10-Week Wilderness Travel Course Will Begin Jan. 30 in Long Beach

The Sierra Club’s annual Basic Mountaineering Training Course has been modified this year, because of a change in the club’s insurance policy, and will be called Wilderness Travel Course. It will begin Jan. 30.

Subjects taught by an all-volunteer staff include elementary rock climbing, mountain safety and rescue, snow travel, winter camping, mountaineering medicine, navigation with map and compass, food planning, equipment and physical conditioning. Because of insurance restrictions, the course will not cover use of ropes on rock nor use of ice axes on snow, according to Joe Wankum, Long Beach area chairman.

The 10-week course includes weekly meetings at 7:30 p.m. Mondays at Stanford Junior High School in Long Beach for lectures, films, demonstrations and small-group practice sessions. Four field trips are scheduled on weekends to the San Gabriel Mountains, Joshua Tree National Monument and the Sierra Nevada.

The cost is $90 for Sierra Club members or $100 for nonmembers, plus $13 for a textbook. Application may be made in writing to the course registrar, Post Office Box 90937, Los Angeles, Calif. 90009. Further information is available on the Sierra Club’s Mountaineering Training Committee hot line at (213) 381-6348.

The course will accept about 60 students from throughout Long Beach, the South Bay and Southeast areas of Los Angeles County and parts of northern Orange County. Other branches of the course are offered in the West Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley areas.