Today just wrapped up Day 3 of a 5-day intensive alpine mountaineering skills clinic w/ Dean Kurth & Patrick Torosian from Cincinnati, OH.

These  2 motivated gentleman have enlisted the expertise and instruction of Crested Butte Mountain Guides in our incredible backyard of the Elk Mountains, for a 5-day clinic and skills progression covering many of the basic alpine climbing and mountaineering skills of which to have a solid foundation to build from while tackling some of the world’s great mountains.

Dean comes to this clinic with years of lead rock-climbing experience on the infamously scary sandstone towers of the Garden of the Gods, but is fairly new to the world of alpine climbing and it’s associated snow, ice, and mixed rock and snow terrain.

Patrick has a background of successful summits of many big South American volcanoes, including Cotopaxi (19,347′) in Ecuador, yet is new to the world of rock climbing and placing traditional gear, building anchors, and the like.

So…..Crested Butte, what a perfect place for these two friends to get together and build upon what they each know, while also gaining some new skills, so as to forge a climbing partnership in the future.

Day 1: Taylor Canyon rock-climbing day. A great first day focusing on a basic introduction to placing rock protection, building rock anchors, different belay configurations, rappelling tactics and improving and practicing climbing skills.

Day 2: Mt. Crested Butte’s Guide’s Ridge. A super fun day in an incredible alpine setting getting to put together the basic rock climbing skills form Day 1 on an incredibly beautiful and exposed climb in the alpine realm, complete with a June mini-snow and hail storm for added dramatic effect.

Day 3: Mount Baldy’s Emerald Lake Couloir….an aesthetic, long (~2,000′), steep and challenging snow climb right from beautiful Emerald Lake at Schofield Pass to the summit of Mount Baldy in the heart of the Paradise Divide region of the Elk Mountains. A great venue w/ practically zero approach, of which to practice and implement crampon and ice axe use, rope work on steep  alpine snow climbs, snow anchors and running belays, and self-arrest skills.

So far we have had 3 long but fun and engaging days of alpine climbing skills, with great weather, incredible mountain environments and thoughtful and critical discussions and practices on the various skills workshops we have been covering.

Looking forward to bringing it all together over the next 2 days…..

-Your Guide…..

Jayson Simons-Jones

cbguides

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Alpine Mountaineering, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.