UKC

Hi, I've been climbing for 3 years and am confident lead climbing and belaying, inside and outside. I was hoping to ask for advice regarding getting a course to learn multi-pitch techniques. Are there any which would be reccomended / surprisingly budget friendly? I could potentially learn these skills from the people around me but thought a course could be a great way to improve my confidence. I'm Sheffield based, but would be open to travelling for a course, as there are many places I would like to see anyways.

Thanks for your time!

If you're comfortable with belaying a second from above and with setting up abseils, there's precious little to learn in terms of doing things safely. A course will be able to fast track your learning regarding more efficient ways of organising belays and ropes, but there's no reason why it should be seen as essential, unless you're notably nervous about the idea and want reassurance that you'll be fine in a multipitch environment.

My suggestion would be to read a little about multipitch belays and stance management and then to go out and do a few easy routes, ideally ones with suitably big ledges for belays and giving yourself plenty of time.

If you still want to do a course to get slicker then fine, but it may be that by then you've learned enough about your limitations to make a good decision as to how to address them, whether that be by books/videos, by taking a course, or by finding more experienced climbers to help.

Hi Lily

I've sent you an email.

Alex

In my view, if you've a few years lead experience, multipitch should be no problem. Understand the theory, from a book, or vids such as :

https://youtu.be/DYTCun48TKs?si=hyQsYF-tRlsvbExY

Practice it on the ground if you need to. Then go do something like Pedestal Route (HVD 4a) at the Roaches or some of the other short multipitch routes there or Hen Cloud. Tryfan Fach in Ogwen is great too, as many stances as you want and loads of gear options to practice. Start off where the communication is easy and consequences low, basically.

The most important thing before you get into serious multipitch territory is having a system for communicating with your partner if they're out of sight, and knowing what to do if either of you get in trouble (self rescue etc.).

A course won't hurt of course, though I didn't find it necessary to get going. 

Join a club, like the Mynydd (we have members in Sheffield). If you want to try us out, get to awesome walls Stockport tomorrow for our Turn Up and Tie On. If you can't make tomorrow there's an outdoor version in the peak later in the year

https://mynydd.org.uk/wordpress/

https://people.bath.ac.uk/dac33/high/

Free too

Thanks for this! I've done some reading around it, and my partner has multi-pitched before so I feel more confident in this as an option

Aw great I'll check out those videos, thanks for the route reccomendation too )

Nice I'll check it out

I have also sent you an email 

Last couple of years there has been a weekend workshop called 'womens trad fest' based in the Peak District designed to team women climbers up to fine tune skills and learn new ones. Not sure when it is but there could be a good starting point.

Join a club and be able to repeatedly reference the relevant techniques without it costing. Fun too, with the added social scene and possibility of club huts. Back in the day nobody went on courses, because non of us had any money, but as the UK,s mountaineering and rock climbing record shows, it didn’t seem to hold us back.

Womens traditional festival has come to an end for now unfortunately.

As someone who has taught courses and clinics, I'd say that if the course is any good, there will be more information than you can process and retain---unless you come prepared by having read up and consulted online resources.  You'll get a lot more out of the course this way.

Given your experience, you probably already know 80% of what you need.  I'd emphasize becoming adept with as many different styles and approaches as possible, because no protocol adapts well to every situation.  Beware of any presentation (and presenter) that claims to be the only right way, because there isn't only one right way.  And people keep finding new (and often if not always better) ways to rig things; keep up-to-date and don't let your procedures calcify into "I've been doing it this way for years" if there are truly better approaches.

I just did a clinic on rope-only anchoring, which is almost a lost art in the US (UK climbers are much more adept at this).  Something that surprised me was how little ability my students had in deploying clove hitches.  Yes, they all knew how to make two loops and cross them to get a clove hitch, but they were far less facile with methods that involve clipping in first and then forming the hitch---these methods are important for efficiency, and efficiency is probably the most important new thing to learn for multipitch climbing if you don't want to end up part way up in the dark.

