, fail, learn from your mistakes and start again. A route like the North ridge of Spearhead in Rocky Mountain National park may be a more attainable goal as a start, the grand Teton is a huge mountain and Rainier is even bigger. I'd set my sights a bit lower early on.

Keep rock climbing. Climb every multi-pitch you can find,focus on building anchors in bad rock and using a minimum amount of gear. Learn to use your rope instead of cordellette for anchors, practice climbing pitches with only passive gear, get comfortable pulling on gear if necessary to speed up your climbing, practice climbing in the rain/snow,

Winter camping is a good skill, but toughness is better.

A four season tent would be nice for Rainier, though not absolutely necessary in the summer. You won't need one for the Grand.

Just find a willing partner and go do the Grand - it's long but the Owen Spaulding is very easy climbing and not much actual climbing is involved. It should be doable at your level quite safely. Rainer is a snow mountain so a different skill set will be needed. Learn self arrest and the other needed skills and go. Either one will of course let you know quickly how your body will do at altitude and both start fairly low and gain quickly - a few days acclimating somewhere else fairly high hiking around or climbing would help if doing either one. Sometimes we just have to get going and do things. You can't learn everything reading a book or watching a video.

It depends on what routes you want to do on those mountains as well.

For example, if you just want to summit Rainier, the standard route (Disappointment Cleaver), requires the bare minimum of mountaineering skills:

-Roped travel
-Crevasse Rescue
-Self-arrest, walking in crampons, etc.

If you're solid on multi-pitch rock (and fit), the Grand is already in reach. Your biggest issues there are going to be 1) speed/efficiency, and 2) route finding.

Like everyone else said, keep climbing multipitch and get good at basically flying over 5.easy terrain, building efficient natural anchors, swinging leads, etc. That's going to be be your biggest thing on the Grand, especially if you go during peak season (August-September I think?).

If you want snow and ice training, the Catskills are good but look at heading up to North Conway, NH. Mount Washington can be great training for what you might find on Rainier (albeit no crevasses and a helluva lot colder), and there's plenty of ice.

Above all though, learn good mountain judgement. Know when to turn around.

Good luck and have fun!

You could climb the Grand tomorrow.

If you can get out to the Tetons, don’t just focus on the Grand. There are many good one day alpine routes to gain experience on. Some are scrambles (e.g. E or SE ridge on Buck), some are easier technical climbs (E face of Disappointment, various routes on Symmetry Spire). If you want some less crowded adventures do the SSW Ridge on Nez Perce or one of the east side routes on Table Mountain. These are all grade II-III, which is a good range for learning.

Can you climb rock with ice gear?

Thanks for the recommendations all!

It seems like I have a solid base for what I'd like to do, but I have some work to do.

So looks like some decent goals for this year would be to
A) get away from the gunks to climb some larger multi-pitch routes

B) get out hiking/backpacking some more and get more mileage in the mountains

C) do some non technical winter ascents

D) find a decent slope and practice some snow travel/self arrest

E) find someone to take me out/do a glacier travel/snow walking clinic or course
F) head over to trap dike or north face of gothics and get at it!

Before heading up a large technical mountain I'll go for a few class II or III mountains to see how I deal with altitude.

I'll likely be comfortable on alpine rock, but before committing to anything I should get more time out on the actual mountains in a less dangerous scenario.

Edit: ClimbZ, yeah I can mixed/drytool. I'm not fabulous at it, but I'll get there.

WillamR wrote:I would like to get to the point where I can comfortably do an unguided trip up mountains like The Grand Teton and Mt Rainier ... I've picked up training for the new alpinism already ... but this does not help me with the technical aspect of my goals.

What's missing here in this goal to go unguided is judgment. You can have lots of technique and lots of strength and endurance, but if you don't know when to turn back and when to not go out at all, you're in great danger ... because the hazards of the mountains are just way bigger and stronger than your training and technique.
And it's not just knowing, it's the emotional discipline and courage to actually make the tough decisions in real situations with partners who might not share your "knowing".

You only get that judgment by spending lots of days in real "alpine" mountains, hanging around with more mountain-experienced people. Some of the key judgment priorities are different for different mountain regions -- and sometimes the critical life + death knowledge is in the details - (why it's good to hire a local guide).

If you don't have a way to spend lots of days and weeks in the real alpine environment where you want to perform "unguided", then you're way better off to hire a local guide for your alpine trips.

Getting going on that early will also help you figure out which kinds of alpine climbing you actually like, and help you avoid wasting time practicing skills (at least two on your current list) not likely to be relevant to survival and success.

And since you live in the Northeast with lots of non-stop flights to the Alps, might want to consider that there are definite advantages to playing the Euro versions of the alpine games.

Ken

Sage advice Ken,

Duly noted

From personal experience: The best way to learn the glacier travel and crevasse rescue skills needed to climb Rainier unguided is to take a course on an actual glacier. You won't find that in the northeast. Alaska or the Cascades are probably your best options. I took a 6 day course in Alaska and learned more than enough to be able to summit Rainier safely.

Those classes are alright, they teach you the basics. But the reality of it is that you just need experience. Know when conditions are in ect ect.

Here's your alpine training day at the Gunks:

1. Wait for a late fall day with temps in the 40's after a week of rain, ideally with snow flurries in the forecast.
2. The night before. Drink at least a pint of bourbon, no water. Your hangover will simulate the altitude.
3. Drive to the Gunks. Pull over and park on the side of the road 5 miles from the trailhead.
4. Enjoy the walk, try not to vomit.
5. Climb "High Exposure" four times. After each lap, drop two pieces of gear from your rack, try not to slip and or freeze your fingers into blocks of ice
6. Eat nothing but your least favorite flavor of GU Gel.

Now, wasn't that fun?

