Every year our climbing program has a new set of challenges. Meeting those challenges requires dedication and resourcefulness from the Climbing Committee volunteers who run the program, as well as flexibility from the students participating in the courses. Our experience with Intermediate Rock 1 Field Trip this year is a case in point.

This field trip consists of two weekend sessions with roughly half of the course participating each weekend. It is scheduled for Icicle Canyon at Leavenworth, well known to have predictable and reliable dry weather, with spring being an excellent time for training there. In the past, the only noted drawback has been the equally reliable abundance of ticks in the spring. The field trip leader, Bob Geiger, was hoping to ease into his first experience at leading a major course field trip.

He arrived in town on Friday of the first weekend, early enough in the day to scope out the climbing areas. He found snow; lots of it, in amounts unprecedented in our field trip experiences there, ñcovering all but the most vertical surfaces.î His call was to cancel the field trip that weekend.

How do you do that? With about 50 people including instructors involved, notification of everyone was a Herculean task. Clubhouse staff and many volunteers came to the rescue and made many, many phone calls, sent emails, and did their best to get the word out.

Part 1 is notifying affected parties of the cancellation. Part 2 is determining how to arrange for a new Rock 1 for the students and obtain the instructor corps to do it. Again, the volunteers who run Intermediate Field Trips worked overtime through the weekend and over the next few days to resolve it. The Rock 1 field trip to be held the following weekend still looked good, and as many students as possible from the first weekend were added. A special weekday field trip was also added, and several leaders who were already planning to lead special field trips combining Rock 1 and 2 agreed to expand their enrollment.

As I write this, the final result has yet to play itself out, but one thing is clear. The volunteers who run these field trips are resourceful and oriented toward solving problems, some of the very qualities that make them valuable leaders. Their dedication and resolve are to be commended.