Winter Mountaineering & Advanced Crevasse Rescue

INTRO

Thank you for your interest. The application window has ended on October 13, 2025. Please consider volunteering in our Foothills Basic Climbing course this year to strengthen your application in 2026.

THE COURSE

Welcome to the Foothills Winter Mountaineering and Advanced Crevasse Rescue Course (WCR)! This course teaches both the technical and non-technical skills needed to plan and lead climbs in the winter and on glaciers.

The average successful student will have completed a handful glacier climbs prior to this course, including moderately steep climbs such as Mount Baker/Coleman-Deming and Mount Hood/South, and heavily crevassed glaciers such as the ones found on Mount Baker and Mount Rainier (any route).

Through evening sessions at the program center and days in the field, students will practice good climbing technique, learn to place protection in snow and ice, manage moderately steep snow slopes, build and equalize anchors, construct advanced haul systems for crevasse rescue, set up group camps, and more!  Lectures will also cover trip planning, including route selection, in-the-field evaluation, a navigation refresher, and how to write a practical trip plan.

The course is composed of multiple sessions broken into 4 disciplines: Winter Mountaineering, Small Party (Team) Rescue, Leadership, and Advanced Crevasse Rescue. Please see the activity list for course dates: only one of each lecture or field trip will be offered, no make-ups, so make sure you are available for all activities. Note that some activities may (1) reserve the whole weekend, but we only pick the best day (based on weather and other conditions). Also note that some activities are posted as backup, so if the first has to be cancelled, the second becomes active; that means you should be available for all dates, including the backups. Lastly, make sure you can participate in the Experience Trip since it's a 3-day trip that makes use of one weekday (either Friday or Monday, depending on whether we need the backup date or not).

PREREQUISITES

This course assumes competency in the following:

• Navigation
• Basic knots and hitches
• Rappelling
• Crevasse self-extrication (ascending a rope)
• Basic crevasse rescue (C or Z-Pulley systems)
• Basic snow/glacier travel: roped and unroped travel on moderately steep slopes

You should feel comfortable in at least moderately steep terrain (about 45- to 50-degree sustained snow) such as the Roman Wall of Mount Baker or the Old Chute of Mount Hood .

COREQUISITES

All students are expected to have successfully completed a Level 1 AIARE course prior to attending WCR 2 - Winter Overnight Trip.

DIVERSITY

The Foothills 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.

REGISTRATION Timeline

• Application Submissions: October 6 - October 13, 2025.
• Application results published: No later than November 8, 2025.

Cancellation: refund minus $10 before 2nd Session (February 19, 2026). No refunds on or after this date.