I’d love to hear people’s advice and opinions on building a good experience base for mountaineering. I’ve read through the forums for a little while now, but it would be great to get some specific advice.
Several years back I spent a couple of days on Mt Baker with the UBC Outdoor Club to practice glacier travel, self arrest, crevasse rescue skills etc. It was awesome fun, so it’s finally time to scratch the itch and get into it properly, build some solid skills and aim for some good objectives down the track (Rainier, Denali etc). I’d ultimately like to work towards being independent rather than consistently taking guided climbs.
So anyway, a friend and I have signed up for a 6 day course on Mt Baker this coming (early) July to start building mountaineering skills. Following that I’m going to be hanging around for a few more weeks (my friend heads back to the NE) and have planned some solo friendly activities to continue building my skills - climbing Mt Adams, Mt St Helens, and some other things just for fun - some trails around Rainier NP, and hopefully Mt Whitney. But I currently have plenty of other time open for planning other things.
I basically have a two part question - first off, are there any other things that would be good for me to look at while I’m over in the PNW at that time of year? It seems like it could be a bit late (no snow) for the solo-friendly routes on Shasta, and Hood seems like it could be a step too far for a solo climb. Are there other mountains/things that I haven’t thought of that I should be considering to build mountaineering skills?
Part two is how should I look to build skills over the next year and a half or so. I currently live in the NE (NYC area) so that limits my ability to join a PNW mountaineering club and make regular big mountain outdoor trips. Any advice on what things I should look to do, groups to get associated with etc? I already hike and camp a lot, and train very regularly, so it’s more about building the mountain climbing experience than anything else. All thoughts welcome!