You forgot a couple:

7. After the 4th lap, spend the night on the High E ledge. No, you do not get to bring a sleeping bag. You are, however, permitted to attempt a campfire out of discarded ciggy butts and grass tufts.
8. Chop 120' off your rope and bail off the remains of your rack.
9. Spend the next 9 months plotting on how to refine your systems to succeed in good style next time.

10. Drop your water bottle after the first lap.
11. throw a rock down and make sure it hits your belayer right on the head.
12. drop an iceaxe.

Move closer to some alpine climbing, or find a hobby that you can actively participate in closer to home (eg becoming a hard rock climber on the crags near you). The learning curve will be mega slow for the really important things you need to be good in the alpine (managing energy expenditure, moving comfortably and swiftly over talus / boulder field approaches, 3rd and 4th class efficiency and speed) if you aren't there. Another thing - the old Will Rogers saw "good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from making bad judgments". There's a lot of little mistakes to be made in the alpine that we all do once, and have to do once to learn from. It'd be a pity to have to involve a big cross-country trip for each of these incremental experiences (which aren't gonna come from simulation in lowland).

Mea culpa I don't know anything about the Dacks.

This is like saying "How do I become a good mountain bike racer? I only have a road bike right now tho and won't be getting a mountain bike anytime soon."

Trying not to be a jerk, I was in your place once as well (and I was lucky enough to have work demands take me to a city close to some big mountains).

10. Arrange for someone from Europe to free solo the route while smoking a cigarette as you labor your way up it.
11. Spend at least 10 minutes bemoaning said Frenchman's superiority to yourself.
12. Ask, WWCAD? IE, what would Conrad Anker do?
13. Realize that you cannot do that thing.
14. Vomit, go ahead. I know you want to. The dry heaving is satisfying in its own way.
15. Look up into the sky, and spin around really, really fast, then start climbing. You're supposed to be dizzy.
16. Make sure your partner takes a really, really long time to follow the pitches, meditate on how much your despise him/her as your teeth begin to chatter. Then feel kind of guilty.
17. Arrange for casual hikers to be present as you start trudging down to your vehicle. Enjoy the air of superiority as you swagger past them. Note: to fully enjoy this step, make sure you have a rope visible on your pack, be sure to strain your ears to hear their remarks about your bad ass-ness as you walk by.
18. Immediately post lots and lots of pictures on Facebook, so that bitch who turned you down for prom junior year can see what a bad ass you are.

I have met an awful lot of good rock climbers from the East who suddenly wobble like drunken gomers on a cruise ship when confronted with a talus slope.

OK, serious answer.

I think it's more realistic to get to the point of being able to climb Rainier unguided than it is the Grand Teton if you live in a place where big mountains are inaccessible.

There's a narrower set of skills needed to succeed on big moderate snow / glacier climbs than on rock. As others point out, a guide-service course on glacier and snow climbing will teach you a lot and give you a lot of the basic skills. Many of those skills are relatively simple to practice in your environment (assuming you can find a snow slope in the winter, and your crevasse rescue stuff can be practiced with buddies in the park or in your basement to a decent approximation).

Alpine rock is more complicated and varied. Things like moving well over talus / boulder fields, having good intuition / judgment for routefinding when everything is foreshortened and the only pics you have are from an airplane, moving comfortably and efficiently over 3rd and 4th class terrain unroped, transitioning from belayed to simulclimbing, the list is just fucking endless.

I lived in the Cascades did all this shit, moved to the east coast for five years, then went back. I felt like my snow / glacier skills were all still there. But all that mountain rock climbing intuition was a little dim and it's taken work to get back. I think it's basically impossible to build if you're not in a place where you can get out in the mountains at least once a month (Dacks don't count).

So set your sights on some snow and glacier climbing objectives. Lots of good stuff to be climbed in May / June in the mountain west. Continue to learn to rock climb harder. Being able to lead 5.9 or 5.10 will give you lots of "headroom" so that you can cruise 5.6 - 5.7 in the mountains swiftly (and also make it so that you can actually climb if you get off route and the stuff gets harder).

I just went back through these posts. To the OP: your assumption that you're just going to follow a few steps, go winter camping, do some dry tooling and then boom! You're an alpine extraordinaire is kind of silly. I found your posts off putting but I couldn't put my finger on why, but now I've realized it.

Basically dude, just shut up and go do shit in the mountains. If you want to climb in the alpine but live in New York, that's your own fault. Sure, you've got stuff going on in New York, I get that. But until you make major life changes to make alpine climbing as much a part of your climbing life as going out cragging then you really aren't going to be very good at it, no matter how many times you pitch a tent in the snow.

I remember when I lived in Tennessee, I would do all sorts of stupid bullshit that I thought would "get me ready for the alpine", only to find out that I was just wasting my time. If I had it to do all over again, I would have just gone cragging and gotten stronger. You climb 5.7 in the Gunks? Sweet, but you need to be able to climb runout 5.7 on choosy rock with no chance of placing a good piece and still keep your shit together. That's not something you can do if 5.7 is your limit. Finding contrived "alpine experience" is a bit like watching porn vs getting laid, except less satisfying.

Either move out west and starting climbing mountains RIGHT NOW. Or stop talking about it and go cragging until you actually move somewhere you can alpine climb, then learn those skills "on the job" as it were.. "Yer (not) gonna die" when you get out there unless you completely ignore the internal wiring you've inherited from millions of years of evolution, or just have a big ego. If you don't feel "right" about a situation in the mountains. Then stop, analyze the situation logically, and if your logical mind says your instincts are right, then turn around. That's it, not too hard really.

Honestly you need to move. It is not impossibe, but it is hard to get into any serious type of alpinism living on the East Coast.

Move far away from New York. Preferably to a place like Seattle, SLC, Denver, or Portland.