"THE" american alpine club

[erik]

to stay on track with some good ranting.(see fee use, and mtneers or wac) it just rekindled that sick burning pit in my gut called the aac. after years of loyal membership, i started to wonder why i joined this esteem club. i remembered that i had joined to hopefully meet new faces and network with many greast climbers throughout the country. i started to review past newsletters and journals. i noticed a pattern. in the great and wonderful cascade mtns we had a branch of the club. but i never heard anything of them. none of these great bradford washburn slide shows and dinners, none of these climber festivals held in pristine mtn locations with loads of superb climbing to be done by all. i saw that other sections had wonderful events all the time. so i set out on a mission, to find these reclusive and maybe just as lost members of the cascade section of the club. i tried all avenues from the sections president all the way to the club vice president. all repsond, and with no suprise with great delay. paump and circumstance is what i was fed. after months of trading emails with these high powered super alpinest all across the country, i started to see what the aac was. nothing. i had finnished where i had begun no longer a member of the club. afterall club does mean "a group of people associated with common purpose." and i held no common purpose with any of the poeple i corresponded with. "edited"

if anyone else has had similar or exactly the opposite dealings with the aac i would love to hear them. and if you know someone in the lcub please tell them my story, as it should be heard by all section memebers, if you do exist? anyone.......anyone..........

[Colin]

I've been a member of the AAC for a couple years, and I am glad that I joined. True, it isn't much of a "club." However, it is a great resource for climbing I find. I think that the membership is easily worth the publications that one gets. AAC Newsletters, Accidents in North American Mountaineering, and the American Alpine Journal are great publications. Also, I think that the grant program is an excellent way for alpinists to fund expeditions without getting sponsored by some lamo company.

[Alex]

The US organized climbing scene is lame.

On that note, US climbing rags are lame. Like, I REALLY want to know about another route in Eldorado Canyon.

Of course, if we had HUTS! like those wily Canadians, alot more people would likely suddenly be interested in joining the alpine clubs. Imagine, a hut system throughout the Cascades - a hut at the base of the E Ridge of Eldorado, a hut at Goat Pass on Mt Stuart...a gondola to Colchuck Lake from Icicle Canyon!

If we had real climbing rags, like the old Mountain from days of yore, we might know something about other places to climb, other than Eldorado Canyon that is.

Oh well.

Alex

Alpingesellschaft, Die Peilsteiner

[Andy_Bourne]

Why don't we just build one of those airport people movers on the trail to Glacier peak to dispense of all that blasted walking. Then make a zip-line from the summit to the car, that way maybe more people will climb it, and we can start the NW Glacier Peak Climbing Club. Our naked meetings will be held at Kennedy Hot springs with tea and crumpets for all who join.

[J_Fisher]

AAC membership is worthy b/c of (1) the quality publications, (2) rescue insurance and (3) benefits when climbing outside the US. If most US climbers did the responsible thing and had rescue insurance the one of the fed's biggest arguments for user fees would be mooted.

It sounds like Erik's frustation is with the AACs lack of a social component. That's not an institutional fault of the AAC but the collective fault of local AAC members. PNW climbers seem to be a somewhat cliquey and reclusive lot.

 

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[This message has been edited by J Fisher (edited 01-10-2001).]

[This message has been edited by J Fisher (edited 01-10-2001).]

[Alex]

Jon Fisher, you are absolutely right in saying Americans are more into the wilderness experience than technical climbing. Which is why American climbers will always suck. Except for Lynn Hill!

Drawing from our American Car Culture, I would personally rather see a paved road to Kennedy Hot Springs. Maybe it would come a few hundred yards shy, so as not to overly disturb the hordes of tourists who would then show up.

On that note, those blasted people in Colorado have (count em!) TWO roads to the summits of 14,000 foot peaks, why do we have to stop at Paradise, I would rather see it go to Muir at least, and have it be plowed year round. I also think the road should be extended to top of Palmer on Hood, so I don't have to walk those boring miles and can still feel good about not taking the snow cat. That way Rainier becomes a day trip, as it should be, and Hood becomes and after-work training hike, like Mt Si.

Hell, with W in office, if we band together, we can get the Wilderness Act repealed and get the roads and huts we need into all those pristine climbing areas! A road into Cirque of the Towers sure would be nice. We could offer support for drilling the ANWR (no climbing there, so who cares?) in exchange for a set of roads and huts into the most majestic alpine climbing areas.

Yeah, I can see it all now....

[This message has been edited by Alex (edited 01-10-2001).]

[Ade]

Well I'll confess to being a member of the AAC, along with the AC ((British) Alpine Club) and ACC. I'm also the webmaster of the the AAC Cascades Section's rather old web site which I am in the process of slowly renovating.

You're right the Cascades section of the AAC doesn't seem to do lots of social events. But looking at some of the other sections neither do they.

Firstly I don't think the AAC is that sort of club, neither is the AC, although the Vancouver section of the ACC is pretty active. For your $75 each year you get a bunch of other stuff instead, books insurance, grants, access issues etc.

Secondly, Steve Swenson (another one of those American climbing types - who apparently all suck) is the section chair and, I guess like myself and the couple of other people I know in the Cascade section they're all pretty busy climbing and holding down jobs to pay for it. Organising talks, climbing meets and the like has taken a back seat.

Finally, there doesn't seem to be much interest from local AAC members, I've certainly never received any email about the web site. If you want a local club which runs lots of events there are several to choose from; Mountaineers, BoeAlps and WAC (you may not like them but that are there). This site is effectively a club too. So there's nobody pushing the Cascades section to organise lots of events as presumably those people who want that sort of thing from a club have found it elsewhere.

I will be doing some more to the Cascades section site but CascadeClimbers has filled a lots of the gaps Andrew and I talked about covering! I don't intend to duplicate the efforts of Tim and co.

Ade

(This is my personal opinion and not that of the AAC Cascades section etc etc)

 

[erik]

Erik

"edited" forwarded to me your rant about the AAC on a website somewhere.

I'm the disfunctional section chair that is supposed to be running things

here in the Northwest, but never seem to have the time to do so. The AAC is

a volunteer organization so everything that happens is a result of people

who want to step in and make it happen. If you want to see the AAC put on

shows with people like Bradford Washburn give me a call. I could use some

help. My phone number is "edited"

Steve Swenson

aparently my original emails about me wanting to help orgainze events must have slipped through the cracks......oh well.

people don't get me wrong the aac does publish fine periodicals and annual journals, i don't discount that at all. but if i wanted to join a book club or get another insurance policy i would have done just that.

CLUB.......people that is what i am talking about. where is the comraderie? the desire to climb with new people and share dreams? i do enjoy that same wretched stink from my partners' feet, but i'm not marrried to them and can only grow as climber by mixing it up with others.

p.s. i once tried to get good ole' slade to push a bill through called summits for everyone. have you ever had the problem trying to seeing crags, ice flows or mtns, well i propose that we clearcut all forests and strip mine all mtns, then we can put little plaques where the summits once were, with a diesel powered moving sidewalk to the top. think of the money we can make.

......SUMMITS FOR EVERYONE!!!!

[This message has been edited by erik (edited 01-10-2001).]