Winter Camping BasicsSM

Students Per Instructor: 1, 2 or 3
Course Length: 2 Days, 1 Night
Seasons Offered: Winter
Alpine Mastery Method: Mountaineering Mastery Method
Prerequisites: Basic crampon and ice axe skills plus summer backpacking experience

Course Summary: This course will teach you the fundamentals of how to plan and execute a midwinter, multi-day adventure in the mountains. You will learn techniques for winter camping and skills for pursuing non-technical objectives in the winter mountains.

Reservations

Course Description:
Winter camping is serious business, with little room for error. During this course you will spend two days (and one night) in the mountains learning, first hand, about the rigors of cold-weather camping and winter mountaineering. We begin instruction with an introduction to equipment and clothing for cold weather adventures; and the essentials of trip planning and navigation. After packing equipment and food we’re off to the trailhead.

The first day's hike will be a short one (with fully loaded packs) and will take us to our campsite for the night. Here, we’ll set up camp, learning about all the extra chores required to camp in the snow. We’ll share tips and techniques for winter food planning, cooking, water purification and other essentials of living in this challenging environment. Time permitting, we’ll take a short hike to scope out the next day’s climb.

After having retired at dark (early!), we should be ready to go at first light on the second day. Conditions permitting, our objective will be a summit climb. After our climb we will break camp and hike out, returning to the car before dark.

We provide all meals and group equipment; students provide their own personal gear, including packs, sleeping bags and pads.

You will need summer backpacking experience and at least some experience using crampons with a single ice axe. Our Slide Climbing Overnight and Winter Mountaineering Basics courses can provide the required background if you do not have this experience.

This course does not include roped climbing of any kind. Our other Mountaineering courses can provide a taste of roped climbing and our Rock Climbing and Ice Climbing programs can help you become an expert technical climber.