Meet & Greet BACC

I wanted to write a few words about the beginning of my journey. 

Yesterday it was the Meet & Greet for The Basic Alpine Climbing Course. We were 120 students split in groups of 10, with one instructor each. We were a good mix of women and men. However, I wish we were also a good mix of levels of experience. 

I was a bit intimidated that I was the only one without any rock climbing skills. It seamed that they’ve all done tons of rock climbing and they wanted to go to the next level. In addition, some have also climbed Rainier or other serious mountains. Hence, I had mixed feelings about this “basic” word in the class description. Is it truly basic if everyone is already at THAT level?! I voiced my concern to the instructor that I might be the weak link there. But he said, “No, you will be fine. We are starting indeed with basics, doing knots and all”. However, my reaction was “OMG! Im stuck again with people that know what they are doing and they don’t understand my fear of heights and exposure! Hence, I will feel pressured to follow them, not drag them back, I WILL do mistakes….and possible injure myself.” 

Hence, I got a bit angry that these experienced people were there. They should go to the intermediate class. However, I don’t think you can go there unless you pass the Basic class. Hence, it’s a flaw in the system. The instructor said that those who know more will teach the others and share their knowledge. What that meant was that everybody was teaching me 😀

So that felt overwhelming and I tried to find a positive angle. I didn’t want to start on the wrong foot. The reason why I went to do this class was to start slowly and have them walk me through my fears, SLOWLY! (The “throw into the water and start learning swimming on the spot” technique does NOT work for me. I tried! It creates trauma.)

Anyway, the positive twist that I thought about was to start feeling safe with my group because they are experienced. If they were all a bunch of p*** panickies, I would feel truly unsafe on those overnight trips.

So I guess it’s better to be with folks that are in control. I will see how much they will intimidate me along the way. Although, it might be possible that some guys are overly confident and think we can ice climb on 5.15 routes right away! That’s kind of how some of them sounded. Hopefully, we will be a balanced group and I won’t be the weakest link and drag them back.

Stay tuned.