Saturday, December 1, 2012 - Introduction to the GCC

Signed up for OSAT’s glacier climbing course (aka GCC) today. OSAT stands for One Step At a Time, and it is a group made up of outdoorsy types who are in AA. I first heard about OSAT from Chris F, who was the Secretary for my home group in Edmonds. Chris told me about an AA meeting that is held every Sunday morning, outside, on the top of Tiger Mountain. It’s an hour hike to get to the meeting, and that’s if you take the steep route, called the Cable Line Trail. If you take the trail with more switchbacks, it is about 3 miles and can take up to a couple of hours. The point being that you have to work hard to get to this meeting up in the woods, but it’s well worth it. These meetings go on year around – rain, snow or shine. No shelters – just everyone sitting around rocking the latest Northwest Gore-Tex fashions (i.e. lots of black Arc’teryx and Outdoor Research hard shells and puffy jackets).

The GCC is a 7 month mountaineering course offered by OSAT that culminates in a summit attempt of Mt Baker in June and Mt Rainier in July. It’s designed for students who have very little, if any, mountaineering experience. You do need to be in fairly good shape, though. The course is taught by former students and costs nothing. The only requirement is that you are sober, and active in AA. And that you attend all required seminars and events, and can pass the numerous physical tests.

There had been a lot of anticipation for the opening of registration for the GCC, as was evidenced by the fact that it filled up in one day! This year they took 50 people on the registration + a waiting list. Previous years would take 2-4 weeks to fill up but this year for some reason, it was different. There’s been a lot of talk at the Sunday morning Tiger Mountain AA meetings about the course and I think a lot of people were really looking forward to signing up, as was I.

I checked the web site around 8:00am on the morning of the 1st and registration was not yet opened up, but when I checked back at 9, it was open and there were already 4 others signed up. I was number 5.

Overall, there are 66 students who have been accepted into the GCC for 2013.

The first official meetings of the 2013 GCC start in February. Until then, I'll be working on my conditioning, and buying some of the new stuff I'll be needing for climbing mountains.

Baseline - I’ll be tracking my training progress over the next few months. I hiked Tiger Mountain cable line yesterday. Here are the particulars:

Pack weight - 25 pounds

My weight - 195
Distance - 1.52 miles
Elevation gain – 2000 ft
Time – 1 hour 1 minute.

I hope I can do this course. I hope I remain motivated. I hope I remain sober throughout. The Rainier climbs are scheduled for July 12-14 or July 19-21. My 51^st birthday is July 11, and my 1 year AA birthday is July 29. July is going to be a good month.



Top of Tiger Mountain, Fall, 2012