I left this trip a stronger, more clear, more calm version of myself and I’m very grateful for it. Also, incredible beauty, great new friends, and skills for the wilderness. I learned much more than I expected to regarding mountain safety, proper gear and management of that gear during blizzard conditions, and all the components of crevasse rescue including knots and communication.

I entered this course a complete novice with little to no experience, hoping to get an education and introduction to mountaineering and general competency and skills in the backcountry. The course met all my expectations, I learned a ton and I am very happy about that. The skills I learned I feel will be immediately useful.

This course is exactly what I signed up for. My overall expectations from this course is that I would walk away with a baseline of skills and knowledge necessary to be a contributing member on a rope team. After this course, I feel confident that I can safely and effectively climb on future climbs that will allow be to build upon the foundation I learned with AAI.

This course was high quality. I felt it was comprehensive and well planned and the skills I acquired will take me to new heights in my future climbs.

Our guides transferred their experience and knowledge with ease. This made it very easy to comprehend complicated skills and apply the skills to real life situations.

My course was very enjoyable. I felt the skill coverage was comprehensive and expect to immediately use the skills on mountains like Hood, Shasta, and maybe Denali in the future.

The program’s biggest strengths is the immersive nature of the course and the excellent guides. Being immersed in the mountains and having great guides to teach you the necessary skills makes learning all of this so much easier. Two thumbs up!!

Our instructors were stellar. They exuded confidence and gave me a glimpse of how it’s possible to become comfortable on the terrain, but still respect the magnitude and risk of the mountains. I trusted them as leaders, but they also helped me understand my own responsibilities as a climber when it comes to safety, choosing gear, choosing food, and enjoying my time in the hills. It was such a rad opportunity to learn from their wealth of experience and stories, and feel inspired by their encouragement to make my own stories.

I enjoyed the course, which exceeded my expectations in all respects. The Mt. Baker phase of the course was well structured, and the guides tailored their instruction to the aptitude and enthusiasm of our group. I felt that my team was sufficiently competent and prepared to use newly-acquired skills during summit day on Mt. Baker and, later, on Mt. Rainier. Indeed, I’ve signed up for another glaciated climb with AAI, so I do feel ready to use these skills. All guides were clear, patient, and detail-oriented. They all were consistent in their methodologies. And they all took care to teach to standard and to the needs of the group.

The program was well structured and appropriate in length. The quality of the instruction was excellent. Everything moved smoothly, efficiently, and flexibly. I can’t conceive of a single improvement to be made to the course. I’d highly recommend the course to anyone.

The 9 day North Cascades/Rainier climb was fantastic. The skills learned were invaluable and I feel much more equipped to go glacier climbing. Our 2 instructors were both TOP notch, extremely knowledgeable and fun to be with. During the 6 day North Cascade portion both were phenomenal leaders. Their years of experience was plain to see. Both guides were well skilled as being patient teachers. You could tell that both of them genuinely wanted all of us to learn the skills they were teaching. They were patient in answering questions and did a great job in thoroughly explaining everything. Combining the 6 day North Cascades course with a 3 day Rainier climb is a great idea and I loved every day of it.