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Acadia Mountain Guides - Adidas - Adventure Cycling Association - ALPS Mountaineering - American Alpine Institute - American Mountain Guides Association - Bay Area Lyme Foundation - BIC Sport - Big Agnes - Black Diamond Equipment - Brewer's Ledge - Cache Lake Camping Foods - Camp Chef - Colorado Outward Bound School - Columbia - Deuter - Eldorado Climbing Walls - Element Climbing - Evolv Sports - Fuji Bikes - G Adventures - Glide SUP - Ice Holdz - Jack's Plastic Welding - Kelty - Key Log Rolling - Kling Mountain Guides - KU2 - Landmark Learning - Liberty Mountain - Love Thy Nature - LOWA Boots - Marmot - Misty Mountain - Mountain Hardwear - National Outdoor Leadership School - Nicros - North Carolina Outward Bound School - Petzl - Professional Climbing Instructors Association - R & W Enterprises - Redfeather Snowshoes - RentMaster - Sierra Club Outings - Student Conservation Association - Walltopia - Wilderness Inquiry - Wilderness Medical Associates - Wilderness Medicine Training Center
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The American Alpine Institute: Climbing, mountaineering and skiing provide us with something special. These activities take us to wild places and allow us to test ourselves against both nature and our own abilities. They provide us with a journey to a summit where friendship, challenge and skill intermingle to create personal growth. And they also give us insight into the value of wild places and mountain cultures throughout the world. They allow us a reason to become stewards and preservationists. The experiences that come from these activities can make people better…
The American Alpine Institute strives to provide students with the skills they need to independently access the mountains, to employ the most modern travel and climbing techniques, to understand the hazards associated with mountain travel, to develop the most progressive self-rescue skills available, to accept the serious responsibility of mountain partnerships, to understand mountain environments and the threats to them, and to develop
preservationist attitudes, so that the mountains are there for generations to come. We strive for this because we believe that the mountains and the activities that we engage in within them allow people to grow, both in the way that they view themselves, as well as in the way that they view the world… www.alpineinstitute.com
The American Alpine Institute was founded in 1975, and since then has held a singular focus on the mountain education of climbers, mountaineers, backcountry skiers, mountain rescue personnel, and outdoor educators. Throughout the time that the company has been in existence, the Institute has fashioned itself as first, a climbing school; second, as a guide service; and third as an advocate for land stewardship and preservation.
Most guide services have developed a model that insulates their clientele from the reality of the mountains. They are in the business of creating return clients dependent on them to access their adventures. The Institute is in the business of developing independent self-sufficient and environmentally savvy climbers that will eventually graduate from the need of a guide.
The climbing school has two major areas of focus. First, students are provided opportunities to practice every aspect of the discipline they are studying. And second, they are educated in stewardship and preservation. As such, every program attempts to provide students with opportunities to:
• Plan tours and/or climbs, including appropriate food and equipment.
• Develop personal navigation skills with an emphasis on the skills needed for the area where a course was taken.
• Develop hard technical climbing and/or skiing skills.
• Develop good judgment of terrain and objective hazards.
• Advance climbing and/or skiing movements skills through coaching from instructors.
• Develop self-rescue skills.
• Advance the skills required for efficiency of movement.
• Integrate specific technical climbing skills with general goals and objectives to facilitate efficient, secure, and self-dependent climbing and/or skiing.
• Develop an understanding of the geology and history of an area.
• Develop an understanding of alpine ecology.
• Practice Leave No Trace techniques in travel, camping, climbing and skiing.
• Develop an understanding and acceptance of climbing and mountaineering ethics.
When we guide people in mountainous environments, we still employ many of the teaching elements enumerated above. All of our guides are instructors first, so even when people are engaged in guided ascents, they continue to develop mountain knowledge, skills and preservationist attitudes.
Finally, the staff at the Institute is deeply concerned about threats to wild places. These include both existential threats like global warming or massive housing developments near climbing areas, as well as more manageable threats like trail-braiding or human waste in the backcountry. The staff at the Institute has been involved in many different efforts to advocate for wilderness, mountain culture and preservation over the years. And we plan to continue to engage in these efforts for the foreseeable future.