What a whirl­wind these last eight days have been! From clear skies and per­fect sun­sets to high winds and post hol­ing through snow, Jen­nifer, Alex and Guide Niels Mey­er saw it all dur­ing their Alpine Climb­ing Course. It even rained for a brief spell, just to remind them they were in the Cas­cades. Pro­gress­ing from rock climb­ing to alpine rock climb­ing, and then to glaciat­ed trav­el on one of the North Cas­cades’ most beau­ti­ful peaks, the Alpine Climb­ing Course pro­vides an intro­duc­tion to many forms of moun­tain travel.

Alex and Jen­nifer approach­ing South Ear­ly Win­ters Spire. Niels Mey­er photo

Jen­nifer, Alex, and Niels began their adven­ture in Seat­tle, where they met for the first time to dis­cuss equip­ment, plan meals, and pur­chase food for the next 8 days. After wan­der­ing around the gro­cery store pick­ing out sim­ple but nutri­tious food for our upcom­ing days in the moun­tains, they hopped in the Mad­ness Mobile and took off for Leav­en­worth to climb some rocks.

Jen­nifer and Alex both had expe­ri­ence climb­ing, but it had been a num­ber of years; review­ing the basics was an easy but valu­able refresh­er. Most of their climb­ing his­to­ry had been top rop­ing, so the three dis­cussed and prac­ticed the dif­fer­ences between top rope climb­ing and lead climb­ing. After they climbed a few pitch­es and were feel­ing com­fort­able with the basics, Niels taught Jen­nifer and Alex some of the more advanced climb­ing skills, such as rig­ging and rap­pelling for mul­ti-pitch climb­ing, and the ins and outs of build­ing anchors for both bolt­ed and tra­di­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed climbs. And then: Boom! Part one was a wrap! They packed up, jumped back in the car and head­ed to Wash­ing­ton Pass to do some alpine climbing.

Sis­ter and broth­er, climb­ing togeth­er on South Ear­ly Win­ters Spire. Niels Mey­er photo

After a good night’s sleep at the North Cas­cades Moun­tain Hos­tel, our team start­ed ear­ly and drove to Wash­ing­ton pass to climb The South Arête on South Ear­ly Win­ter Spire. This involves a snow climb­ing approach to excel­lent ridge run­ning on 4^th and 5^th class rock. With only a light freeze the night before, they post holed their way to the base of the climb (good train­ing for what was to come on Shuk­san…). Cruis­ing up one of the most clas­sic mod­er­ate climbs in Wash­ing­ton, with some of the most scenic views in the whole state, they talked about and used dif­fer­ent meth­ods for alpine climb­ing. The gang worked their way to the top and sat on the sum­mit boul­der for some pho­tos and a snack. The beau­ti­ful blue skies were a real treat! 

Jen­nifer, Alex, and Niels woke up their sec­ond morn­ing at Wash­ing­ton pass to high winds. They decid­ed going up the Lib­er­ty Bell was prob­a­bly not the best idea. Luck­i­ly, Fun Rock was close and there were plen­ty of skills to prac­tice! After some warm up climbs, Jen­nifer and Alex moved on to mock lead­ing. Jen­nifer had led a few climbs years ago and Alex had nev­er lead climbed. Mock lead­ing allows the climber to prac­tice lead climb­ing while still on top rope. This elim­i­nates the risk of dan­ger­ous lead falls while still allow­ing the climber to get the hang of plac­ing and clip­ping into pro­tec­tion. In the after­noon they began crevasse res­cue, a cru­cial skill to know when trav­el­ing through glaciat­ed mountains. 

Next they were off to Mount Shuk­san to con­tin­ue crevasse res­cue prac­tice, learn glac­i­er trav­el skills, and attempt the sum­mit. Warm temps and no night freeze made for a hard first day get­ting into base camp. The trail was still most­ly snow and the post hol­ing was tough. When you fall almost to your knee with every step, it makes for a long walk. After a full day of this, Jen­nifer, Alex, and Niels made it to camp and set­tled in for a well-deserved sleep. Day two on the glac­i­er to be snow school and crevasse rescue.

Sun­set from Shuk­san camp. Niels Mey­er photo

Crevasse res­cue is very impor­tant, but the first mar­gin of safe­ty is com­fort and sta­bil­i­ty while walk­ing on snow. So, the team spent the bet­ter part of the morn­ing using dif­fer­ent step­ping tech­niques and get­ting com­fort­able walk­ing on snow, with and with­out cram­pons. After snow school it was time to prac­tice the mechan­i­cal advan­tage sys­tems learned at Fun Rock. After Niels show­cased a full crevasse res­cue sce­nario, Alex and Jen­nifer jumped right in. After only a few times it was obvi­ous that both of them had a tal­ent for under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ent sys­tems, so they prac­ticed, prac­ticed, prac­ticed, and then it was time to rest for the sum­mit the next morning.

