University of Rhode Island

I'm Zoë Lockwood, a rising junior from Rhode Island. This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to hike and mountaineer in the Chugach mountain range of Alaska. I am so grateful for the 30 days that I got to live outdoors, the 17 people that I got to spend my time with, and the two and a half weeks that I got to camp on a glacier. 
 

    Last fall, I was looking for something interesting to do over the summer months. My parents recommended the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and when I saw the programs that they offered, I knew I had to sign up for one. I decided on a mountaineering course in Alaska because I had no mountaineering experience and had never been to Alaska; I anticipated that this combination would lead to something interesting and hopefully the acquisition of some new skills.
 

I arrived in Anchorage on June 1 and the following day a NOLS bus picked me up and drove me to the Alaska branch. The first day was spent meeting the other 13 students and packing/renting gear along with becoming acquainted with the 4 course instructors. Our instructors were from all over the world (Patagonia, Canada, Alaska, New York) and each one of them had their own story of how they became an expert mountaineer. That night, we camped at the branch and in the morning we drove an hour or so to the drop off point. 
 

We began our travels by bushwhacking in the backcountry. We were not hiking on trails so I had to get quite comfortable getting whacked by tree branches. Our normal schedule would consist of hiking during the day and reaching our decided "X" or campsite generally in the late afternoon. We would then set up our kitchen and tent areas and make dinner before falling asleep in our sleeping bags (we had to separate our kitchens from our tents on account of the bears). In the morning, we would make breakfast, pack up camp, and repeat the whole thing over. It was light for about 23 hours per day which sometimes made one day feel like three.
 

It was a little over a week before we got to the toe of our first glacier: the Powell Glacier. The beginning of the glacier is called the firn zone. This zone was the most challenging area to navigate and the most dangerous because it consisted of solid exposed ice and snow. The area was also actively melting which meant there were open crevasses and crevasses that were hidden by a shallow layer of snow. We took extra precautions in this area by walking very close to each other and surveying each area before moving forward. 
Once on the snow covered part of the glacier, about a mile or so in, we became acquainted with functioning on a rope team. Each team had three to four members that were spaced out by 20 or so meters of rope. Traveling on a rope team ensured that if anyone were to fall into a snow covered crevasse, the other members of the team could save the victim by using their ice axe and body weight (luckily I never had to do this).
 

We spent the next week or so making our way up to a flat at the top of the glacier where we camped for three days and had the chance to climb two peaks. On our way down the glacier, we went over a pass that took us to our second glacier: the Sylvester. We then walked down to the toe of the Sylvester Glacier and spent our last five days hiking out to a road where we were picked up. 
 

I am so grateful for this experience and everything that it taught me. I recommend this program to anyone who is interested in gaining more outdoor experience. I hope to continue learning about mountaineering and how to be a respectful observer of the outdoors in the coming years. 


Check out Zoe's gallery below!