T-1: Recap

Today, it was a good day.  Climb school was a lot of fun.   We huddled around 8:15am, did a quick gear check and a little chat with the Jake, our guide.   He recommended us to just wear one layer of upper and lower body, since the weather seems to warm up.   We met the second guide for our team, Erik Nelson and we were heading out to Paradise at 8:30am.

We walked for about an hour to our climb school location and during the climb, we learned about a proper rest-step and pressure breathing, which are vital for a successful climb.   We also learned about the pace that we are going to use during the entire climb as well as walking with our ice axe.    Ice axe need to be on the uphill side and needed for a balance point when you walk at the upper mountain.

We also learned some uphill walking technique, such as duck-walking, and cross-over and some downhill walking such as plunge and boot skiing.    It’s amazing a little thing that you do can increase the efficiency of your walk and preserve your energy!

Then we got to the fun part.   How to self-arrest and team-arrest during unfortunate situation such as, well, hope this never happen to me, but falling to the crevasse or if someone on your rope team fall into the crevasse.    We hiked up to the top of the hill and slide on our back and our stomach facing down, and try to stop ourselves.    I’ve been through this climb school before, 6 years ago, and this is like a refresher course.  I even learned some new technique!

Last part of the climb school are crampon and walking with rope.   We learned on how to put our crampon and how to walk in crampon.   Different efficiency technique and every little energy you can save up, you will most likely have a successful climb.

We were done around 3pm and headed back to RMI basecamp.    John and I were busy getting our gear ready again for the next day.   Some of our gear were wet (that’s what happened when you slide a lot in the snow).

The highlight for today is meeting Lou Whittaker.   I adore Lou.   He is a mountaineering legend.   He gave us some wisdom, more tips and tricks and share some awesome stories.   You know there’s a lot of stories when he was guiding people to the mountain since 1962!

We wrapped up our session around 8pm and call it a night.     John and I were back in our room, and getting our gear packed.   The plan is to meet the rest of my team at 9:15am tomorrow, at Paradise.

I’m pumped.   I’m so ready.   I am as ready as I can be.   Fifteen weeks of training are to prepare me the next two days.