I attended a 4-day introduction to mountaineering course offered by Sierra Mountain Center (http://www.sierramountaincenter.com) out of Bishop, California, USA. It was a great experience that I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to enter the sport of mountaineering.
On the first day, we went to a place called Iris Slab along Rock Creek Road, about 10 miles south of Mammoth Lakes, CA (near Tom's Place, CA). Our instructor and guide, "SP" Robert Parker covered the basics of tying knots, use of carabiners, tying in to our seat harness, belaying, climbing, then we climbed 5.7 routes in mountaineering boots. Iris Slab has a slope of approximately 75 to 80 degrees. From what I understood, Iris Slab is a great place for top roping with lots of moderate routes and lots of hangers at the top to set up anchors. We also learned a bit about other rock gear: cams, pitons, etc.
On the second day, we backpacked up to basecamp at about 11,700 feet near Mills Lake, in the Eastern Sierras. We started from Mosquito Flats trailhead at 10,000 feet. The hike to basecamp was about 3.5 miles. After passing Ruby Lake, a mile of the hike was cross-country over talus, while carrying a 50 pound pack. One misstep and you could break an ankle or leg. When we got to basecamp, we ate, rested and then we spent the afternoon out on a snow patch, where we learned how to move in the snow and ice axe use, how to cut steps (step kicking) to ascend, how to plunge step to descend, how to set up snow anchors, how to belay on snow, crampon French technique/American technique, and lastly how to do an effective self-arrest with the ice axe.
On the third day, we left camp at 6:30am, traveled a mile to a mile and a half across talus again to the edge of Mills Glacier (really, just a year-round snow pack). There, we put harnesses, helmets, crampons on and were put into three-person rope teams. Our rope team consisted of Dave Melkonian (guide and leader), myself in the middle, and Jim Zuber at the end of the rope. We climbed a 35 degree snow slope, moving up about 1,000 foot of elevation. When we reached rock, we took our crampons off and left the ice axes and crampons and a save place by the rocks. We then began climbing 3rd and some 4th class rock as a rope team to about 400 feet shy from the summit. At that point, the guide, Dave, let us loose and we hiked the remaining 400 feet to the summit. We reached the summit of Mt. Abbot (Elev: 13,704 ft) at 10:35am. The view was amazing. We signed the summit register, took some pictures, had a drink and started to descend at about 11am. In the rock ascent as well as the descent, there was definitely exposure when we traversed a small 10-foot section of half-foot ledges to stand. Some of us left our climbing gear on a rock boulder by the glacier.
On the fourth day, some people in the group hiked out while others (SP, Kat, Lori and myself) stayed to climb another more technical summit, the Petite Griffon. SP woke us up at 5am, had breakfast, and by 6am we were heading out again towards Mills Glacier. This time SP paced us faster than the previous day to hike up towards the rock boulder to collect our gear. We put our climbing gear on and team roped. The route to the Petite Griffon is this snow/ice gully with a 40 degree slope angle. The climb was definitely much more exhausting than the previous day climb to Mt. Abbot. You could feel how it kept getting steeper and steeper. We hit ice (in the shaded region of the gully, close to the top) and had to use our ice axes in high dagger to nail the pick in the ice. We also were in the tip of our toes on the crampons--front pointing. We were so exhausted when we finally reached the top of the gully. Right at the top of the gully, there was a rock hole to the western side of the saddle that ketp blowing cold air. In a matter of minutes, our hands were freezing (even tough we had gloves) and the wind was howling. I felt my feet getting colder. We geared up for the final 3 pitches of rock climbing to summit the Petite Griffon. As I was doing this, I almost lost my ice axe. I knocked off while I was taking my pack off. Luckly, the axe fell by another climber's feet who took it and put it in a save place stuck on the rocks. Lori and I stayed behind, while SP and Kat went up first. According to Kat, she said she could barely grab anything with her cold and (getting numb) hands, although she pointed out that the climb itself was extremely easy compared to the first day rock climb. The wind was even harsher and colder. Kat confessed to SP that she thought this was too risky. But those who know SP know that he wasn't going to let her give up that easy. SP had Kat belay him to the 2nd pitch to check on the weather conditions there. Kat looked at SP with her shaky hands and asked him (SP) if he trusted her to belay him. SP said yes that he trusted her and then he started ascending. Since Kat couldn't actually see SP, shw waited there balying him for what she said that seemd like the longerst 10 minutes of her life. SP finally returned ans said it was even much colder and windy than where they were from the 1st pitch. SP decided to turn back. So, we were not able to summit the Petite Griffon. This is part of ther mountaineering experience. Kat and SP met us again at the top of the gully, where Lori and I were about ready to freeze. We finally managed to put our crampons and packs on. To descend the ice/snow gully, we each took turns rapelling down. SP went down first where he could do a bottom belay. Then, Lori rapelled, then Kat rapelled, and finally I rapelled down the ice slope. Even SP had to rapel and leave the anchor at the top of the gully because he said even he did not have the prope gear to do it on his own (needed at least two ice axes). We were team roped again to descend the snow goully (no ice now). We tried plunge stepping down, but Lori and Kat were tied too close together and kept falling, which in turn, I had to belay them by burying my ice axe and grabbing it for self-belay. I untied first, and then eventually so did Lori and Kat. Lori, Kat and I had to team belay a few times when we were slipping. We reached the rock boulder again, had a quick drink, and set off again for basecamp at a fast pace; we were back around 12pm. Once on basecamp, we rested, ate lunch, packed up and started the final departure around 1:15pm. We were back to our cars on Mosquito Flats trailhead parking lot by 3pm and home by 9pm (I stopped in Bishop for about an hour to fill up on gas at the Arco and to browse Wilson's Eastern Sports outdoor store).
All in all, this trip gave me a taste of what mountaineering is all about. Like the attempt of the Petite Griffon on Sunday morning: it was very windy and cold, and I'm glad that SP decided not to attempt to climb it. Sometimes you are not meant to climb the mountain that day. There will be other days.... the mountain is always there.
