Becoming a Snowshoe Trip Leader

The look on people's faces when you get them outside and show them places they've never seen is often cited as one of the best rewards for our volunteers. If you are interested in contributing to the mission of The Mountaineers by organizing and leading snowshoe trips, you are in the right place!

Requirements

Before you can sign up to lead a Mountaineers snowshoe trip, you must be on the leadership roster and have been awarded a snowshoe leader badge. Leadership qualities, group and individual safety, experience, and level-headed decision-making are four major components to successful leadership. Therefore, we have minimum requirements for those interested in becoming a volunteer trip leader (see below).

For the level you would like to lead, if your experience appears close to (or exceeds) these guidelines, please email the committee.

Note: Depending on the season and volunteer availability, the review process may take weeks to complete. All applications are subject to Snowshoe Committee approval. 

Mentored Leads
All prospective trip leaders must complete at least one mentored lead for each leader badge they wish to receive, including existing trip leaders. The purpose is to ensure that leaders know how to properly post, manage and close out snowshoeing trips, but also to ensure that the leader is familiar with the relative capabilities and desires of the snowshoeing audience.

An “existing leader” is one who already possesses an active leader badge for some other activity (hiking, scrambling, etc.) and has led at least 3 trips in the past 2 calendar years. Existing leaders are required to complete at least 1 mentored lead for each leader badge they wish to pursue.
New leaders must complete two mentored leads for the badge(s) they wish to pursue. If a leader wishes to pursue both Basic and Intermediate Snowshoe Leader at the same time, their two mentored leads can be one of each type.