Intermediate Glacier Climbing

Course Description

The Intermediate Glacier Climbing course will introduce participants to steeper snow and glacier routes, and provide the skills for planning and executing an intermediate-level glacier climb.  The course covers the basics of small party (two-person rope team) self-rescue on glacier climbs.

The Intermediate Glacier Course is targeted at basic grads and is designed to follow on from the foundation set in the Basic Climbing Course. It will cover the next steps in building your skills to lead, plan and practice safe climbing and descending glacier routes in the Cascades. 

This course aims to provide participants the skills and confidence to plan and lead glacier climbs.  The experience field trip is usually on Mt Baker where students practice skills on snow slopes and 2-person crevasse rescue.

The experience climb is an overnight climb of a Cascade intermediate glacier route, where all participants organize, plan and run the complete climb, under supervision of a climb leader. 

Application

This course requires an application and official acceptance prior to registration. You can find the application (no longer taking applications.)  Applicants will be notified before the end of November and registration will start at that time.

Applications will be accepted through November 1st, 2025. 

Prerequisites

All applicants are required to have successfully completed the Basic Climbing Course (BCC) and attend the Everett Basic Climbing Course Instructor Review (IR) 0n January 18th at the Seattle Program Center in order to be considered. 

Mo Applying for IGC does not register you for IR, you will need to register for this event here. 

Commitment 

Course activities 

Dates and details found below in course activity listing

• Instructor review -attend on Jan 10th (register separately)
• Lectures - Three sessions (dates below)
• Instruct at Snow 1 (May 16-17th) and/or Snow 2 (June 6-7th) field trip. 
• Snow experience field trip (block out two weekends May 30-31st and June 20-21st for best weather option)
• Experience Climb - Student-planned climb in small groups. Date and climb selected by students during course lectures.  Most successful parties block out 2-3 different date ranges to ensure the trip is a success.

Graduation requirements 

• Attend all IGC course activities (lectures & field trips)​
• Volunteer at Snow 1 or Snow 2​
• Experience Climb: plan & lead trip with your classmates​
• AIARE 1 – course completion​
• Complete Stewardship project: can be a new one or the same one from LOR can count too​
• Complete Foundations of Leadership and Foundations of Instruction eLearning courses (available through Mountaineers website)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

The Everett Climbing Committee is committed to building and fostering a representative climbing community that reflects the spaces in which we live and recreate. We recognize that outdoor recreation has historically excluded communities of color, women, and LGBTQ people. Hence, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other underrepresented communities. 

Scholarships

We don't want the course fees to be a barrier to entry or participation. If they are, we encourage you to apply for a scholarship. Scholarship information is kept strictly private and is not shared with course leads or instructors. 

Apply for a scholarship at the time of submitting your application (now), as it takes time to process.