Week Three: 30 Day Mountaineering Training with NOLS Alaska

Alaska is home to some of the most beautiful, rugged, and technical mountains in the world. There is no doubt why this place has become one of the best mountaineering locations worldwide. Through NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School), I spent 30 days learning mountaineering skills while living and traveling on glaciers.

Preview: During the 30 day NOLS mountaineering course we encountered 24 hour sunlight, crossed tracks of grizzly bears, fell into crevasses, stomped out runways for planes to land on the glacier, summited a technical mountain, made pizza in the backcountry from scratch and so much more.

You will read about all of these moments during the NOLS 30 day mountaineering training course below! Also, if you stick to the end, I have a few extra resources for you.

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Day 15: Pulley System Crevasse Rescue

I have always wondered how people create rope systems that give mechanical advantage and today was the day I learned how to do that myself! The pulley system gives a 3-1 advantage and you can see how it is configured in the second photo.

If anyone is curious about learning more about crevasse rescue/mountaineering in general, then I would highly recommend the book titled “The Illustrated Guide to Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue” We referenced this book frequently during our training. This book is in depth and almost exactly what we learn on a day to day basis on this course.

Day 16: Falling Into A Crevasse

3..2..1 and all the sudden I dropped 15 feet straight down into a crevasse about as wide as a school bus. As I was falling, I questioned whether or not the self-arresting team was going to stop me as I fell far beyond what I was imagining. However, all of this was part of the training and everyone was supposed to fall into the crevasse in order for each of us to work on setting up a 3-1 pulley system to get the fallen person out.

Needless to say, this was a very fun day as not every day do you get to understand what it feels like to be hanging from a rope in a crevasse. For a millisecond, I questioned whether the rope was going to stop me from falling as I fell much further down than I expected.

Day 17: ⁣Science Glacier

Primarily a travel day. We left the Nelchina glacier and arrived at the science glacier where we plan to use one of the next two days to make a summit attempt. Bad weather is coming in so our window is short and sweet- hope we can make it happen.

Headed to bed early due to an early rise tomorrow.

Day 18: Summit!

Today, by early afternoon, we reached the summit of Mount Fafnir after a strenuous climb including a crevasse fall from one member in my rope team. However, when he fell through, he was stopped from a snow bridge below and was able to crawl out with his crampons and ice axe. After this incident, we set up more snow protection for the next rope teams. 

Our view was beautiful! On one side of the summit we could see the beginning of the glacier we started on and the other side we saw an endless array of mountains with a slight view of the ocean far off.

Needless to say, everyone was quite ecstatic to be up on the summit as we all knew there was a likely chance we wouldn’t be able to.

Day 19: Heavy Crevasse Fields

Today was likely the most impactful day for me for the entire course so far. It started as a pretty crappy day. It started with us all wanting to head back down the glacier using an alternate route than we came from. So after a long 6 hour descent/ traverse along heavy crevasse fields we came to realize that we may need to turn around.

Even after the long descent, we began to realize that most of the crevasses are impassible and finding a route has become extremely difficult. Imagine crevasses that are as wide as a school bus and so deep we can’t see the bottom. What looks quite amusing and beautiful to the eye can be very deadly.

By early evening, our entire group came to the realization that we will need to set up camp and likely plan for retracing our route all the way back- which would add possibly days especially due to bad weather that is supposed to be coming in.

Morale was very low at this point- which I believe is good for us to experience. If you can’t figure out a safe way down (or up), it’s best to turn around regardless of how close you are or how inconvenient it may be.

Day 20: Shitting In A Crevasse

We found a route passible down towards the right side of the glacier. Needless to say, we were all overly joyful to hear this. It wasn’t completely ideal as it was exposed from rockfall but would do if we hurried through it. You want to minimize breaks in areas like this due to the dangers that can come unexpectedly. 

The other main part of today was that I had to unrope from the team and shit in a crevasse about 20 feet from everyone. This sounds odd but it is occasionally a reality when you are living out in the wild. You can’t venture out by yourself to get privacy while on a glacier.. ha!

Day 21: Bare Ice Glacier

Back on bare ice glacier! Officially no more roping up which is a bit enjoyable as this is a semi time consuming task. We traveled smoothly through the bare ice and eventually found camp where we began searching for ice climbing spots for tomorrow.

Later in the day, my tent mates and I took naps for the first time of the trip! Henry proceeded to make cinnamon rolls which proved to be quite nice while out here.

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Thanks for checking out week one of the 30 Day Mountaineering Training!

Here are a few more related articles:

• Week Two: 30 Days Alone In The Wilderness
• Week Three: 30 Days Alone In The Wilderness
• Week Four: 30 Days Alone In The Wilderness