Plan­ning our ascent of Mt. Shuk­san over a cup of tea. Niels Mey­er photo

Due to it bare­ly freez­ing at night, the gang left camp at 2:30 AM to avoid avalanche dan­ger and trav­el­ing dur­ing the heat of the day. It was so snowy on Shuk­san that the only open crevass­es were in the ice fall, so the team was able to bee-line for the sum­mit pyra­mid. Arriv­ing at the base of the sum­mit, they were ahead of sched­ule. The sum­mit pyra­mid at this time of year is a steep, snow filled gul­ly. There was way more snow in the gul­ly than usu­al, which made for awe­some climb­ing! Pitch­ing out the gul­ly, they moved steadi­ly towards the sum­mit as the sun cast beau­ti­ful col­ors across the North Cas­cades. Climb­ing past the steep­est final sec­tion, they gained the sum­mit ridge and made their way towards the top. The sum­mit was a lot small­er than usu­al due to all the snow! With cor­nices on most sides and a steep drop of on the oth­ers, they sat in the very mid­dle to enjoy the amaz­ing view and refu­el before descent. After descend­ing the sum­mit pyra­mid with belayed down climb­ing and low­ers, the team lath­ered them­selves in sun­screen before the long, hot walk back to camp. Many hours of sleep lat­er Jen­nifer, Alex, and Niels packed up camp and head­ed back to the car before the heat of the day set in.

The final push for the sum­mit on Shuk­san! Niels Mey­er photo

Dur­ing the Course Alex and Jen­nifer learned about every­thing from sin­gle pitch rock climb­ing all the way to trav­el­ing on glac­i­ers and climb­ing alpine rock spires. With these skills they have begun their jour­ney in moun­tain trav­el. It takes a wide range of skills to safe­ly trav­el through a moun­tain­ous envi­ron­ment, and the Alpine Climb­ing Course pro­vides an intro­duc­tion to those need­ed skills. It is impor­tant that after the ACC our new­ly mint­ed climbers con­tin­ue to prac­tice these skills, or else they will lose them as fast as they learned them. Jen­nifer and Alex are now ready to head out with a sol­id skill base and con­tin­ue to enjoy the moun­tains safe­ly. Even though they are head­ed back to the mid west, there are plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice these skills. That being said, I hope we see them back out west soon!

Head­ing back to camp after a suc­cess­ful Shuk­san sum­mit. Niels Mey­er photo 

~MM Guide Niels Meyer

Doing your home­work for an alpine objec­tive can make the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure. What does that prepa­ra­tion look like? It’ll be a lit­tle dif­fer­ent for every­one but here are some key things that help me in my home­work for a climb. If you have an objec­tive you dream of it may mean prepa­ra­tion will include tak­ing a course before head­ing out to the climb. Or if you’re ready to go from an tech­ni­cal or expe­ri­ence stand­point the next step may be pulling out the maps and guide­books. I high­ly rec­om­mend down­load­ing Gaia or Cal­topo for use as a gps on your phone in the moment and for plan­ning your route before you leave the house.

Just like in back­coun­try ski­ing, trip plan­ning before you leave the house is a very impor­tant part of climb­ing and moun­taineer­ing. So what does that look like? First I’ll google my pro­posed peak and route and look through Google images for route over­lay pho­tos (espe­cial­ly pho­tos that were tak­en dur­ing the same time of year as my trip). I also look for pic­tures of spe­cif­ic places on the route that are impor­tant for route find­ing (i.e. route crux, entrance, exits, prob­lem bergschrunds, hid­den work arounds that are con­sis­tent annu­al­ly). I’ll cre­ate a file in Google Dri­ve and down­load the pho­tos into this file. Then I’ll start look­ing for trip reports on a google search, or sites like Sum­mit Post, stephabegg​.com, Moun­tain Project, Cas­cade Climbers, and face­book climb­ing groups. I’ll take key aspects of their route descrip­tions (always with a grain of salt) and I’ll copy and paste them into the google dri­ve file along with the pho­tos. Make sure you have the beta on your descent options and bail options if they exist. Then I’ll make this dri­ve avail­able ​“offline” so I can access my ​“beta cache” in the mountains.

P.S. Unless you actu­al­ly know the per­son giv­ing info on the route always take their beta with a grain of salt. Espe­cial­ly the Moun­tain­pro­ject comments

The descent; an often under­es­ti­mat­ed part of a climb­ing objec­tive. If you haven’t done your home­work and aren’t dialed on rap­pel sys­tems a great day of climb­ing in the alpine can quick­ly turn into an epic descent in the dark or spend­ing the night in an unplanned bivy. Know­ing the descent route, being effi­cient with set­ting up your rap­pels and han­dling the rope to avoid get­ting it stuck or caus­ing rock­fall are impor­tant skills. 

For alpine routes I always car­ry a small knife, a cou­ple quick links and extra 6 mil cord for clean­ing and beef­ing up rap­pel sta­tions that are ques­tion­able. If you add new cord or web­bing make sure you cut out and pack out the old ques­tion­able cord. Don’t add to the rats nest and always inspect the qual­i­ty of the rap­pel station.

And if you want to get more instruc­tion in the field, check out MM cours­es HERE

Get­ting out on a glac­i­er climb is the entry lev­el expe­ri­ence, from there you can find a wide range of both the dif­fi­cul­ties and the medi­um you are climb­ing; it could be easy going glac­i­er climb­ing on sea­son­al snow or a steep­er alpine ice route that involves frozen snow (neve) to give you the prop­er con­di­tions. And then there’s frozen water­fall ice, the more tech­ni­cal climb­ing done in winter.

