Course Dates:
January 12th-25th, 2008
Cost:
• $2,300 plus airfare
• $200 non-refundable down payment due September 21st
• Full payment due October 1, 2007
• Anyone associated with JHU or their spouse is welcome on this course
This cost includes all food, group gear, and most of the technical climbing equipment you’ll need. Participants will be given a personal clothing and gear list during the summer. Course Description:
For 14 days, we will travel, work, and climb in a country of incredible beauty and contrasts. Economically poor, environmentally rich, this is a land of extreme poverty and 20,000 foot volcanoes. Ecuador offers us a chance to interact in a significant way with local people who can use some help while offering us rich insights into our own beliefs and cultural perspectives. As the following schedule suggests, there will be a mixture of service days and acclimatization to prepare us for Cotopaxi, one of the world’s highest active volcanoes at 19,340 feet. This course emphasizes the connections we can make with others. Whether working together to distribute food and clothing, or keeping one another safe on a rope team at 18, 000 feet on a glacier, the concepts of service, cooperation, and teamwork are the same. We fully intend this course to be far more than a standard guided trip. Instead, we hope to cultivate a deeper spirit of care and concern for one another in a global sense. With that in mind, we offer here a partial list of the opportunities this course offers:
• Developing new relationships and friendships with other group members and people of a different culture
• Climbing significant peaks of varying difficulty
• A chance to broaden cultural perspectives
• Learning how to help, and be helped by others in a variety of challenging settings
• A chance to climb a huge glaciated peak on a very enjoyable yet demanding route
• On-going opportunities to reflect upon each experience and transfer new learning back home
• Learning the techniques and attitudes that will keep a group safe in the mountains
• Appreciating the similarities and differences between two cultures
• A chance to read and study some of the finest works of mountaineering literature Last year our trip ran concurrently with a credited Intersession course, “Mountaineering Narrative”. We are planning on running this course again, but at the time this document was created the course was not finalized. If the course does run it will introduce students to the literature of high-altitude adventure. It will focus on 20th century climbers and their expeditions, bringing into discussion some of the most exciting, and ethically problematic, attempts on the world’s highest peaks. We will look at how the raw data about an expedition is assembled into a coherent text. While doing so, we will keep our own journals of our climbs in Ecuador, with a view toward assembling a final joint
account of our “expedition.” Most of the books we will be reading are simply great yarns, and we will try to understand what adds so much flavor and authority to certain writers’ accounts. A preliminary list of texts from which a final list will be selected includes: Annapurna, Herzog
-148, Davidson (the title refers to a temperature reading during the expedition, the first winter ascent of Mt. McKinley)
Clouds from Both Sides, Tullis
Everest, the West Ridge, Hornbein
True Summit, Roberts
The White Spider, Harrer
Nanda Devi, Roskelley
Solo Faces, Salter
A Climber’s Life, Messner
K2: the 1939 Tragedy, Kauffman Proposed Itinerary:
Day 1- Travel to Quito
Day 2- Group introductions, Orientation to Quito
Day 3- Service project at Quito dump
Day 4- Rucu Pinchincha (technical climb to 15,413 feet)
Day 5- Skills training
Day 6- Service project at urban orphanage
Day 7- Iliniza Norte (climb to 16,800 feet)
Day 8- Touring Day
Day 9- Drive to Cotopaxi National Park; hike to climber’s hut at 15,700 feet
Day 10- Glacier travel training
Day 11- Climb Cotopaxi; return to Quito
Day 12- Papallacta Hot Springs
Day 13- Cultural Exposure Day; Debrief course
Day 14- Travel to Baltimore Summit Adventure:
This course is run by Summit Adventure in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University's Outdoors Pursuits Program. Summit Adventure can be contacted at: Summit Adventure
P.O.Box 498
Bass Lake, CA 93604
559.642.3899
Sign-up Procedure:
Register here online or sign up at the Outdoor Pursuits Base Camp located in the
Ralph S. O'Connor Recreation Center. Summer Hours are Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm. For any questions or concerns, call 410.516.4417 or email op@jhu.edu.
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