If you frequent this site you may have read my reviews of previous weeks of this seminar, Iv’e decided to forgo reviewing the third and fourth sessions in favor of a cumulative review. I want to start by saying the instructors were great, they were both friendly, experienced and willing to spend one on one time with all of us as needed.

Practicing Rappel Rescue

As I mentioned in a previous post, the first session dealt with the basic belay escape technique and other basic rope tricks. Since I wrote up this session I won’t go into much detail, but all in all this session was great. The belay escape pretty much was the essential building block that allowed almost all of the following skills to be performed.

Session two, rappel rescue was the covered topic. In a multi-pitch climbing situation, building a trustworthy anchor while conserving gear so that you can lower down to a distressed partner is a vital skill to have. In this session we learned how to transition from belaying our second to rappelling down to our second, attaching them to our system and then continuing to lower. we also learned a basic block and tackle which allowed us to unload our parnters climbing rope to untie it if we needed.

In session 3 we learned about hauling systems and their role in various rescue situations. first we learned about the 2:1 system followed by 3:1 and finally 5:1. not only were we instructed in detail on how to do this, but we also learned of the many practical applications for these techniques.

The last session covered leader rescue. In a situation where your lead climber falls and becomes unable to

Escaping A Belay

complete a climb, this technique allows one to escape the belay, ascend the line, secure the anchor, then recover the distressed climber. In this session we brought together every technique we learned to carry out a leader rescue. We escaped our belay, we ascended a fixed line, and so on. This session to me felt like the real deal, and the best way to test what we’ve learned.

As you can see there is a lot involved with self-rescue, a bit more than I even expected. I am really grateful I chose to take this course. at just over 200 dollars it was money well spent. I recommend anyone who climbs to take a self rescue course, and if your living in the Northeastern US, Earth Treks is definitely worth a look.

-Patrick