BBC -Our Sierra Club Ancestry

Our Basic Backpacking Course follows a long tradition within the Sierra Club in Southern California to provide training for hiking in the outdoors.  These classes have always been led by volunteers who want to give back and help others spend more time outdoors and take on more challenging trips.

Back in the 50’s and 60’s the Rock Climbing Section and Sierra Peaks Section within the Angeles Chapter were undertaking serious rock climbs and mountaineering outings in the local crags and the Sierras.  There was a desire to help prepare hikers to safely join in these trips and a Basic Mountaineering Training Course (BMTC) was formed.  The BMTC was very well received and had groups in Orange County, West Los Angeles, San Gabriel Valley, and Long Beach.  BMTC trained with ropes for rock climbing and repelling; as well as Ice Axes for snow travel.  BMTC had a schedule of classroom and field outings that is very similar to courses that followed it.  The highlight of the course was a weekend snow camping in the Sierras.

Around 1980 the Sierra Club was hit with high insurance costs and could justify the risks associated with roped travel and ice axes, so the BMTC was dissolved.  A group of the BMTC leaders got together and developed a class that could get people out in the mountains but not use ropes or ice axes.  The Wilderness Travel Course in the Angeles Chapter and the Wilderness Basics Course in San Diego were born.

WTC and WBC have proven to be very well received and prepared a lot of people to do backpacking and easy mountaineering.   A student from the San Diego WBC moved to Ventura and started a Wilderness Basics Course here.  WBC ran for about 15 years but came to an end after losing the founder and experiencing the difficulties of sustaining an outings program during COVID.

The Basic Backpacking Course was first held in 2025.  Our course is staffed by volunteer leaders who came up through WBC.  BBC is an effort to reboot the training program for outings in the Santa Barbara-Ventura Chapter of the Sierra Club by starting over with the fundamentals and prioritizing small group engagement.  Our goal is to prepare students to plan and safely run their own wilderness adventures.