Description

Hello all stoked winter shredders! Have you been touring all
winter long and been hitting the same touring objectives for the
last couple months? Or have you ever thought about how you can
blend your two favorite activities (climbing and skiing) into one
glorious adventure smorgasboarg? Or on those sunny days, have
you looked in awe at mountains such as Mount Baker, the
Tantalus Range, and Fissile Mountain to only dream of doing
some lines back there in winter? Well if so, today’s your lucky
day! Join me as your lead instructor, as well as a total of 4 other
VOCers and 4 ACCers, to discuss the skills involved in ski
mountaineering! Topics in this clinic will include:

-Traveling in glaciated terrain on skis
-Movement skills in ski mountaineering, including: bootpacking,
4th class terrain management, rappelling into couloirs, etc
-Ski mountaineering transitions
-Snowpack assessment techniques
-Routefinding, navigation and tour planning

For a detailed cirriculum and itinerary, please email me with your
questions, as it is difficult to insert a Google Drive link into this
website framework. Thank you!

Beyond the cirriculum discussed above, I’d like this trip to be an
opportunity for us to grow within our Vancouver mountain
community at-large by inviting this event to be collaborative with
the UBC Varsity Outdoors Club (VOC). In addition, I aim to accept
2 men and 2 women from each club to participate in this trip.
The aim here is to provide a linkage within our clubs’
communities, as well as encourage development of skills and
leadership amongst the whole club demographic.

If you aren’t familiar with who I am in the VOC and/or ACC, I’ve
been around for a number of years in the VOC and have started
to do more trips with the ACC. My list of credentials are
extensive, however I won’t bore you with them all, so if you wish
to learn more about me, feel free to check out my website here:
www.zackwentz.com.

For the purpose of this trip however, I may note that I am an
AMGA Apprentice Rock Guide & CAA Affiliate Member, have
taken my AMGA Ski Guides Course, and plan to take my AMGA
Alpine Guides Course this spring.

**Note: This trip is NOT a guided trip AND the terrain I plan to
instruct in is not within my guiding terrain guidelines. While I
have extensive experience with steep splitboarding and winter ski
mountaineering, I am no way qualified to provide a similar
experience as to a guide certified to operate in this terrain.
Please take this information into consideration when applying to
this course; and if you’d rather take a course from a certified
guide, please email me for a list of recommended providers.**

The goal of this trip is to arm you with the skills to be able to
organize and be an active participating member of a team to one
of the following locations (Tantalus Range, Mt. Rainier, Mount
Baker, etc).

Also to mention, I plan this trip to be 2 seperate weekends, the
first weekend discussing skills based out of the Russett Lake Hut
in the Whistler backcountry, followed by a future long weekend
trip in one of the locations shown in the pictures above.

Pre-Reqs: Due to high demand and limited overall group size (8
people total; 4 from the ACC), I am accepting applications by
those most motivated to gain these skills and give back to the
club. The pre-trip application and form is provided to you on the
signup tools once you sign up to be considered for this trip.
Before submitting an application and signing up however, below
are the trip pre-requisites:

-AST 1 (AST 1+ or AST2 STRONGLY recommended)
-ACC Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC)
-Confidence survival skiing/riding on double-black diamond
terrain in a variety of snow conditions
-The desire to give back to the Vancouver mountain club
community
-Rappelling experience, technical climbing experience, and/or
ice climbing experience is an asset, but not required

If you meet the above pre-reqs, please don’t hesitate to sign up
and apply! Get stoked to send!

**Note: When you sign up or add yourself to the waitlist for this
course, your application will not be considered until you submit
an application on this Google Sheet link:
https://goo.gl/forms/kqNDMELn3hM5MQPH3.**