Curriculum

The Intermediate Climbing Course is a multi-week, multi-discipline class covering the skills needed for traditional lead climbing, and party self rescue.  These topics are described in more detail below.  

We ask all students and instructors to pass a knots test to help evaluate your current skill level.  The test can be found here.

The class supports "Rock-only" (three weekends), and "Rescue-only" (one weekend) options, but preference is given to students taking both portions of the class.

Rock

The rock portion of the curriculum covers everything you need to climb moderate multi-pitch alpine rock climbs. This includes:

Rock I is your opportunity to practice placing gear on easy rock routes where the focus is on proper gear selection, organization, and placement rather than climbing technique.  In addition to this you will be learning  the basics of how to build trad anchors.  After each mock lead climb you will rappel with an instructor and each piece of gear will be collaboratively evaluated. 

Rock II extends your climbing range by focusing on multi-pitch climbing, anchor building and rope management, as well as crack climbing technique.

Rock III moves onto more difficult and varied climbing terrain.  Like Rock I, after each mock lead climb you will rappel with an instructor and each piece of gear will be evaluated jointly.  The objective of the weekend is to do real leads on rock routes.  The lecture prior will go over Alpine climbing and trip planning as a rock leader.

Self Rescue

The self rescue portion will teach you how to improvise solutions to for rescuing yourself and your partner in vertical terrain. Specifically this covers things like: