Self Rescue Clinic

If you climb outdoors for long enough, you will likely find yourself in a situation where you need more than normal belay skills. Whether that result of an injury or not, situations arise that demand us to have a better understanding of risk management and rescue systems, and how to apply them in an efficient and measured manner. Some likely scenarios include:

• You are belaying your climber from above with an ATC, and they cannot pull a move. You either need to haul them or lower them.

• You are belaying a friend and they flipped upside-down in an awkward position. They can’t right themselves, and you can’t lower them safely while inverted. You need to ascend and assist them.

• Your friend is belaying, and gets stung by a bee. They need their Epi-Pen, which means someone will need to take over the belay from them.

These scenarios are things that could easily happen in a day out climbing, and while many climbers could likely solve these problems with ad-hoc solutions, having the skills to do so quickly, efficiently, and with acceptable safety measures will pay dividends for both yourself and your climbing partners, and allow all of you to feel more comfortable and confident as you approach bigger and more consequential objectives.

Following this course, you should feel comfortable creating simple systems with the basic equipment that you carry every day to allow you to escape a belay, haul a climber, take over a belay, and more! We will teach you systems that use common equipment, and can be easily constructed. You will leave this course a more confident, confident, and well rounded climber.

WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT:

This course, like all of our courses, is designed to meet you where you are, with the experiences you have, and help make you into a better climber. Our teaching approach involves training to the why, not just the how. We want you to leave our clinics understanding the principles behind the systems and how to apply them, not just how to use the systems in isolation. Many aspects of self rescue systems can be used in a variety of ways to accomplish different goals. For instance, understanding how a pull works in a haul system allow us to understand how to incorporate one in an ascension system. We strive to teach to these systems so that you understand and can apply them, not simply replicate.

We pride ourselves in being able to cater to the group dynamics of the day. Just because this a group event, doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to follow a prescribed curriculum. The curriculum listed above is just a guideline. If you and your group want to pursue additional ideas, goals, or education, then we can make that happen. If your group wants to spend their time on specific learning goals or ideas, we can make it happen.

Please note, self rescue skills can be thought of as a spectrum, and this course teaches to the entry level of that spectrum. For instance, this course will not fully equip you if you have an injured climbers on a multi pitch climb, and need to rescue them and then rappel multiple stations with them unable to assist you. However, the skills covered in this are crucial to understanding more complex ones, and need not be overlooked. Learning self rescue skills is a lifelong endeavor, and encompasses more components than a one day course could accomplish.