Dates

Saturday April 25th 9am – 3pm

Saturday May 9th  9am – 3pm

Location

Great Falls Park Virginia

General

Technical Rope Skills is a course intended to help climbers and mountaineers advance their knowledge of gear, systems, and techniques with the goal of improving their safety and understanding in the vertical environment.

The class is not aimed at brand new climbers. Instead, this class is intended for students who have basic skills and some climbing experience, but want to push their knowledge into more intermediate/advanced concepts.

The course will focus on understanding underlying principles and work on multiple ways to solve problems rather than learning a single ‘right way’. Broadly, most skills fall into the groups of:

1: Moving yourself (or a partner) up a rope safely

2: Moving yourself (or a partner) down a rope safely

3: Safely switching between #1 and #2

The course will cover those three tasks, some anchor building, and student questions/scenarios.

There will be two separate six hour classes. One session will be aimed at students with less experience. and the second session will be aimed toward more experienced students. Responses to the application below and participant availability will determine which class is held on which date.

Required Experience

Applicants should have a basic knowledge of knots, hitches, and gear used in climbing and mountaineering. The course is aimed at lead climbers/mountaineers looking to improve existing skills/techniques.

Selection Process

The application for this course is here.

There will be ten participants per class chosen from the responses to the application and participant  availability. Applications will close after 11 April.

Instructor James Stockton

James has been climbing and mountaineering for ~22 years and spent 11 of those years volunteering with the Organ Mountain Technical Rescue Squad based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was Team Captain for 5 years; completed multiple 40 hour training courses with Rigging for Rescue, Strike Rescue, and the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC); and spent thousands of hours in the field participating in search and rescue trainings and missions.

James has climbed mostly in the desert southwest and the Pacific Northwest. He works as a data scientist in the DMV area and tries to gain elevation via hiking, sport climbing, trad, ice, aid, skis, crampons, and most any other way humans have devised. He is excited to pay skills forward and maybe meet some new friends that will keep him from being too lazy.

James may be assisted by other PMC instructors.