Glacier School

Introduction for Planners to Glacier School

What is Glacier School?

Glacier School is a 2-day (weekend) course intended to teach safe and efficient means of traveling over glaciers. The School is divided into two courses:

Glacier 1 is designed for beginners to snow and glacier travel. It is expected that you have previous backpacking and camping experience.

Glacier 2 is for students with previous glacier experience that want to learn more advanced skills or to climb a peak.

What Happens at DRY SCHOOL?

Please bring CASH for all expenses (preferably small change). There will be a brief introduction to glacier travel before we outline what’s to be expected for the weekend. Then, we’ll arrange transportation, stove and tent groups, collect your fee, sell prussik cords, possibly lend out VOC gear if there's any left (max of 4 items each), and finally we’ll teach a few rope skills that will come in handy on the weekend. If we can find a suitable place (tree) we'll practice prussicking.

Expectations

Students should expect to learn the following skills:

• Knots for mountaineering
• Traveling over snow and ice with crampons

Time line for the organization

It is best if this can happen either the 1st or 2nd weekend of the fall semester, before people start getting too overwhelmed with school. It is also a good way to encourage networking between old and new members.

Some things that need to be done in advance (3 weeks is good):

• Decide WHERE you will be holding Glacier School. Based on this decision, decide if you want to hold both Glacier 1 and Glacier 2 at this location. Consider # of ppl, and if you want to cap numbers (this is important for high use areas, i.e. Cerise Creek, where other Backcountry users don't like to see big hordes of VOCers.) -post on other backcountry forums that a large VOC group will be in the area.
• Decide WHO you want for instructors. If you have no idea, ask other exec members, because they will have ideas from previous years. It is good to think about getting people who have a reliable reputation. If you don't know them, ask other execs what they think, sometimes there can be sketch issues.
• Decide WHAT you want to have taught at glacier school, and structure the groups and day accordingly
• If you are going into a high use area, it is good to check with the owners/maintainers of the area (i.e. Cerise Creek = Scott and Erica Flavelle, 8286 Alpine Way, Whistler BC, V0N 1B8 604 932 8904) to ask if it is ok to have a large group come in that weekend.
• If you are going to an environmentally sensitive area, you should think about 'pack it in, pack it out' in relation to ALL human wastes - biodegradable dog poo bags are about $4/50 or so from IGA.
• Advertise on the message board at least 2-3 weeks before the trip.
• WINE - try and organize how many litres of wine you need, (250mL/person is a good rule of thumb) and get the mulling spices to go with it (usually a few cinnamon sticks, a small orange (use juice and rind), a handful of raisins and some TBLSPs of sugar is good for 1.5L of wine. Or make it up yourself.
• Money - usually there is a small fee associated with Glacier school, this is used for poo bags, wine, photocopying etc. Decide what it will be in advance of Dry school, and DO NOT ACCEPT IOU's.

Finally, decide when Dry school will be held, book the room, buy the prussik cord (see old wiki pages) and decide whether or not you want to print theory booklets. I thought that maybe it was a waste of paper, and it would be better to just post a good link to some webpages that go over theory of glacier travel, knots etc. This will save printing costs as well. Make sure Dry School is booked in an area with a stairwell to facilitate mock crevasse rescue scenarios (Buchanan A-100 is a great room, with an open stairwell nearby). HAVE FUN!!!!!!

• Self Arrest
• Snow and ice anchors
• Crevasse rescue
• Belaying techniques for mountaineering

The prerequisites for being a student at glacier school are minimal. Students must have overnight backpacking experience. Some rope skills (such as belaying, common climbing knots, etc) are desirable but not absolutely necessary.

"Instructors for glacier school are club members who volunteer their time, and are not professional guides. If you don't feel comfortable taking responsibility for your own life in the context of an informal course advised by VOC instructors, you should take a mountaineering course offered by a professional guiding service."

Past Events

2009

Glacier School 2009 was held at the Anniversary Glacier. Glacier (2) was at Mt Baker.

The Anniversary Glacier was pretty well snow-free, making bad conditions for practicing ice axe arrests. The weather was atrocious on Saturday but Sunday was sunny and warm. We had 40 people camped below the glacier. The Hut was being renovated and re-supplied with firewood, so we were not welcome there.

Logistics

Planning

We discussed several locations for G1, but once again settled on Anniversary Glacier. Baker would have been a better choice but border problems would stop some of our Members, and we are limited to 12 people on the Coleman Glacier side. G2 climbed Baker, and they were happy with that.

The weather was terrible Saturday, but nice and sunny on Sunday. If we could hold it a week earlier, we might get better weather, at least statistically. The Flavelles were doing their firewood/hut reno on our weekend so we didn't use their Hut at all, so our $200 payment to them was perhaps over-generous.

Because it was a low snow year there was no soft snow to practice ice axe arrests. The crevasses were fine for crevasse rescue trials.

Handout

In 2009, the Veenstras totally revised the handout which we supply to students of G1. Unfortunately it runs to 18 pages and needs a color printer to adequately show the knots. This document is excellent and should perhaps be printed and sold to participants rather than having them print their own, because lots of people don't have color printers or they are lazy or they want to save money. You can find it at Info Booklet

Budget

Prussics were sold at $5 each to those who wanted them. We bought 30 with staff discount at MEC, and we sold 23, so we lost a little money and gained a few prussics. We need to charge more if we don't get the staff discount.

Glacier 1 students were charged $10 each, or $300 total. This went $70 for 8 liters of cheap red wine, $200 donation to the Flavelle Hut, $15 for spices and sugar, and $15 profit to the Club. We survived on 4 liters of wine, chiefly because it's hard to find people to carry it. Glacier 2 students were not charged anything.

Gear List

See Info Booklet.

2008

Glacier School 2008 was held at the Anniversary Glacier. Glacier (2) was at Joffre Lakes. Weather was somewhat miserable both days.

2007

Glacier School 2007 was held at the Anniversary Glacier.

2006

Held at Anniversary Glacier on September 16^th - 17^th. Photos are available on the VOC Gallery.

2005

Held on Mt. Baker (Easton Glacier) on September 17^th - 18^th . 3+ hour drive SE of Vancouver. Dry conditions, and no snow patches for instruction and practice off the glacier. Weather was cold and wet.

2004

Glacier School was held at the Anniversary Glacier near Joffre Lakes on September 11^th - 12^th. In inclement weather conditions, most people stayed in Keith's Hut. There are only a handful of decent camping spots nearby the hut. This would have been a problem had the weather not been so bad that there were no members of the public wanting to use the hut. Despite dry conditions on the glacier, there were good snow patches below the SE face of Joffre.

2003

Glacier school was held at the Easton Glacier on Mount Baker in September.

2002

Glacier school was held at the Coleman Glacier on Mount Baker for the third consecutive year in September. We were fined by the US National Forest rangers for having a group larger than 12 people.

2001

Held at Coleman Glacier in September.

2000

Held at Coleman Glacier in September.

1999

Held at the Anniversary Glacier in September. We camped at the glacial lake formed by the terminal moraine, out of sight of Keith's Hut. Since the winter had seen record breaking snowfall, the glacier was still in "spring" conditions. I am not sure how good of a venue this would have been otherwise (where to self arrest when all you have is ice?).