Let’s get started.

Glacier climbing- what the heck is that? Am I climbing ice on a glacier climb, or what?

Glac­i­er Moun­taineer­ing: By def­i­n­i­tion, glac­i­ers are frozen, mov­ing bod­ies of ice- so yes, a glac­i­er climb like Mount Bak­er’s Eas­t­on Glac­i­er could be called an ice climb. But, glac­i­er climbs are all about ter­rain. What you’ll find are low angled slopes of glac­i­er that allow for walk­ing, but may occa­sion­al­ly require the use of an ice axe and cram­pons. It’s here that begin­ners can find their way with­out too much, if any, tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. Require­ments for this type of climb are sim­ple enough:

• A sense of adven­ture and ready to learn- all skills on climbs like the Eas­t­on Glac­i­er can be gained while on the trip
• Good phys­i­cal fitness
• The nec­es­sary equipment

What is the difference between the frozen waterfalls of Ouray, Colorado and for example, the North Ridge of Mount Baker?

Alpine Ice: Instead of short steep routes on water­fall ice that some­times are only 100 feet high or less, alpine ice climb­ing takes place on the airy alpine ridges and big snow/​ice faces; so we’re talk­ing up to 2,000-feet+ routes on Cas­cade ice routes, to the mon­ster faces in the Himalayas and Andes. Here its not all about just swing­ing your ice tools over­head to get your place­ment, its just going to require dif­fer­ent dif­fer­ent tech­niques- take a course to get it start­ed with the Alpine Ice Course or the Mount Bak­er Ice Climb­ing Essen­tials.

• On the Cas­cades clas­sic ice routes such as the North Ridge of Mount Baker rarely are there water­fall ice con­di­tions encoun­tered. Routes like the North Face of Mount Shuk­san, or the North Face of Mount Buck­n­er or Maude, take place on ter­rain the 40 – 60 degree angle, with usu­al­ly frozen snow the medi­um. As a result, dif­fer­ent tech­niques are used and only occa­sion­al­ly will you be using your ice tools over­head in pio­let traction.
• Cram­pon­ing tech­niques also vary from French tech­nique, which pro­vides mul­ti­ple or all points on the ice, or an Amer­i­can hybrid tech­nique using one cram­pon in French and the oth­er front pointing.
• While there is some cross-over in tech­niques used, it can be said that alpine ice and water­fall ice tech­niques are different.

On the North Ridge of Mount Bak­er you will tran­si­tion from alpine ice climb­ing tech­niques on about 40 degree slope to a 1 – 3 pitch sec­tion that you will use water­fall ice tech­niques as you work your way up the ice cliff sec­tion mid-route. On a route like the North Face of Mount Buck­n­er you’ll use pure alpine ice tech­niques as you ascend a con­sis­tent grade of steep­ness over the 1,000−2,000 foot route. While a ice climber may enjoy the vari­ety of moves, the alpine ice climber enjoys the rhythm, the pre­dictabil­i­ty of each move and an increased abil­i­ty to move effi­cient­ly as a result.

Alpine Ice is Nice!

Water­fall Ice: The sounds of ice climb­ing frozen water­falls – the plea­sur­able thwank of your pick going in with one swing, plates of ice cas­cad­ing down from brit­tle ice break­ing away, the screams of agony as your numb fin­gers warm up, your cram­pons crunch­ing and your front points thunk­ing, are as unique to ice climb­ing as the sport itself. One of the best places to expe­ri­ence it is in Ouray, Col­orado where you can get guid­ed climbs of the area’s clas­sic, or you can take a curse if its your first time.

• It is gen­er­al­ly cold­er, some­times A LOT cold­er, deter­min­ing not only your enjoy­ment, but also the type of ice you will encounter. With temps in the 20s-30s Fahren­heit you may encounter ​“hero ice,” which is the kind of ice pro­vides easy to get, sol­id place­ments for your tools and ice screws. But, with tem­per­a­tures in the let us say the 10 degrees above to minus 20 Fahren­heit this can change dra­mat­i­cal­ly to hard, brit­tle, or chan­de­liered ice, all which can make get­ting good place­ments that much more difficult.
• Water­fall ice on the more tech­ni­cal sec­tions always requires two ice tools and set­ting them over­head with aggres­sive swings, what as the French call pio­let trac­tion. Cram­pon­ing is gen­er­al­ly using front points only, although occa­sion­al rest steps you are able to get more points in.
• In sum­ma­ry, the tech­niques used on frozen water­falls is some­what dis­tinct to this medi­um when the ice is at a 50 – 90 degree angle.

Moun­tain Mad­ness has always tak­en pride in devel­op­ing new pro­grams across the globe and often improv­ing time-test­ed clas­sic itin­er­aries, like the Ever­est Base Camp Trek. Fol­low­ing this blog we’ll fea­ture some of the new ele­ments of our Nepal and Bhutan pro­gram in a series of blogs- stay-tuned! For now, take a look at the Ever­est Base Camp trek below.

