Why Climb the Volcanoes of Iceland with Alpine Ascents?
Our guides are expert mountaineers and extremely knowledgeable about the all aspects of leading climbing trips. They looked out for our safety and yet pushed us to levels we sought to achieve.
-Volcanoes of Iceland Climber
Schedule Flexibility
Important to success and enjoyment for our climbers is the ability to adjust our climbing schedules as needed to account for ever-changing mountain conditions. Rather than throwing up our hands and ending an expedition when a route may become unclimbable, we treat these situations as challenges. Thanks to our experience and local expertise, we can change locations mid-expedition, if necessary, and offer alternate climbs and adventures. When such occasions arise, our climbers regularly praise these adjustments as highlights of their expeditions.
Experience
We have been running successful expeditions around the world since 1986 and look forward to our 30th year of operation. Our familiarity with the region, and our expertise and knowledge of mountains around the world lend a depth and richness to every expedition that we feel is unrivaled in the guiding community. This expertise is based on years of accumulated experience — not just from individual mountain guides, but through experience on particular mountains where details are fine-tuned over time. We maintain our process of multi-leveled and critical evaluations for each expedition. Innovations like daily weather reports, established, season-long Base Camps, environmental pioneering, and small climber-to-guide ratios with Alpine Ascents guides are just some of the factors that keep us in the forefront. Our 2016 trip saw tremendous summit success throughout the expedition.
Environmental Awareness
Taking leadership in environmental matters can be costly and present obstacles. Pioneering the use of Wag Bags® in the Cascades, officially partnering with Leave No Trace for over 10 years, and removing trash from Everest, Aconcagua, and Kilimanjaro are a few of the efforts that demonstrate our leadership of environmental causes. More than simply the right thing to do or a marketing angle, we try to keep the mountains and wilds clean because this is our second home (first home for many guides) and we want to return each year to pristine environments. Environmental leadership is axiomatic: yesterday’s ideas are simply not good enough, so we constantly challenge ourselves to ask: “What’s next? What more can we do? Is this really helping?”
Leave No Trace principles are fundamental to our program and we encourage all who climb and trek with us to understand proper wilderness practices. We help facilitate this effort by passing on Leave No Trace training and literature to every Alpine Ascents climber.
The trip was a fantastic experience! We were amazed at the broad range of locations and activities we got to experience in a short time span. Our guide was expert, kind and funny! Overall, we were thrilled with our visit to Iceland!
