Mazamas BCEP | Tales from the Hutt

Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.

Saturday, 25-Mar-2023

My next event for BCEP 2023 was a training hike, combined with a chance to practice some of the skills that the students had first learned in the MMC. I’d volunteered to lead it, since good form for belaying and rappelling is quite near and dear to me… but that meant scouting the terrain first, and locking down a location to review the skills. A “leader’s recon”, if you’ll forgive the ROTC parlance that’s still somehow engrained in my brain…

(Ed Note: No, Ben never was a cadet in ROTC. Yet somehow he found a way to take a few of their leadership classes, which wormed their way into his long-term memory)

The goal was simple: Jess and I would hike Coyote Wall, at Catherine Creek, and track down a good spot to set up a few anchors to belay / rappel off.

The execution was… less simple.

Turns out – Catherine Creek doesn’t have a lot of viable cliffs. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a LOT of cliffs at Catherine Creek! But here’s the thing… none of them had any particularly good anchor points, or approaches, or… really any of the things that I was looking for in a training area. They all looked great from a distance, but I quickly lost faith in them as we approached closer in.

On top of that, the “standard” BCEP route was blocked off by a sign.

“But Ben, you walk past signs all the time! Why would you care about this one?”

“Well, Other-Ben, this sign said ‘NO TRESSPASSING’ and was pockmarked with bullet holes”

“Good choice on not walking past that sign, Ben”

With the standard route blockaded and no grand areas to be found, I settled on the best that I could – a nice meadow on a 15 Degree slope, with a few good trees that we could anchor off of. It wasn’t the best, but it was what we had. And that’s what we use, in the wilderness – not what we want to have, but what we actually have.

I figured it’d be a good lesson, you know?

And hey – I got to hike with Jess! And we got to see some amazing sunset views, alongside glorious Gorge vistas! I’ll take it as a win, all day any day.

Who are the Mazamas, you may ask? And what’s BCEP, you may enquire? Well, let me fill you in dear reader. When I first moved to Oregon, I pretty quickly heard about a mountaineering group in town called The Mazamas.

Similar to the AMC back in Boston, they teach classes and do conservation outreach projects. Over the years, I’d interacted with them tangentially – attending a few classes, volunteering with a few groups, but I’d never been able to actually take a course officially. I’d applied to their Advanced Rock climbing class, but wasn’t accepted for one reason or another.

Now, nearly seven years after first moving to Oregon, I was trying again. This time beginning at the bottom – while you may notice that I’m not quite a beginner when it comes to the outdoors, I was tired. These last few years haven’t been easy, and I was just tired of fighting… the chance to just sit back and meet new people while enjoying a few group hikes was more than worth the price of admission.

Friday, 01-Apr-2022

No, really, this isn’t an April Fools joke.

Yes, I know that Mt. Tabor is only like… a single square mile. And it’s in the middle of the city. And I had a clear map that I’d printed out earlier.

But you know what?

The whole fun of BCEP for me is to practice things… Some of them I’ve learned before, but haven’t used in ages. So today, I was orienteering! Reviewing my old land navigation skills, and pulling out that compass that’s been hanging in my room for years.

I met up with two of the group assistants in the morning, relaxing in the sun by one of the reservoirs at Mt. Tabor. The weather report hadn’t been perfect, but the day had come through with shining (literally) colors… Breaking beautifully warm and bright, with more flowers blooming than I could have imagined.

We hopped to it, working our way through the land-navigation packet one step at a time. We didn’t rush, but didn’t slouch either… Both of my companions being amazingly supportive and fun, letting me take the lead and helping me work through the process using my older model compass. I can’t even remember when I bought this compass, but it’s one of the old-style Lensatic Compasses – no magnetic declination setting or anything, so I had to manually adjust the declination reading every time… which isn’t really that hard, but I did get mixed up a few times due to the negative modifier for Oregon…

Anyways, my inability to do math aside, we had a great time. We walked through the steps, chatted a lot, and enjoyed a perfect walk in the park. Smelled the flowers, took in the sunlight, and… just appreciated.

After finishing up, we parted ways. They headed out, and I took a bit of a walk around… just relishing the chance to stretch my legs and enjoy the spring weather. I even stopped by the garden shop on the way home, picking up (possibly too many) new plants for the balcony!

It’s been a rough few years, but simple and fun trips like this are helping me feel some confidence in the world ahead. I think it’s going to be pretty excellent.