History

For a number of years, the Seattle Alpine Scrambling committee trained scrambling students in navigation. The navigation workshop and field trip in the Navigation Course are essentially an exact reproduction of the scramble navigation program, an effort which has been going on for years. The program was widely recognized as the providing the best navigation training in the Mountaineers. Years of discussions between numerous members of various Seattle activities committees had pointed to the desirability of modularized courses, or improving navigation training or both. In the last few years, formal discussions have occurred on a number of occasions, particularly between the climbing and scrambling committees. In 1999, the backcountry ski committee modularized most of its course offerings. At the same time, the snowshoe committee decided to modularize navigation and avalanche training, so that the instruction would be the same between snowshoe and backcountry ski. This had the added benefit of making it easier for students to deal with course timing issues.

 

At that time the snowshoe committee, whose membership has considerable overlap with the scramble committee, decided to implement the scramble navigation program in the 1999-2000 season. Subsequent discussions with climbing and backcountry ski resulted in the formation of a navigation working group, and the resultant pilot project which ran from November 1999 to February 2000.

During this time, over 200 instructors were trained and almost 700 students trained. The wilderness travel committee was kind enough to provide a temporary home for the navigation working group, during this period.

The time had come to turn the pilot project into an independent course. With the help of the scramble committee, that has now happened. More recently, the Seattle branch was formed, and the Navigation Committee has been created as a real committe within the branch.

 
The Navigation Committee has developed an independent navigation course to serve the needs of climbers, scramblers, snowshoers, backcountry skiers, hikers and other participants in backcountry activities. The original working group was made up of representatives from the Seattle Alpine Scrambling, Backcountry Skiing, Climbing, Snowshoeing and Wilderness Travel Committees, who began meeting regularly in March of 1999 to implement a pilot program. The pilot program was a tremendous success with approximately 200 instructors and 700 students trained in the first year.
 

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The principal reasons for developing such a modular or "MOFA-style" navigation course included:

  • Offering a navigation course rigorous enough to meet the standards of most of the Mountaineers backcountry travel courses;
  • Providing improved accessibility and flexibility of scheduling for students in these courses;
  • Improving the backcountry navigation skills of leaders and participants in hiking, scrambling, climbing, snowshoeing, backcountry skiing and other backcountry non-motorized activities;
  • Making quality navigation training available to those who may not have taken the more advanced back country courses.
  • Allowing "portability" of the resulting navigational knowledge from course to course and activity to activity (subject to periodic updating).

This entire program would not have been possible without the help of numerous individuals who have given generously of their time. What seems obvious now was uncertain then, and they hung in there. Thanks to all who helped.

 

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