What’s New

Loop Itin­er­ary: No more back­track­ing for MM trekkers. Typ­i­cal itin­er­aries go from Luk­la to Nam­che Bazaar where trekkers rest before con­tin­u­ing on. From there trekkers pass through var­i­ous vil­lages, vis­it the monastery at Thyang­boche and con­tin­ue on to the vil­lage of Ding­boche. Then its three more days of walk­ing to reach base camp. Stan­dard itin­er­aries then return the same route. So, here’s what’s new- from Nam­che we hang a left and go to the vil­lage of Kyangyjum, pass­ing the small towm of Khunde, where the hos­pi­tal found­ed by Sir Edmund Hillary can be found. From here its anoth­er two days walk­ing to Ding­boche where we meet up with the stan­dard trekking route. After the vis­it and overnight at base­camp (spring only), we head back to Nam­che on the stan­dard trekking route men­tioned above; retrac­ing only two days of walking. 

Equip­ment includ­ed: sleep­ing bag, down jack­et, map, and duf­fel bag pro­vid­ed at no cost in addi­tion, to all oth­er ser­vices; notably all restau­rant meals in Kath­man­du unless oth­er­wise noted.

Heli­copter out from Luk­la: with more con­sis­tent ser­vice, heli­copters fly­ing out from Luk­la offer a reli­able way to get back to Kath­man­du (flight based on full occupancy)

A Walk Among Giants

Few adven­tures com­pare to the thrill of trekking through the heart of the Himalayas to Ever­est Base Camp. This trek is a place where the mighty Himalayan peaks merge with cul­ture, his­to­ry, and nature. Whether you’re a sea­soned adven­tur­er or new to high-alti­tude trekking, this jour­ney offers an unfor­get­table experience.

From the moment you touch down in the vibrant city of Kath­man­du to the first exhil­a­rat­ing step onto the moun­tain trail, every moment feels like step­ping into a post­card. Imag­ine cross­ing sway­ing sus­pen­sion bridges draped with col­or­ful prayer flags, walk­ing along­side yaks loaded with sup­plies, and gaz­ing at tow­er­ing peaks like Ama Dablam, Nuptse, and, of course, Ever­est itself.

The sense of scale is hum­bling. As you ascend through lush rhodo­den­dron forests into the stark, rocky land­scapes of the Khum­bu region, the immen­si­ty of the moun­tains makes you feel both small and con­nect­ed to some­thing far greater than your­self. Adding to the mag­ic, this trek offers the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend a night at Ever­est Base Camp itself, soak­ing in the ambiance of this icon­ic site.

A Journey Through Culture

The Ever­est Base Camp trek goes far beyond the views; it’s also a deep dive into the lives and tra­di­tions of the Sher­pa peo­ple. From the bustling mar­ket streets of Nam­che Bazaar to the serene Thyang­boche Monastery, you’ll encounter a cul­ture that thrives in one of the world’s most chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments. The Sher­pas’ resilience, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to the moun­tains add a rich lay­er to the experience.

Tea hous­es along the trail give you a glimpse into the dai­ly lives of the locals. Owned by Nepali fam­i­lies, these cozy accom­mo­da­tions pro­vide a chance to con­nect with the cul­ture on a per­son­al lev­el. Over steam­ing cups of lemon gin­ger tea, you’ll share sto­ries with fel­low trekkers and gain insights from guides who know the region like the back of their hand. Moun­tain Madness’s guides, led by the leg­endary Dawa Sher­pa who climbed with our Founder Scott Fis­ch­er, are local to the Khum­bu Val­ley, and bring deep knowl­edge of the area while pri­or­i­tiz­ing both safe­ty and cul­tur­al immersion.

A Challenge Worth the Reward

Make no mis­take — this is a trek that demands both phys­i­cal and men­tal sta­mi­na. Long days of hik­ing, thin air, and the unpre­dictable nature of the moun­tains test you in ways that are as reward­ing as they are chal­leng­ing. But the sense of accom­plish­ment is unmatched. Stand­ing at Base Camp, with the Khum­bu Ice­fall and Everest’s soar­ing sum­mit in view, is a moment you’ll car­ry with you forever.

And then there’s Kala Pat­tar, a gen­tle, hike-able peak. For many, this option­al hike is the high­light of the trek. Reach­ing its sum­mit at 18,450 feet (5,624 meters) for sun­rise, with the gold­en light paint­ing Ever­est and its sur­round­ing peaks, feels like a reward for every step taken.

The pace of the trek is delib­er­ate­ly slow to allow for acclima­ti­za­tion, ensur­ing that every­one has the best chance of enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence safe­ly and com­fort­ably. This mea­sured approach helps you ful­ly take in the grandeur of the Himalayas with­out feel­ing rushed

The Trek of a Lifetime

The Ever­est Base Camp trek is unique because it blends adven­ture with intro­spec­tion. The phys­i­cal effort required to reach Base Camp mir­rors the men­tal clar­i­ty and sense of per­spec­tive that the moun­tains inspire. Along the way, you’ll forge con­nec­tions — with the land­scape, with the cul­ture, the Sher­pa peo­ple, and with your fel­low Moun­tain Mad­ness trekkers. It’s a jour­ney that changes you in ways that are hard to put into words.