You'll want to think through when rope-only, slings, or cordelette methods are most appropriate. (Rope-on methods are the most robust and adjustable, but can consume too much rope, don't work well for remote anchors, and are inefficient if the climbers are not swapping leads at every ptich. You'll need to think about whether an anchor has to be protected from upward loads and what measures to consider if it can't be. If you are going to be in remote areas, you might want to consider a basic self-rescue course and then consider how your chosen rigging method might facilitate or obstruct emergency measures (the need for which, as many people will be quick to point out, is extremely rare).

Personally, I feel that John Arran is spot on. Courses and time with very experienced climbers can fast track you, but if your gear is good, you can build a range of belays (e.g. a nut belay using your rope to equalise) and you can set up an abseil, then don't be scared to get stuck in. Some multipitch routes are only 2 pitches (e.g. Route 1 (VD), whilst others have big ledges and obvious belays (e.g. Trinity Slabs (VD). Try and pick something shorter and friendly to start with, where the climbing feels easy, so you can get confident with the skills and feel less intimidated if something goes a bit wrong.

Feel free to post on these forums if you have specific questions. Occasionally you may get silly answers, but many people will be friendly and helpful and some are very experienced and knowledgeable.

Oh, and check out the BMC and JB Mountain Skills videos on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTodUXkQjZwwVwoW5zbmxpD1r-h9bhbYh&si...

Hopefully some good weather will arrive soon!

Thanks for the mention!

A few thoughts from the experience of having been in this position a year or two ago, for what they're worth, if anything.

- You don't need to do a course, but you do need to learn the ropework for safely attaching your second as well as building your belay. This isn't horrifically complicated but I didn't know what I didn't know until I did a weekend course (Women's Alpine Adventure Club, who do heaps of other things too), and then went out with a friend who'd been leading a similar length of time but hadn't had instruction. Turned out we both didn't know it (and in my case I'd picked up bad habits from years of seconding others - just putting second on one piece of (not 100% bomber) gear!). So just make sure you learn from someone who does know what they're doing, course or no, then practise it on low stress routes (there is the odd multipitch possibility on Stanage... I've pitched Grotto Slab).

- The harder stuff is learning how to deal with all the stuff that can go wrong on a multi - which is a mix of experience and mitigation. Eg navigation especially (descriptions invariably telling you to follow to 'the obvious feature', which could be one of five features), bad weather incoming, communication, stuck ropes, realising too late that you shouldn't have had a curry the night before, and descents in some circs (eg Idwal Slabs). 

- Related to the above, pick your first routes wisely. I was leading SP VD so thought I'd pick a four-pitch VD that didn't end on a summit and which was described as easily escapable compared to Idwal Slabs. I ended up having to back off metres off the ground as it was way more polished, sparser gear and generally harder than expected, and I couldn't see past a bulge to see if it improved (I don't think it did). Backing off was a great learning experience but I didn't really know how to do so smoothly and went into panic; in hindsight there are other things I could have done that might not losing my favourite ever piece (which some eejit then boasted about getting...) and several other people said yep, that route is hard for a VD (that said, obviously others' opinions can be useless!). I personally also found it an adjustment going from easy grit to comparable grades in N Wales and the Lakes as the rock is so different, often way more polished, and takes less gear at the grade. You may well also be getting advice that 'it's a cruisey X Grade' from folk who aren't XG climbers so don't actually have a sense for what is harder for a newer leader. So drop a grade, choose a really nice route, and go with a more experienced partner (even if they're just seconding you). And buy tough tags. 

Enjoy.  

Thanks for the videos - a really great resource for the community

That's a shame, do you know why?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzGlXDkt1Cm/?igsh=MXV3bmI2YW8ydmtncg==

This is a post about it.

Thanks. Seems like the organisers would rather do other things, which is fair enough, I'm sure it's a lot of work.

really lucky at sheffield to be surrounded by people with experience, think I'm definitely swinging towards the idea of simply learning off my more experienced friends 

Hi, just wanted to thank everybody for taking the time to reply! It's been very encouraging reading through all the advice + specific steps to take to build confidence! i appreciate it

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/starting_out/mci_trainee_looking_for_mock...