Past the break is a very long quasi chronological sequence of photos following the 2016 Wilderness Travel Course in Orange County with most being specific to Kaweah Group led by myself and Paul Warren along with a staff of extremely hard working volunteers.

For more information on what WTC is and how to take the course see the official site here.  More posts on WTC by me can be found here.

This was the fifth year since we started Kaweah Group and the students this year were some of the strongest and most active we've ever had.  The best years are the ones where you can feel the group starting to gel early on and this year they were all planning hikes and other get togethers on top of coming along on any trips, paddles, or other activities we threw at them.  It made all the classes and outings a joy to participate in and the post class summer trip season one of our most active.

We also had more snow than last year's abysmal showing which is hopefully a trend which will continue.

Ian Campbell is a relatively minor peak in the Sierra Nevada.  It's not on any of the major peakbagging lists and doesn't appear to be visited all that often but it does feature a reasonable approach, a decently cross country summit climb, a lake to camp at, and on top of all of that it's low enough to allow backcountry fires.  All of this makes it a nice fit for a WTC experience trip.

This was the last of the WTC trips I led during what turned into a rather busy climbing season.  With my knee noticeably improved post knee surgery I managed to lead 17 weekend trips in the period between the Spring and Fall Sierra Club Advanced Mountaineering Program class.  Several of the trips were a little more laid back but this was more than I'd been able to manage for several years and the quantity of trips tied with my all time season record.

It also made for a gloriously hectic few months of running out of town, coming back late, and working my rear end off at my job so I could leave town again a few days later.  And so it was with a mix of relief and disappointment that I reached this weekend and the final trip of the season before Fall AMP started and took up my weekends for the rest of October.