Itinerary
Ski Mountaineering and Avalanche Leadership Part 2 Itinerary
Please keep in mind that this is a standard, yet loose, itinerary. It is subject to change depending on conditions, weather, group dynamics, pace, and summit strategies.
Program Details
Ski Mountaineering and Avalanche Leadership Part 2 (SMALP) is the next course in this progression. It takes the skills you learned in Part I and focuses on expanding your technical skill, adapting and applying past experience to the winter environments, introducing you to multi-day winter objectives, and preparing you for advanced avalanche leadership. You’ll learn to move efficiently in steeper and more complex terrain, begin using ropes, anchors, and winter mountaineering techniques, and practice winter camping as a system, not just an add-on.
Itinerary
Day 1
Rendezvous at the American Alpine Institute equipment shop and introduction to winter mountaineering
Plan to meet your fellow climbers and instructor(s) at the AAI Equipment Shop promptly at 7:00 am. Your Guide and an Equipment Specialist will take the time to go over your gear, finalize rentals and purchases, review the itinerary, and ensure everyone is adequately prepared.
On this day, we will introduce navigational equipment covering the skills required for a tour plan as well as navigational skills and review and fine-tune the skills learned in SMALP Part 1.
Topics covered include:
- Tour planning
- Route finding and track setting
- Map and compass
- White-out navigation
Day 2
Winter and Expeditionary Climbing and Protective Systems
The day will be spent introducing students to ice protection and protective systems, ice climbing skills, and movement on ice, leading on steep ice.
Day 3
Ice climbing & Winter Camping (Pan Dome Falls or West Table 3, camping)
We spend the third day covering and building upon concepts of climbing and belaying on snow and ice in its various forms and degrees of steepness.
Topics covered include:
- Ice Climbing movement
- Ice screw placement
- Ice anchors
- V/A threads
After the ice climbing lesson, we will head into the north side of Mt. Baker backcountry and set up camp where we will learn winter camping techniques and give an introduction to mountain weather.
Topics covered include:
- Hazard mitigation
- Site selection
- Building and fortifying camp
Day 4
Dry tooling (Shuksan Crag, lodge)
On this day, we will pack up camp and head to Shuksan Crag to practice dry tooling techniques.
Day 5
Intro to ski rope work (Baker backcountry, lodge)
We cover glaciology and movement on a glacier as a team of skiers. The Coleman has excellent terrain to practice cramponing and ice axe technique on steep snow and ice, the use of prusiks, and basic low-angle ice climbing and rappelling with skis.
Topics covered include:
- Snow anchor construction w/ skis/split
- Snow belays (body belay, dynamic off anchors)
- Lowers
- Rappelling with skis/board on pack and on feet
- (Tour planning for final objective zone in evening)
Day 6
Mountaineering objective (Tooth/ Chair Peak)
This day is reserved for a backcountry ski tour of either the Tooth or Chair Peak in the Mt. Baker backcountry. The Guides will help you develop a plan that is compatible with the team’s skills.