The Road to Everest

Just like building a house, you’ll be best served on The Road to Everest by building a solid foundation of mountaineering skills. By enrolling in a basic mountaineering course here at Alpenglow Expeditions you’ll begin to learn about crampon technique, self-arrest skills, the finer points of climbing in a rope team, and crevasse rescue skills for when things go south.

You’ll spend 2 days learning the basics of traveling on snow and ice-covered terrain in a vertical environment before moving on to higher altitudes. As with anything in life, more time spent early on working and learning in this foundational realm will pay off handsomely down the road.

We offer this basic mountaineering course in Tahoe and cover rock, ice, and snow climbing techniques. We’re lucky to have diverse terrain that makes for great training opportunities. You can find equivalent courses offered throughout the United States and Europe.

Intro To Mountaineering

Beginning with the Intro to Mountaineering course, you will get familiar with your gear and learn how to recognize hazards and plan your route using maps, forecasts, and terrain clues, use equipment such as crampons and ice axes to move over steep snow and ice, and how to properly self-arrest in the event of a fall. You’ll also grasp quickly that proper teamwork is essential to success in the mountains. Team dynamics play a huge role in effective ropework. To introduce these concepts, you’ll start by learning and practicing basic knots and hitches, as well as building rock and snow anchors for use in belaying and rappelling.

Becoming familiar with the gear and its basic application will ease your transition into the next step: practicing these skills and getting comfortable with your systems before applying them in real time.

Glacier Travel

If a crevasse fall occurs, rescue timing and efficiency are paramount. As such, it is extremely important that you understand and have practiced what to do in this scenario in order to protect yourself, rescue your teammate(s), and prevent further injury.

In your Glacier Travel course, you will learn how to build snow anchors to support your rope system, basic principles of weight distribution, load transfers, and raising/lowering, and how to ascend and descend ropes to safely get in and out of a crevasse.

Taking a course with a group of fellow climbers under the instruction of a certified guide is without question the best way to build your knowledge, skills, and confidence in the mountains. Traveling on glaciated terrain involves objective hazard, and learning how to read the conditions to avoid an accident, as well as knowing what to do should an accident happen, will boost your chances of success in the mountains. And more importantly, it will drastically increase the probability of a safe return home.

Stage 2 serves two main functions, with many other skills-based benefits earned along the way. First, testing your physiology at high altitude is absolutely critical to your success as you move to higher peaks. Altitudes above 18,000′ / 5,000m will inform you as to how your body and mind react in a low-oxygen environment. Secondly, this altitude experience is a necessary step before joining an Alpenglow Rapid Ascent™ expedition. Gaining firsthand experience at altitude is essential prior to taking the next step of pre-acclimatizing in a simulated altitude environment created in a Hypoxico tent.

During introductory high altitude expeditions, you’ll also be building and improving on skills work to include glacier travel, weather analysis, and camp craft. Intermediate expeditions build more technical skills like route finding and steep snow climbing that will be necessary to continue your progress towards becoming a competent member of a climbing team anywhere in the world.

To complete stage 2, we recommend the following our  Ecuador Climbing School, Peru Climbing School Volcanoes of Mexico,  or Mountains of Bolivia Expeditions. All of these expeditions climb peaks that are between 18,000′ and 21,000′ and each summit attained is bound to be an incredible adventure. In our opinion, the mountain ranges of Central and South America create the best opportunity to finish stage 2 with easy access and plenty of beautiful routes.

Check out our blog, “How to Become a Mountaineer in Two Weeks,” for info on our climbing schools in Ecuador and Peru. Easy flights, beautiful cultures and cities, year round access, and perfect, moderate high-altitude terrain make for incredible locations that are perfectly suited to the climber who wants to break out of their backyard adventures and dive into the world of high-altitude climbing.

The only requirements to join the Ecuador and Peru climbing schools is excellent physical fitness, the ability to spend long days moving in the mountains through challenging terrain, and a strong desire to learn and grow as a climber and member of the community.

This step is all about altitude experience above 19,600′/6,000m while improving efficiency in building camps, and generally finding comfort existing at altitude. Climbing a 7,000m peak is a challenge all on its own and is necessary to move further on The Road to Everest. You’ll want to make sure your body is able to handle acclimatizing on a big peak while taking on back to back days of movement, culminating in a long push for the summit. A successful stage 3 will give you confidence to move higher.

These peaks don’t have to be technically difficult, but they do have to be reaching into thin air. While a technical peak like Ama Dablam is a dream for some climbers, finding out how you handle days of movement at high altitude is the ultimate goal of this stage. While some may find the technical challenge provides an aesthetic goal, it can also help with skills like fixed-line training and the finer points of crampon work that are crucial for an attempt on an 8000m peak in the Himalaya.

We recommend climbing at least 1 of the following in stage 3: Aconcagua, Peak Lenin,  Ama DablamLhakpa Ri, Ojos del Salado.

The accumulation of all the skills learned and experience gained to try to climb one of the 14 tallest peaks on the planet. 8,000m peak climbing is a whole new ball game. Oxygen, fixed lines, climbing in Sherpa Teams, weeks spent living at 18,000’+, acclimatization rotations, and last but certainly not least, climbing above the 8,000m mark. Summiting an 8,000m peak like Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum II, or Makalu is a proud achievement and gives you all the tools in the toolbox necessary to reach the summit of the tallest mountain on the planet.

If you don’t have an 8000m peak on your climbing resume, you’ll need to show a long list of success on big peaks along with a strong reference from a qualified mountain guide who you’ve been out with. We strongly believe that all 5 stages are the building blocks that lead to becoming a competent and high-functioning member of an Everest climbing team, and we don’t recommend skipping any of the steps. In fact, we recommend going above and beyond during each stage if you have the time.