The Course
42-Day Mountaineering Course in Patagonia

An expedition unlike any other. For 42 days, your home will be the remote Campo Hielo (Ice Cap) of Patagonia, Chile. Here, surrounded by virgin peaks, alpine meadows, crystal blue lakes, and the unpredictable Patagonian weather, you will acquire the skills needed to thrive in the backcountry and ultimately to feel confident planning your own expeditions in the future. Skills range from route planning to crevasse rescue, expedition leadership to preserving the precious landscape you are living in.

These Mountaineering courses are expeditions in the truest sense. From the time we leave base camp until the time we return five and a half weeks later, we will be completely self sufficient in wilderness. Each course is exploratory; we are creating our own route, not following in someone else’s footsteps. Together with your instructors, you will experience the continual journey of discovery that can only come from setting your own route. There will be days of triumph and days of disappointment but you can be sure every day will be an adventure. You will be fully involved in the frequent discussion about route selection, risk management and goal setting. This intense involvement in all aspects of the trip means that what you learn, you will learn fully, so you can translate these skills into your own adventures later on.

No experience is necessary for this course. Just a willingness to learn and desire for adventure and challenge. We start at the beginning, teaching you the basic day to day skills of mountain life: moving with a heavy backpack, selecting and securing a campsite, and staying warm and dry in inclement weather. As the course progresses, you will take an increasingly active role in the running of the expedition, ultimately having the opportunity to develop your leadership skills by taking on the role of group leader (with close support from your instructors).

What makes this course so special, is not just what you learn, but where you learn it. In the most amazing classroom in the world. Patagonia has a magical reputation and deservedly so. It is a place of breathtaking beauty and remoteness. Here you can stand on a mountaintop encircled the wilderness and feel like you are the only person in the world.

This mountaineering course will be a rich and rewarding experience. We will go to places few other people go, see things few other people see and face challenges you might once have thought you were not capable of.

Graduates of the Mountaineering School will have learned and used a wide range of mountaineering and backcountry skills, e.g. glacier travel skills, pack-rafting, and off trail navigation, as well as interpersonal/leaderships skills. All skills carry, as an underlying focus, the critical aspect of risk management. Skills received but not limited to can include:

Campsite selection, tent pitching for any conditions, map and compass use, on and off trail navigation, GPS use, rations planning, packing, gourmet backcountry cooking, communications in the field, natural history of Patagonia, glaciology, local flora and fauna, weather and climate, roping up for glacial travel, crevasse rescue, knots, snow and ice anchors, belaying, snow and ice climbing techniques, crampon techniques, self arrest, river evaluation and crossing, backcountry sustainability, Leave No Trace camping and travel, backcountry weather evaluation.