Summer 2007 - The Alpine Club of Canada

North Face Camp participants adapt to plans B thru Z
BY MIKE WINGHAM AND BRYCE LEIGH
The North Face – Alpine Club of
Canada Leadership Courses are
designed to provide advanced
training for the Club’s section trip leaders,
General Mountaineering Camp amateur
rope leaders, and national camp managers.
Th e 2007 Winter Leadership Course was
held at Vista Lodge in the Esplanade
Range of the Selkirk Mountains, about
50 kilometres northwest of Golden, BC.
Topics covered included trip planning,
group management, avalanche hazard
evaluation and rescue techniques, route
fi nding, emergency management and
short-roping techniques for simple
winter climbs. Our group consisted of 10
students, three instructors and the camp
cook. We came from Whistler in the
west to Gaspé in the east, and points in
between.
Vista Lodge sits on a meadow next
to a lake just above treeline at 2100
metres. Th ere is tree skiing below and
lots of alpine terrain above. Most of
the nearby peaks are accessible on skis
or easily climbed on foot. Th e terrain is
fairly complex, off ering lots of learning
opportunities for route-fi nding, avalanche
hazard evaluation, group management
and short-roping. A steep high col,
aptly named “Col of the Wild”, accesses
more terrain to the north. Th e only
shortcoming is the absence of glaciers for
glacier travel and crevasse rescue skills,
but a small cliff near the Lodge worked
admirably as a surrogate crevasse.
We divided into three groups that
rotated through responsibilities such as
weather observations, water hauling and
dish washing. Th e three instructors also
took turns leading each of the groups on
our daily ski trips. Th is allowed us to learn
from all the instructors, each of whom
had their unique skills and teaching style.
Th e controlling factor of the week
was the weather. Th e fi rst fi ve days were
whiteouts, delivering snow, and more
snow – about a metre in all. Th at was
followed by two
sunny days, but with
temperatures around
-25°C. We made
the most of the
whiteout days with
classroom sessions
every morning and
evening, and practice
sessions near the
hut during the day.
Th ere were a few
trips further afi eld,
but lack of visibility
and the avalanche
hazard kept us
pretty conservative.
Perhaps the most
important lesson was
adapting to the situation and preparing
plans B-Z, as well as plan A.
One of the best aspects of this course
was the wealth and variety of experience
of not only the instructors, but the
participants as well. Everyone was able
to learn something new from everyone
else. Another was the realistic avalanche
rescue scenario the instructors set up,
with six burials at various depths on a
steep slope. It tested not only our search
skills, but also our ability to organize
and coordinate a rescue party. Th ere is a
tremendous diff erence between looking
for a single transceiver buried under a few
centimetres of snow in an open meadow,
and searching, probing and digging out
multiple packs buried up to two metres
deep on a steep treed slope, some on top
of each other.
Skills and techniques are constantly
evolving. We learned the latest in
transceiver technology, the Avalanche
Terrain Exposure Scale (ATES)
system for classifying the exposure of
backcountry routes to avalanche hazard,
and the Avaluator – a decision-making
tool for trip planning and route fi nding in
avalanche terrain.
Th e culmination of the course was
the last day, where each group was
responsible for planning and carrying
out a trip to a summit in Colpitti Basin.
Th is was ‘uncharted territory’ for us, to
the north of Col of the Wild. We had
to make use of all we had learned so far:
map reading, trip planning, avalanche
hazard evaluation, group management,
navigation, route fi nding, track setting
and short-roping. Keeping everyone
warm and well-fed was particularly
important on that day as temperatures
stayed well below -20°C.