So if you’ve ever dreamed of stand­ing at the base of the world’s tallest moun­tain, this is your chance. Ever­est Base Camp is much more than a des­ti­na­tion; it’s an expe­ri­ence that stays with you long after the trail dust has set­tled and your bags unpacked..

From pre­vi­ous trip. Writ­ten by Alan Rousseau. Start plan­ning your sum­mer dream trip now. Check out trip here

The spaghet­ti tra­verse, is a five day horse­shoe shaped tra­verse that begins and ends in Zer­matt. Although it begins and ter­mi­nates in Switzer­land almost all of the climb­ing occurs in Italy. Each hut is locat­ed on Ital­ian soil (or rock in most cases).

The trek begins from one of the high­est lift ser­vice points in Europe the Klien Mat­ter­horn (3883 m). There is very lit­tle ​‘fluff’ on this tra­verse as two hours after leav­ing the tram you are on top of the first of many 4000 meter peaks, the west­ern Breithorn. 

Each of the first three days of the tra­verse makes a U‑shape. You leave a hut climb up to the ridge tag one or sev­er­al 4000+ meter sum­mits then drop back down to the hut. The climbs are pri­mar­i­ly snow with many sharp knife edge ridges. Sev­er­al options include rocky scram­bles and/​or fixed lines like Pol­lux, and The Naso. 

These sum­mits are option­al and most of the time is spent trav­el­ing across large glacial systems.

Although the climb­ing, and glac­i­er tra­vers­es are incred­i­ble the thing that real­ly makes this trip is the Ital­ian huts. With inex­pen­sive house wines, beer on tap, WiFi, gre­gar­i­ous Ital­ian Hut keep­ers, and most impor­tant gen­er­ous por­tions of Ital­ian food on hand; the huts real­ly make this out­ing some­thing to remember. 

Pie and espres­so for an after­noon snack 

Or maybe a fresh­ly made piz­za, with beer?

Din­ner is gen­er­al­ly served around 7 pm. It begins with your first plate of either a soup or a pas­ta. Giv­en the name of our tra­verse we always opt­ed for the pasta!

Although the first course is gen­er­al­ly more than you would expect to eat in the moun­tains, a sec­ond course soon arrives. 

In this case chick­en, French fries, bread and mixed green sal­ad at 4500 meters!

Even­tu­al­ly after four huts and sev­en 4000 meter peaks reached it was time to descend back to zer­matt, down the grenz glacier.

And sev­er­al tricky sec­tions of the low glacial snouts, up lad­ders, and 8 hours of trav­el, we made it back to the cog rail of the Gorner­grat rail­way that would take us back to Zermatt.

- Alan Rousseau

Moun­tain Mad­ness, and our gen­er­ous climbers and trekkers, have been rais­ing funds to sup­port the Chang­ing Lives Nepal (CLN) Women’s Safe House since 2021. The Safe House is pro­vid­ing safe shel­ter, coun­sel­ing, access to legal resources, and eco­nom­ic skills train­ing to women vic­tims of vio­lence in a region where no such ser­vices exist­ed before. With edu­ca­tion­al out­reach to edu­cate men and women about women’s rights and to begin to shift soci­etal per­spec­tives on vio­lence against women, the Safe House stands as a mod­el of com­mu­ni­ty development.

The con­tin­ued suc­cess of the project has brought rea­son for hope — such is Mina’s sto­ry below.

The project is near com­ple­tion, but a few more goals need to be reached. We also encour­age you to read the update below from Chang­ing Lives Nepal and con­sid­er donat­ing so oth­er young women like *Mina get the resources they need to become the strong and inde­pen­dent women they have the right to be.

Mina’s Jour­ney from Vic­tim to Self-Reliance: Empow­er­ing Women, Restor­ing Hope

In May 2022, the Safe House opened its doors to women in rur­al Nepal who need­ed a life­line — a refuge from vio­lence, soci­etal stig­ma, and iso­la­tion. Among the many women who have found sup­port with­in its walls is Mina*, whose sto­ry is both heart­break­ing and inspiring.

A Life Shat­tered by Violence

At just 15 years old, Mina became a vic­tim of rape. For six months, she car­ried the trau­ma — and the result­ing preg­nan­cy — alone, hid­ing the truth from her fam­i­ly. But as her preg­nan­cy became vis­i­ble, so too did the weight of soci­etal judg­ment. Shamed by her fam­i­ly and ostra­cized by her neigh­bors, Mina had no choice but to leave her village.

It was then that she found her way to the Safe House.

Find­ing Safe­ty and Support

At the Safe House, Mina received the care and coun­sel­ing she des­per­ate­ly need­ed. Dur­ing her year-long stay, she gave birth to her baby in a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment. The Safe House not only pro­vid­ed shel­ter but also pur­sued jus­tice by fil­ing a case against her per­pe­tra­tor, though he ulti­mate­ly fled to India.

