Sept 20-21 Glacier travel workshop and intro to ice climbing

Name: Sept 20-21 Glacier travel workshop and intro to ice climbing
Start: 2025-09-20T09:30:00-07:00
End: 2025-09-21T22:00:00-07:00
Location: Arlington, WA at the Chopelas Residence

Schedule

Sat, 20 Sep, 2025 at 09:30 am to Sun, 21 Sep, 2025 at 10:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Arlington, WA at the Chopelas Residence | Arlington, WA

Free glacier travel workshop for learning life saving skills for mountaineering. With 299 named glaciers in the North Cascades alone, most major peaks in the Cascades require crossing a glacier. Learning to safety navigate them, and how to avoid emergencies, or how to rescue yourself or others if an emergency should occur, will make you a better alpinist and climber.
We will practice crevasse self rescue and z-pulley rescue for glacier travel. With self-rescue practice techniques for glacier skiing/split-boarding (bring your gear) for those that want it. Belay Escape and rappelling exercises also available. Running belay and slack line skills work stations also set up. Participants will simulate hanging in a crevasse, wearing all of their gear, and practice self rescue by removing and stowing their gear while hanging on the end of the rope, and than ascending up the rope with the gear they carry. Practice set up and rescue a victim from a crevasse with a z-pulley rig. Practice workshop will occur at the Chopelas property east of Arlington WA on Saturday, it is open to all experience level participants, newbies welcome, and experienced climbers get to practice too. this workshop will also include an introduction to ice climbing on my own polyurethane falls (practice wall). The optional (but highly recommended) field trip on Sunday requires crampons and suitable foot wear for glacier travel. there will be several miles of steep rugged hiking to get into a good glacier. The field trip is for those fit, well prepared and equipped. Sunday will be a field trip where we hike and crampon into a place to practice rope team travel. trail head access is good so we can attempt a real glacier crossing on a rope team, and set up some top ropes on the glazier so you can safely try out climbing up near vertical ice. We will return home late Sunday. This Saturday workshop is suitable and open to all skill and experience levels. The Sunday field trip is for those fit and equipped for a long day in the mountains in Alpine conditions. it will be fun weekend to meet friends and practice in a low stress environment.
The workshop and field trip is free of charge, though a free will donation to support the program is gratefully accepted.