Rensselaer Mountaineering Club

Publication Year: 1956.

Rensselaer Mountaineering Club. Spring activities of the Rensselaer Mountaineering Club consisted largely of rock-climbing trips to the Sha- wangunk cliffs with the accent on the development of leaders. The club’s annual ice climb of the dyke on Mt. Colden in the Adirondacks was thwarted this year when a 13-member party encountered two feet of new snow instead of ice in the dyke. This trip is intended to provide instruction to beginners in ice techniques.

The summer months of 1955 saw members of the R.M.C. in the Cascades, Sierra, Wind Rivers, Tetons, and Colorado Rockies, with the official club expedition being into the Wind Rivers. The six-man party camped for eight days at the foot of the Dinwoody Glacier and succeeded in ascending eight of the surrounding peaks, including Gannett via the northern snowfields. The trip served as an introduction to western climbing for three of the men.

The R.M.C.’s regular rock-climbing training program got underway in the fall with a class in the fundamentals of rope techniques, belaying, and signals followed by a practice climb at the Grafton cliffs near Troy, where these principles could be demonstrated under controlled conditions. Apt beginners were then introduced to climbing at the larger and more extensive Shawangunk cliffs.

The past year has been a successful one for the club with an unusually large influx of members. However, it will always be a problem to develop capable leaders in the span of a man’s undergraduate education.

Carl Henrikson