Naval Academy Alaska Mountaineering Leadership Expedition

The USNA Alaska Mountaineering Expedition is field-based training for Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. Your course will have a strong focus on being an adaptable team member and provide you with opportunities to shift between the roles of “team member” (active follower) and “team leader” (designated leader). 

• You will learn and develop both technical wilderness skills and interpersonal skills. This combination will allow you to function effectively as a group in a powerful and dynamic environment. 

• You will have the opportunity to exercise individual decision-making while facilitating great teamwork. 

• NOLS instructors will coach you through the course in a way that both minimizes stress and encourages peak performance. 

During the course, you’ll live with two or three other students in a “cook group.” These small groups help disperse our impact on the land and enable you to develop the art of backcountry cooking and living. You’ll also travel in small groups, usually of four to six people, again to disperse impact and enhance learning opportunities.

You will spend most of your course on snow and ice. Depending on your route and conditions, you may spend your time trying to accomplish summit attempts in a playground of peaks or traverse an expansive icefield. 

You will begin with the basics of learning to live in both the tundra and glacier environments, including cooking, camping, and camping and traveling in bear territory. On the glacier, you will begin the climbing curriculum, practicing with knot-tying, rope handling, rope team travel, self-arrest and belaying. As you gain competence, you will learn more advanced skills on more demanding terrain, including crevasse rescue, route finding on a glacier, avalanche hazard assessment and the use of 4th and 5th class rope systems for protection during more exposed travel. 

This course will take advantage of every opportunity to prepare you for future expeditions in glaciated ranges; your instructors will focus on developing skills and judgment rather than “peak bagging.”