This year, the Safe House took a sig­nif­i­cant step toward empow­er­ment by intro­duc­ing voca­tion­al train­ing. With the sup­port of the local gov­ern­ment, four sewing machines and a train­er were pro­vid­ed to help the women devel­op income-gen­er­at­ing skills. Mina, along with anoth­er res­i­dent, embraced this oppor­tu­ni­ty and learned to sew with skill and confidence.

A New Beginning

When it was time for Mina to leave the Safe House, she was giv­en her own sewing machine — a tool that would change her life. With her new­found skills, she began work­ing as a seam­stress, earn­ing over $100 a month — an aver­age income in Nepal.

Per­haps most remark­ably, the Safe House­’s efforts extend­ed beyond Mina, offer­ing coun­sel­ing to her fam­i­ly. These ses­sions helped repair their frac­tured rela­tion­ship. Her father, once dis­tant, decid­ed to sup­port her by help­ing her estab­lish her business.

Today, Mina is not just sur­viv­ing but thriving.

The Safe House is mak­ing a pro­found dif­fer­ence in women’s lives — such as Mina’s sto­ry below. The project is near com­ple­tion, and you can help the new Safe House to open on sched­ule in March 2025

To make your tax-deductible donation Click Here

Why the Safe House Matters

Mina’s sto­ry under­scores the vital role the Safe House plays in rur­al Nepal. For many women who face vio­lence, soci­etal stig­ma com­pounds their suf­fer­ing, leav­ing them iso­lat­ed and with­out resources. The Safe House pro­vides a haven where they can heal, rebuild, and learn to stand on their own.

But there is still so much work to be done and we wel­come you to help us fin­ish the work.

Team­work is at the core of the suc­cess of the Safe House project. CLN’s part­ner­ship with Moun­tain Mad­ness and the gen­er­ous dona­tions from our guests, All the Sky Foun­da­tion , and Anoth­er Brick in Nepal have all paved the way for the Safe House to go from vision to real­i­ty, with the com­ple­tion of a 16-room per­ma­nent home in 3 years. Start­ed in a rent­ed house, women of this region began to have a safe place in their com­mu­ni­ty and bet­ter access to legal resources. The con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent Safe House, and the signed agree­ments with local gov­ern­ment for future man­age­ment, mean that this project will con­tin­ue to grow and sup­port women across the dis­trict for decades to come.

Look­ing Ahead: A Vision for 2025

Future goals for the Safe House include:

• Ful­ly fur­nish­ing the build­ing to cre­ate a com­fort­able and dig­ni­fied liv­ing space.
• Com­plet­ing the com­pound fenc­ing to enhance secu­ri­ty for the women and their children.
• Expand­ing skills-train­ing pro­grams to empow­er more women with tools for independence.
• Ded­i­ca­tion in March 2025 and the local com­mu­ni­ty tak­ing over both fund­ing and operations

With your sup­port, we can con­tin­ue trans­form­ing sto­ries like Mina’s from tales of tragedy to tri­umph. Togeth­er, we can build a future where every woman has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reclaim her life and her dignity.

*Name changed to pro­tect privacy.

With win­ter here in the Cas­cades and across the north­ern lat­i­tudes there are things to do besides just dream of pow. Exer­cise. And noth­ing wrong with wax­ing up your boards. But, equal­ly impor­tant is get­ting your­self men­tal­ly ready to con­front the haz­ards win­ter also brings.

There are lots of resources for get­ting your­self edu­cat­ed on the dan­gers of avalanch­es and how to man­age the risks, includ­ing some of our cours­es list­ed below. But, one of the best for North­west skiers and snow­board­ers is the North­west Avalanche Cen­ter. They’re gear­ing up for the sea­son and below you’ll find some great resource links and some things to think about before the snow­pack gets big. 

Writ­ten by Dal­las Glass

When deal­ing with ear­ly-sea­son avalanche haz­ards the bot­tom-line is sim­ple: If there’s enough snow to ride, there’s enough snow to slide. Whether you’re out in the moun­tains hik­ing, hunt­ing, ski­ing, climb­ing, snow­board­ing, or rid­ing, approach steep smooth snow-cov­ered slopes with cau­tion and bring your avalanche res­cue gear. Don’t let the date on the cal­en­dar fool you when you encounter win­ter-like con­di­tions; ear­ly sea­son avalanche fatal­i­ties have occurred.

You are most like­ly to encounter ear­ly sea­son avalanche haz­ards in high­er ele­va­tion ter­rain, on per­ma­nent snow­fields, and in wind-loaded pock­ets. This can pose a dilem­ma since these are fre­quent­ly the same loca­tions where ear­ly-sea­son recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties exist. Pay atten­tion to how much snow is on the ground and where the wind may pile the snow deep­er. This can help you rec­og­nize when you tran­si­tion into areas of deep­er snow. Lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion this time of year can make assess­ing avalanche haz­ard more dif­fi­cult. When you find a steep smooth snowy slope assume it could avalanche, take time to make obser­va­tions, and con­sid­er low­er angle ter­rain. Ear­ly sea­son con­di­tions har­bor numer­ous obsta­cles and can make even small avalanch­es dead­ly by car­ry­ing you through rocks, into trees, or over cliffs. 

If you’re out in the moun­tains let us know what you find. You can share infor­ma­tion with your avalanche com­mu­ni­ty by sub­mit­ting an observation.

