Teaching Climbing

The one thing I always conclude whenever teaching and experimenting with hoists for improvised rescue is that they all suck. Z-pulley, 6:1, Spanish Burton, bla bla - all worthless. And think I am in venerable company when I make this claim. If you disagree, then you have never hoisted an incapacitated climber, heavier than thou, in complex terrain, over any distance. No Traxion allowed. Friction ruins all the fun It is a natural fact that it is easier to work with gravity and friction rather than against them, meaning we should always try to go downhill. Or just stay put and slam the panic button. Still, there are times when we really need to get an injured or tired partner up,  notably in environments like sea cliffs, canyons, crevasses, etc. One big obstacle when hoisting, apart from that 110-kilo Godzilla at the other end, is the friction over the edge of the belay stance. This can be minimized if the anchor is built nice and high and the ledge is small. But on a big ledge and wi

There is one thing about your climbing technique that you probably think you are doing right. Or, more likely, you are doing it right sometimes out of sheer luck. Let´s talk about the nitty-gritty of the figure-of-8! For most of us, the (rethreaded or follow-through) figure-of-8 was the first specific climbing "thing" we ever learned. It is a standard tool for climbers for good reason. It is strong. It is easy to learn and hard to get wrong. It is easy to inspect. And it is easy to untie. "Weeell..." you say about the last statement. Maybe you prefer a bowline variation, because when you work those routes and fall a lot, your figure-of-8 gets really hard to untie. Hmmm, maybe we can do something about that. Let´s look at how we usually teach the figure-of-8, and how that can be improved!  The way I learned, and continued to tie the knot for a long time, was something like this:  Make a single figure-of-8. Pass the end of the rope through your harness´ tie in point.

A few weeks ago, I participated as an observer at the pedagogical exam for Rock Climbing Instructors. In the Swedish system (which adheres to UIAA standards), this is the second and final step in testing soon-to-be instructors. It is preceded by a two-day technical exam, so the candidates are already cleared in terms of technical competency. At the pedagogical exam, candidates get to plan and execute, completely independently, a real climbing course with real participants. As an examiner, or in my case observer, this is a fantastic opportunity to spend a weekend watching, analysing, and thinking about various methods used by instructors who have seriously considered every minute of their day. Because the challenge this time was to hold a lead-climbing course, a very specific issue rears its head. How do you teach lead climbing as safely and efficiently as possible? Lead-climbing, after all, requires the student to be on the wall, in exposed terrain. I saw various solutions, all of

Epiphanies can be big or small. They can be "Eureka" or "Huh, interesting". It is great that even after decades of climbing I can still get that sudden realization and learn something new. Or maybe it´s just a sign that I have not been paying attention. Anyway, one such epiphany was supplied by John Godino at www.AlpineSavvy.com , who has created a great resource for anything related to wilderness travel and climbing. So, when you wrap sling around a big tree and tie it off, you now have four strands disappearing around the trunk. How would you clip the "shelf"? I found that if I did not give it a second thought, I might clip the two top strands. The reason could be that most anchors involving nuts or cams are usually spread out horizontally, and in these cases we clip the two top (or bottom) strands. But if we do the same with our tree-anchor, we will actually be clipping only one loop, which creates a non-redundant anchor. Here are a few pics to ex

Knots should not just be useful. They need to be easy to teach and hard to get wrong even under stress. A very important skill for any climber is to be able to tie off a belay device or Munther hitch. Whenever you need to get your hands free for a snack, a photo, or transfer loads in a rescue situation, that passive end needs to go somewhere. The classic solution, especially in North America, seems to be the Munther-Mule. It is safe, can be released easily under load, and most importantly, knot nerds (like your average climbing instructor) like complicated knots with unintelligible names. If you are not sure what I mean, here is the Animated Knots page ! The Munther-Mule combination. The backup half hitch has been omitted for clarity. I should start by making it very clear that this is a tried and tested method. Technically, there is nothing wrong with a properly tied Munther-Mule combination, and if you like it, use it! But I strive to teach knots that are easy to use,

People get hurt. People die. Yet climbers will climb and I think this makes the world a better place. So how do we talk about this with our clients? I am not going to provide any answers here, because it is something I wrestle with myself. But I will try to organize my thoughts, and hopefully, this will trigger some input from my readers. The reason we are in this business  - teaching climbers all the survival skills - is that climbing is dangerous. Very dangerous. Every year, lots of people die or get seriously injured in climbing. It seems only natural that we should be transparent about it. Why? Because studying accidents is how we can understand risk, and develop both safety culture and safety technology. On the other hand, ambushing a nervous beginner with tales of death and suffering hardly seems inspirational, does it? What, then, could be the middle ground? I believe that facts and timing matter. Let me explain. The reason we need to talk to students about accidents i