I'm wanting to take my first step into "mountaineering" and am wondering if someone could give some insight on some of the "mountaineering" courses offered on Mt. Washington.

Various guides in North Conway offer a 3 day "intro to mountaineering" course where the first day you practice self arrest, belay techniques, and some other basics up Wiley's Slide. The second day you step it up a bit on Crawford Notch and continue with the rope work, and then on the 3rd day you attempt to summit Washington via Lionshead.

The cost is roughly 4 or 5 hundred dollars (depending on group size) for the guide including all climbing equipment, 250 bucks in gas and tolls from VA ,and a few nights in the cheapest motel I can find.

Does this sound like a worth while investment? Will I be disappointing on how "introductory" this is? I'm concerned I'm going to be wishing I had just saved up my pennies for a little while longer and made a trip out to the cascades or something.

Anyone know how legit the training is and if it's money well spent? Anyone interested in joining a group the first weekend of January for something like this?

Thanks.

I've never been into the White Mountains, but from all descriptions I have read, the biggest objective hazard for Mt. Washington is the temperature and the wind. With the rocky nature of the east coast mountain ranges, I suspect that there are certainly routes on Washington that provide enough of a technical nature to get you started.

An introductory course is definitely an advisable and worthwhile investment for beginning mountaineering, but $400 seems a bit steep and would definitely leave me disappointed in the cost-for-value department. Living among the Cascades, I would recommend taking a introductory mountaineering course and then climbing one of the easier glaciated peaks with a guide.

So, subtracting gas, hotel, and equipment rental, we're talking under a hundred bucks for a three-day course? That's what, five bucks an hour? Sounds like a bargain! I hope you tip the guide!

OK, I looked up the 3-day "basic mountaineering" course at IMCS. I assume the other schools have similar rates. For a group of 4 it's $500 per person, which is more like what I would expect. Basically you are paying for the time with the guide; it helps if you have clear goals so the guide can customize the curriculum to help you meet them. This isn't a one-shot "here's all the skills you'll need, now go climbing" kind of deal, it's designed as an introduction for people with zero experience. Most of the skills require more than three days of practice to master.

Nicozone is right that the challenge on Mt Washington (assuming decent physical fitness) is the potential for severe weather, not the route. Taking a mountaineering course in the East is kind of weird; you're going to spend a day or so learning technical stuff that you won't actually need on the Lion's Head route. But there's nothing wrong with that, you're just learning different stuff on different days. (And you do get useful cold weather practice while you're climbing Willey's Slide and when you set up "base camp" the second day.)

If your cost/time for driving isn't too different from flying to the cascades, I'd be tempted to go that route. You might get better weather, a longer trip, and a more natural skills progression out West. But I haven't done a course in either setting.

Mount Washington possesses many hard mountaineering routes. It has endless possibilities for mountaineering from easy walk ups (Lions Head Winter Route) to Huntington's Ravines ice routes. Tuckermans Ravine hosts many decent snow climbs and huge avalanche potential all for great learning possibilities. If not wanting to spend 3-400$$ on a intro to mountaineering course find a "meetup.com" group or some locals here willing to give you an apprenticeship [or do what I did, self instruction over a period of 20 years. (disclaimer: not advised!)]

Jeez man, I don't know. That's a lot of dough. If you were local, I'd recommend one of the AMC workshops. For example, at a cost of $60 or so, you can take a winter backpacking workshop with the Boston chapter and attend 5 2-hour evening lectures put on by seasoned veterans on all aspects of winter hiking and backpacking. You can then go on as many trips as you like with leaders who have been doing this forever. The trips are usually free or close to it, and you have access to the leader for questions for the entire trip. And there's even an "above treeline workshop" where you'll spend a day on basic mountaineering skills (ice axe and crampon use, but no truly technical stuff), and a second day summitting Mount Washington. All of that for a grand total of $60. Now, a personal guide will have more flexibility, and he makes his living doing this so certainly he's got more skin in the game. Furthermore, if you're really looking at technical stuff (ice climbing in Huntington ravine, for example), then a guide is a decent way to go. But if the "final exam" is a climb up Lion Head - well, either the weather is going to cooperate, or it's not, your success won't have much to do with the new skills you picked up.

