Looking for tips from more experienced climbers on introducing inexperienced people to alpine climbing in the PNW, or just alpine mentoring more generally. Both wisdom and ideas on local routes that are useful resources. If any of yall are guides would especially love your feedback.
I have enough experience to feel confident with peers on moderate alpine terrain. I'm looking to take an inexperienced partner into the alpine though. I'm expecting some hiccups with gear selection, headgame, etc, but also miscalibration of my own expectations of his performance, and am here fishing for thoughts that might whittle down the unknown unknown element a bit if possible. I'm also concerned about solo decision making, since the usual paradigm is consensus decision making among peers to help catch mistakes early (same way you have your partner check your knots). Guides seem to have some secret for getting around the usual human foibles of this scenario though, and decision making is complicated hence why I'm asking about "wisdom".
Let me put this into a more concrete context. I'm an amateur climber coming out to the PNW for my first time end of May for a bit over a week. I've been alpine climbing for six years, mostly in Colorado and Chamonix, but various other places too. With peers of equal ability I tend to succeed on grade IV/D+ rock, ice or mixed and shoot higher. My partner for this trip however is not experienced, and I would be introducing him to alpine climbing during this trip. We've cragged together plenty over the last two years, including backcountry multipitch rock to 5.8, III and roadside ice to 4+, III in Northern New England (where I live now), and on which he leads easier pitches (rock) or follows (ice) proficiently, but he's still inexperienced leading trad rock and is on the cusp of his first WI leads.
Would like to use the trip to get his feet wet on something alpine without being reckless, particularly since he's moving to Seattle and will have plenty of opportunities to build on it. Could be rock, mixed or mountaineering, but right now my thought is to look for III/AD+ volcano routes like maybe the N Ridge of Baker or Emmons Glacier on Rainier, with maybe the promise of some skiing on the way down. Route suggestions or criticism are welcome though.
Different areas tend to have their own established routes that climbers will get on as part of a progression to ease into alpine climbing. For instance in Chamonix it might be the Cosmiques Arete for classic mixed or the Papillon Ridge for rock. In Colorado it might be the North Ridge of Spearhead or Marthas. I could list off a series of other routes in each area that are frequently on the list that follow these, are classic, and reasonable stepping stones. I don't know the PNW scene though, nor do I know the season, so any useful beta on routes that are useful resources for coaching novice alpine climbers would also be useful. My read on the N Ridge of Baker is that it might be like an appropriate 3rd mountaineering route, Emmons might be a good first or second. Something like West Ridge of Forbidden might be a good first alpine rock route. But these things are hard to judge from a distance, and I'm sure there are plenty of routes I don't know about.