NWAC is active­ly prepar­ing for win­ter. Avalanche and moun­tain weath­er fore­casts typ­i­cal­ly begin in mid to late Novem­ber as the win­ter snow­pack starts to build. In the mean­time, take a moment to check over your gear, refresh on your snow and avalanche train­ing, and get excit­ed about the win­ter to come.

NWAC Staff

Thanks to NWAC for this great primer from a few years back, info applic­a­ble for every win­ter. If you’re inspired to get some more train­ing for your win­ter adven­tures, below are some links to get your plan­ning start­ed with Moun­tain Madness.

Avalanche Edu­ca­tion Cours­es (all fol­low the Avalanche Insti­tute of Research and Edu­ca­tion guidelines):

Res­cue Course – one day

Lev­el One – course work includes one evening lec­ture and two field days

Lev­el Two – pro­fes­sion­al lev­el certification

Back­coun­try ski­ing and snow­board­ing courses:

Back­coun­try Ski­ing Fun­da­men­tals Course — gets the basics cov­ered and then some; sched­uled trips avail­able or cus­tom courses

Split­board Back­coun­try Basics — for first-time back­coun­try split­board­ers, or those with some expe­ri­ence; lots of top­ics cov­ered for both

Guid­ed Trips:

Cas­cades Back­coun­try Ski Tours — choose your route, or let the guides find the secret stash­es of pow for you

Get­ting to places like this doesn’t just hap­pen. It takes some work, phys­i­cal work of haul­ing your­self up the moun­tain. But even before that you have to put in the work of doing your homework.

It’s the qui­et time at home, in a back­coun­try hut, or on the dri­ve to your des­ti­na­tion. It’s a nec­es­sary pre-tour rou­tine, before you even put your gear on, when you set your­self up to make good deci­sions before you’re out in it.

My goal at this time is to pre-bias myself to make good choic­es for that day’s con­di­tions. If I don’t do this before­hand and I’m faced with a beau­ti­ful line with blow­er pow then I’m prob­a­bly going to build a nar­ra­tive that allows me to ski that line because pow­der is so com­pelling and I WANT TO GO TO THERE.

This is why we pre-bias our­selves by rul­ing out ter­rain based on the day’s con­di­tions before we’re star­ing at it long­ing­ly. It’s often a dif­fi­cult deci­sion, one that pal­ces good judge­ment over desire. The ter­rain we choose then to inter­act with is one of the few things we have com­plete con­trol over and it’s the pri­ma­ry way we can mit­i­gate our expo­sure to avalanches.

Your local avalanche cen­ter has all the infor­ma­tion you need to make these ter­rain choic­es for the day. Choos­ing where you’re going to go but also, and per­haps more impor­tant­ly, where you’re not going to go.

Put in the time to dig into the avy fore­cast for your zone, not just read­ing the pri­ma­ry prob­lems, but also the fore­cast dis­cus­sion and any obser­va­tions that were submitted.

Set your­self up for suc­cess, have a plan and be obser­vant of what’s hap­pen­ing out there.

In 2020, I was caught in an avalanche that car­ried me 1,500’ through com­plex ter­rain (WS-AS-R1-D2‑O). It was in the mid­dle of the COVID lock­down and I argued the case to myself that I could still ski tour respon­si­bly, make good deci­sions and avoid any inci­dents that would require res­cue and med­ical per­son­nel to come into con­tact with each oth­er unnec­es­sar­i­ly. I clear­ly stretched that assump­tion too far. Some of my friends thought back­coun­try ski­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic was irre­spon­si­ble, and oth­ers thought it was a rea­son­able social­ly dis­tanced activity. 

Three friends and I had a fun link up planned on Sno­qualmie Pass — we were going to ski the east face of Mt Thom­son and the south face of Alas­ka Moun­tain. Both involved a bit of top-down route find­ing and up to 45 degree ski­ing with some expo­sure. We had been in a spring diur­nal cycle for weeks, and although the pre­vi­ous cou­ple days had been espe­cial­ly warm, the fore­cast indi­cat­ed we would get a sol­id freeze for our ski day. 

The overnight freeze was not as good as we had hoped for. Boot­ing up Thom­son was punchy, how­ev­er it was sup­port­able to skis and we enjoyed corn snow on a nice E fac­ing run down to Edds Lake. We then skinned up a frozen N/NW aspect to the top of Alas­ka moun­tain with the hopes of tim­ing sim­i­lar corn con­di­tions on our S face descent (typ­i­cal­ly E fac­ing slopes get cooked quick­er than S fac­ing due to the sun angle in the morning). 

We were greet­ed to ripe corn snow at the top of Alas­ka. With­out wast­ing much time, I dropped in first elat­ed by the prime sur­face con­di­tions on a beau­ti­ful moun­tain. After a cou­ple hun­dred feet of fall line ski­ing we began tra­vers­ing skier’s left to avoid cliff bands below us. The face is con­vex and it was hard to tell exact­ly which exit couloirs went clean so we hedged our bets and tra­versed a bit fur­ther to get to an obvi­ous weak­ness that went clean with­out a doubt. We kept our dis­tance and I was in front. 

