WooferDoggy

Hi Marc! It's me Jim! See you tomorrow!

One guy on the couse is planning to buy his way to the top of Everest. It's a two year plan. He had no prior experience, but has set the cash aside. He's planning to do Denali next year and Everest in 2010. With this crew. That goes against everything I believe in about mountaineering. Not that there isn't a place for guides, but if my guide goes down, I want to have the skill base to walk out on my own. Or not go.

I'm hoping to meet with the instructor Tuesday. I took myself off the course just before the summit attempts mostly because of my discomfort stemming from the first few days, plus an equipment failure. I had NO confidence that the other students would be safe to climb with. Because I left, I can't be certain the guides didn't correct themselves, but I have no reason to think they would have. In the moment, I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, not be a "negative," unsupportive presence, not impose my (Outward Bound-based) standards, etc., since OB is traditionally uber-safety conscious. I didn't have a enough breadth of experience outside of OB to be confident that this guide was not up to snuff, safety-wise. Input from this and another climbing forum has given me the confirmation I was looking for, although this IS a North American forum, which I'm told is another animal than Europe. The guide was Europe-trained & IFGMA certified, which is hard to get in the US, but maybe parts of Europe are more relaxed. As I understand it, in the US there are three disciplines: rock, alpine, and skiing, all with several levels of competency within each discipline. You don't get IFMGA certified in the US until you attain the highest level in all three areas. A (German) guy in rec.climbing contrasted Medditereanean guides with IFMGA guides trained, say in Switzerland, along the lines of "There is a saying that in heaven the cops are British, the cooks French, the engineers German and the singers Italian, whereas in hell the cops are French, the cooks British, the engineers Italian and the singers German." I'll certainly talk to the lead guide and asst./intern, and probably shoot a letter to the owner. With the other students, I'm pretty confident I'd be talking to the hand, as Bug said earlier.

I'm thinking about it. I would want to speak directly to the instructor first so I'm being straight up with him. I liked him well enough. I wouldn't be looking for consequences for the guy, just growth.

Bug, pretty much what I was thinking. I figured the two years exp. for the asst is an acceptable minimum if the guide is strong. The asst. is really an unpaid intern enrolled in an outdoor leadership program at a college using this private school. I also figured in sport climbing a rappel without a belay might be protocol. With the not-covered course items, part of the reason I chose this course over a competitor was their listing exactly these curriculum elements in their material. These pieces weren't just covered briefly. They weren't even mentioned. Somebody in rec.climbing suggested the European guide sounded like he came from a particular part of Europe, and he correctly guessed which neck of Europe he came from.

Are the following commonly accepted behaviors for an "Intro to Mountaineering" course offered by a private climbing school? Prerequisites for the course are backpacking experience only (no rock climbing, etc,. req'd). Lead guide is IFMGA certified. Pre-course briefing participants are invited to bring their own ropes if they have them participants are invited to bring their own tents if they have them (Three-season tents deemed okay despite four season conditions) On-course no discussion of care of ropes no discussion of proper helmet wearing (with predictable results) instructors routinely standing on climbing ropes knots not checked for neatness after first day asst. instructor has just two years of climbing experience asst. instructor not anchored on exposed ledge while monitoring 50 metre vertical rappel students expected to pass asst. instructor to the outside in order to tie into rappel (more exposed than asst.) only back-up on rappel for beginners is a prussik, briefly intro'd. No belay on rappel. no real checking of harnesses after first day course elements as marketed not covered on-course (planning multi-day objective, mountain navigation, etc.) Stuff like that. Maybe these can be chalked up to differences in style? I don't want to superimpose my own program's standards, but I was getting an accumulation of red flags as the course prgressed. I asked in another forum whther this might be a more Euro approach and one poster predicted the guide was from the Mediterranean part of Europe. Just trying to process this experience.