Introduction to Rock Climbing Course - Learn to Climb
Rock climbing is an exhilarating adventure that creates amazing feelings and long lasting memories.
We can help you start climbing with a variety of tailored taster courses where you will learn how to climb in an exciting, safe and informative environment.
The instruction will be tailored to give you both a taste of climbing and also the chance to learn all of the basic climbing skills in a practical and fun way.
The Learn to Climb course content and duration can vary enormously and will be built around your requirements - at at one end of the spectrum the climbing instruction can be an adventurous day out for your family where the emphasis will be doing lots of climbing rather than learning technical skills and at the other it can be a multi-day introduction to climbing for those who want to learn how to climb independently: We can instruct you on all the key issues involved in climbing safely: rope work, knots, belays, placing protection and descending.
We supply all of the technical equipment and the topics often include:
- Movement and technique on the rock - How climbers use the holds to move efficiently up the rock
- Equipment- selection and use of ropes, nuts, wires, cams and belay plates
- Crag awareness - safe places to rack up, reading the routes and objective dangers.
- Rope work and Belaying Techniques: How two climbers use the rope and work as a team to ensure each others safety.
- Top-roping, seconding and leading
- Protecting a climb - How the equipment works together to form a safety system
- Belays - Constructing safe belay stances, equalising anchors and thinking ahead.
- Abseiling and the choice of safe descents from climbs
- Route descriptions, climbing terminology and grading systems
We like to try and do all of this whilst climbing so that the information is as authentic as possible. You will do plenty of climbing - from the first day you can expect to be climbing routes.
On a course lasting 1-2 days you'll get a taste for rock climbing and at the end should be able to second climbs of basic difficulty. If you are looking at leading routes and being more in dependant then you will need more time. A 5 day course will let us help you progress from never having climbed before to the possibility of leading your own climbs in a controlled and confident manner at the end of the week.
If you want a head start on the technical side of things then the following are a great place to start:
Rock Climbing - Essential Skills and Techniques - the best book on how to climb safely. Crammed with information and easy to read.
Mountain craft and Leadership - A heavy weight, but the old bible.
The British Mountaineering Council also provide a lot of information for people starting out; including some useful downloads that were originally published in Summit magazine:
Climbing Indoors - Climbing Wall Basics
Plus there are plenty of other good articles in the Safety and Skill / Climb Skills section of the BMC web site
Dates, venues and duration of the courses are by arrangement and totally customisable. Please do not hesitate to get in touch to discuss your requirements.