There were a cou­ple of spine/​rib fea­tures that we had to tra­verse across and I could feel a huge dif­fer­ence in the SW fac­ing side of these spines vs the SE side. I skied across the SE side of the first spine quick­ly and was eas­i­ly able to push a small wet loose slide off my down­hill ski. One more spine to cross, same tac­tic — I thought. This one was a lit­tle big­ger and I felt the wet snow entrain­ing more than the pre­vi­ous spine. Feel­ing spooked, I skied fast to get off of this sun-cooked aspect but my skis were get­ting pulled downs­lope. I looked uphill and saw a slab fail above me and I was a part of this mov­ing mass before I knew it.

I was mov­ing very fast, there were moments of com­plete dark­ness and glimpses of day­light. I tried to keep my head uphill to avoid impact as the slope I was careen­ing down was lit­tered with rocks and cliff bands. I felt one ski pop off and the oth­er snapped in half instead of releas­ing because my toe pieces were locked. After what felt like an eter­ni­ty in the wash­ing machine I start­ed slow­ing down. The debris fanned out on the low­er apron of the face and I came out just fine. I pulled myself out of the path and sat on an exposed dirt out­crop­ping, shak­ing with adrenaline.

I yelled up to my friends a cou­ple times but they were out of sight. They didn’t see me get swept away as I was hid­den by the ter­rain fea­ture that ini­ti­at­ed the slide. A few min­utes went by and I saw them ski­ing down spaced out with bea­cons out. After get­ting their atten­tion, they grabbed my oth­er ski and two poles and we grouped up. Get­ting out with a bro­ken ski was no easy task but we were able to splint it togeth­er well enough to make it work with hose clamps and a probe.

I can pin­point numer­ous heuris­tic traps/​mental short­cuts that ulti­mate­ly result­ed in a lack of delib­er­a­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion regard­ing snow sta­bil­i­ty that day. There were no glar­ing red flags, we were in a group of 4 expe­ri­enced guides and avalanche pro­fes­sion­als, and we were mov­ing quick­ly. We had our sites set on a tour plan and we didn’t take enough time to dis­cuss the nuances of the ter­rain and the chang­ing conditions.

Wet avalanch­es are sta­tis­ti­cal­ly less dan­ger­ous to peo­ple than dry avalanch­es for a num­ber of rea­sons. The insta­bil­i­ty is less like­ly to per­sist as long, it usu­al­ly coin­cides with bad ski­ing con­di­tions, and the major­i­ty of wet avalanch­es don’t involve a slab. I’ve always respect­ed the destruc­tive poten­tial of wet slabs in par­tic­u­lar, but most­ly in the con­text of his­tor­i­cal events. For fore­cast­ers, wet slabs are a total headache to accu­rate­ly pre­dict. How­ev­er, for recre­ation­al skiers, avoid­ing ski­ing either after extend­ed peri­ods of warm weath­er with­out overnight freezes or big rain events seems like a win­ning strat­e­gy. There’s always a mid­dle ground though — it’s not just either easy to man­age wet loose or big scary wet slab haz­ard. Going back to the basics and choos­ing sim­pler ter­rain for a mar­gin­al overnight freeze is my biggest take away. Also, while out­door recre­ation seems wide­ly encour­aged now dur­ing this pan­dem­ic — avoid­ing risky activ­i­ties will cer­tain­ly help curb the spread of the virus.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Join Jake this win­ter on a Lev­el 1 avalanche course and you’ll undoubt­ed­ly hear some more sto­ries and be able to take home some valu­able lessons learned by Jake in real time. 

Writ­ten by Stephen Heath

In the back­coun­try we rely on our skis, bind­ings, skins, and boots to take us long dis­tances into remote cor­ners of the back­coun­try. We stress them and test their lim­its with­out think­ing much about it and take it for grant­ed that they’ll bring us back to the trail­head with­out any hic­cups. But gear breaks, espe­cial­ly light­weight gear with lots of mov­ing parts. Are we pre­pared if the equip­ment that we’re rely­ing on sud­den­ly is no longer func­tion­ing? If you can’t click into your skis how will you get back to the car? These and oth­er ques­tions are addressed in our Back­coun­try Ski Fun­da­men­tals Course, but you can get start­ed prepar­ing with some things list­ed below.

It’s vital that every­one car­ries some sort of repair kit in the back­coun­try so you can fix your gear or rig up a way to get home. In the pho­tos you’ll find pic­tures of my repair kit that lives in my pack. I’ve used it many times to fix mine and oth­er peo­ples gear. The tools I’ve used the most are the ski straps. These can fix so many prob­lems. Make sure you car­ry the long ones and not the short­ies, the short ones are pret­ty use­less in my expe­ri­ence. The oth­er is the Black Dia­mond bind­ing bud­dy, along with var­i­ous bits to fit any screw you may encounter.

My Repair Kit Includes: Leather­man Skele­tool, bind­ing bud­dy with bits, 5 long ski straps, scraper, skin wax, skin tail piece and clip, pow­der bas­ket, 3 zip ties, large-small pipe clamps, 20ft of cord, hex wrench tool.

This all nes­tles into a small pouch and comes with me on every tour.