Trip Report - ECP Mountaineering School. By Sid Wiesner.

I found this buried in my harddisk. This was my first time climbing at Seneca and my first multipitch or trad climbing. I was new to Pittsburgh, and decided to join an outdoors group, and somehow got myself involved with the crazy climbers. This is the trip report from the first outing, the ropes checkout, for the Mountaineering School at Seneca Rocks in October, 2003.

Now where are they? I rechecked the directions and my watch - almost 10pm. Another slow crawl around the Princess Snowbird campground, and I saw the same thing: fake teepees with glass windows, cabins, and one fun-loving group with a large outdoor bar. But no Mountaineering School.

I took a quick nap, and woke up as a couple trucks rumbled past. I met Mark and Brendan, two students in the school, and we set up camp as more people trickled in. More introductions and then we called it an early night. Of course I had trouble sleeping. Dogs howled to each other in the distance, and every time I neared the promised land of sleep, black walnuts smacked the ground with a loud PLOP that startled me just enough to wake me back up. I could do nothing but roll over and try again.

by Christian Mason

This last trip out west made it harder than ever to come back. I didn't get what I wanted, but I did get something very fulfilling.

Whitney

I'll spare you the technical details, but Whitney got about two feet of snow a few days before we arrived. The descent gully was iced up and we hadn't come prepared for full on winter climbing. Mikey Brown and I thought maybe we could still make a go at it, and either rappel the route, or rappel around the iced section. We ran a recon up to the base of the route at 12,500 feet. I'd just flown into LA and drive to low camp (8K) yesterday. I popped an extra diamox and prepared to suffer.

Our plan was to go out and scout things out, then return to 8K, get our partners and get up at 12am the next day, do the approach again, climb and descend all in one day. It would hurt...so much that I wasn't sure I could do it..but I also knew that I would do it when I had no other choice. That's what I had come looking for - to suffer, to "bite off more than I can chew, so I get more than I need, or want" and strip away the unessential and leave me facing things bare. Rainier left me alternating between shaking sobs and elation for days.. but a peace settled over me from it, that's what I came to find.