If I were you (and I'm not), I'd try to learn as much as I could locally as these things do take time, and it's not real cost effective to travel back and forth to NH and WA or wherever. Can you get some experience winter camping and ice climbing? I'd do that, then do something more advanced with a guide someplace exotic like the Cascades.

Pick up a copy of Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, learn and practice all of the skills within that book that you can practice locally. Then figure out which specific skills require travel. If you have a good base of basic skills, the travel will have much bigger impact on your development.

Thanks for all of the responses.

Nico - I think I'm in agreement with you. The value ratio just isn't where I want it to be for the trip. It doesn't seem like an extreme enough of an environment to take away enough information to justify paying 3 days of guide fees for.

Catamount - Thanks for sparking an idea in my head. Maybe there's no point in making the longer haul to NH for "intro to winter" when winter can be found much closer. I found a 2 day "ice climbing fast track" in the catskills I might look into for about 280. I've even got a place I could spend some nights while checking out the catskills to ease things on the wallet a little too. Then when I'm ready to tackle some more advanced terrain, I'll already have some experience and can enjoy the harder routes NH has to offer, thus making the extra distance and guide fees more worth the money.

Natreb - I like the idea of going into a course with personal objectives and is probably the way go. I might even opt for solo instruction in NH when the time comes.

Mtneering - Self instruction scares the hell out of me. Probably my wife more so.. I didn't have a whole lot of luck looking on meetup either. But, if anyone comes across this post and is looking for a climbing partner eager to learn, let me know. I've at least got the right clothes/gear needed except the stuff I can easily rent like boots/crampons/ice tools.

As you may have gathered at the point, I think I might take a different approach on this and just focus my resources into ice climbing for a year or more. I've got NY a little closer with some great looking ice and supposedly if the weather cooperates the ice can get come in pretty nice in NC < 3 hours away. Then I'll take those skills to NH/Cascades when the time is right.

Thanks again for the responses and if anyone wants to lend some instruction, let me know.

Sorry HikerBrian, You must have posted as I was writing earlier.

Those AMC work shops are definitely a pretty sweet deal. On such short notice I don't think it's an option this year, but I'll keep an eye out for 2015. Looks like they want some previous rock experience anyhow, which I don't have.

I think my short term goal is to climb Mt Washington through pinnacle gully, then hike up the summit cone to the summit, weather permitting. I'd like to do this without a hired guide, and just one or 2 climbing partners that I need to find.

As far as local stuff goes, I can do some winter backpacking in WV. They get a pretty good amount of snow. In VA we're lucky to see a foot and have temps dip into the teens, but when we do I'm hiking out in it for whatever rush this stuff gives me. As I mentioned above, I'll check out the climbing in NY and NC and see where that gets me.

Good tip on the book. I picked it up a few weeks ago and have been digging into when I get a free second.

Thanks.

Have you done any rock climbing? It's extremely helpful to be comfortable with ropes before you venture onto steep ice. You should have little trouble finding rock climbing instruction locally.

Nothing outside of some casual efforts at rock gyms probably a dozen times.

I'm definitely interested in the rope work, so maybe it's something else I could do to work on some skills. The actual climbing up rock hasn't totally taken my interest like ice and snow have though... there's just something about it I can't stop thinking about getting out and doing it.

But, making the most out of the area I'm in is probably a good idea also. I'll look into it more.

I thought it was a worthwhile experience (summer) at IME Doug Madara and at Chauvin Guides Marc Chauvin.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend you do it, though it really hinges on the guide and how good they are.

I did one of these courses about 10 years ago with a girlfriend. I already had alpine experience, and this was more like a kinda of a vacation with her... where I could outsource a lot of the climbing logistics.

The Guide was Kurt Winkler, and to have access to a guy like that is a bargain at any price. going in with experience, I still learned a LOT from him. The simplest thing he had us do; repeatedly practicing self arrest at Willeys Slide, saved my life 2 years ago. He drilled us on it, had us stumble and fall different ways to get a feel for reorienting ourselves. Prior to that, I'd only tried a self arrest once, for fun, and thought I "knew" how to do it.

Find a guide who is older, Kurt may still be doing it, and ask him lots of questions during your course. Lots. You're not paying for a shaparone, you're paying for an educator.