The biggest strength of the program is clearly the very strong guides, and the beautiful North Cascades mountains! The group food also totally exceeded my expectations. Dinner was definitely a highlight of each day.

Our Mt. Shuksan climb was fantastic. The views were incredible, the weather was perfect, and our guides were professional, personable, and highly skilled. They did a great job passing on their knowledge. During snow school on day two I learned several new cramponing techniques and approaches to self arrest, which had never been covered with me before despite numerous guided climbs in the Alps. Thank you!

Love it! Our guides were both fantastic! From the initial gear check to our check out they were gracious, knowledgeable professionals. We’d love to have them guide us on a future trip.

Yes, I enjoyed it tremendously.
The expedition was just unbelievable. I’ve never done anything like this, and the guides made it absolutely wonderful. The food was great, the teaching was great, and the guides really catered to our experience level. I’m already starting to think of what I can do next!

It was a joy to interact with the guides and watch them working together as a team. It felt smooth, friendly, respectful, and natural. They were very effective communicating and coordinating everything from minor details of the camp to large climbing and planning decisions. They also responded well to each team member individually, as well as when addressing the entire group.

All of the guides were confident, competent, and safe, which was apparent from their leading/guiding and interactions with each other and the group, but also when teaching/reviewing skills, helping out team members, or just in casual conversation, they imparted a lot of useful knowledge and wisdom. Their interactions with us and each other felt comfortable, interesting, humurous, and enlightening without any forcefulness or negativity. They read each situation and person well and adapted the way they approached them. Overall their behaviour was exemplary.

Our Mt. Shuksan climb was fantastic. The views were incredible, the weather was perfect, and our guides were professional, personable, and highly skilled. Yes! I was particularly impressed by our lead guide, Seth, and my guide for summit day, Connor. Seth did a fantastic job managing the whole climb, including the needs and moods of each climber and guide on the team. Most impressively he made this attentive customer service seems natural and effortless.

Connor, my guide for summit day, did a similarly outstanding job. He quickly developed a bond with us and matched speed/difficulty to our experience levels. I was impressed by his work.

Our guides did a great job passing on their knowledge. During snow school on day 2 I learned several new cramponing techniques and approaches to self arrest, which had never been covered with me before despite numerous guided climbs in the alps.

Similarly Connor knew I was interested in independent rock climbing (and had recently bought a rack) so he went out of his way to point out how he approached protecting our whole summit ridge climb (alpine anchors, counterbalanced weight, etc.)

The group food definitely exceeded my expectations. Dinner was definitely a highlight of each day 🙂

The strength of the program is clearly the very strong guides, and the beautiful north cascades mountains!

I loved it. The guides were great, the pace was good and the food was excellent. Glacier is definitely a remote peak and it was challenging in terms of the hike. Devin taught me a lot about how to pack and he did a fantastic and thorough gear check. The best that I have done with AAI in that respect. Pasang has a wonderful spirit. I learned so much from her in terms of hiking in tough conditions with a lot of loose dirt/rock on a steep incline. With a heavy pack, I did not have a ton of confidence and she really helped with that in terms of footing, pole placement, etc. Kristie really helped me in that area too. Both were fantastic at route finding.

From Rainier Climb:

Fantastic experience. The guides were experts and imbued a confidence that translated to all client climbers. And the weather couldn’t have been better. Superb. All 4 guides did a wonderful job of explaining vital information for safety, preparedness and route planning. They also did a great job of preparing the group mentally for what was to come. I almost felt guilty arriving to camp with tents already pitched and meals prepared for me!