Placing Gear and Building Anchor

Our intermediate program is the beginning of the rest of your climbing career. We typically begin with a climb and rappel of a multi-pitch route to evaluate your ability and understanding of climbing principles. After reviewing any necessary basics, we will progress to creating safe natural and artificial anchors with a particular focus on setting up simple yet “bombproof” top rope climbs using the rope, runners and/or cordellettes. We will focus on the concepts of anchor stability, directionality, effectiveness, redundancy, equalization, and extension. You will practice building top rope climbing systems and then climbing on them after critique from your guide. Throughout the weekend we will examine more intricacies of equipment use, practice placing and cleaning chocks and camming devices, and learn the basics of self-rescue related to top rope climbing.