... unless you pay almost £30 for a 1 HOUR assessment.
Having Nicas level 4 means nowt. Being supervised means nowt. Being willing to have same check as everyone else - nowt. Cough up, pre book 1 hour of your visit or your teen ain't holding your rope.
Is £50 for the pair of us going to be worth the half day left?
Maybe not a venue if you don't live there.
Never had this issue - has anyone else?
I'm fairly sure it's like that across the board sadly. When I was 16, I had to pay for an hour session to get registered for bouldering. Got very expensive teaching my gf at the time top roping
It's not. I have a very competent 14 Yr old and we have definitely been asked for her to be checked but never £30, never 1 whole hour, nearer what every other sentient human being has - a few knowing questions, watch a knot plus harness and in the trust of the adult. That's all fair enough 1 hour half way through the day at £30 is just a racket.
My then 14-year-old daughter (who does not look older than she is) was belaying me at Ratho earlier this year.
Nobody commented.
This was only for toproping routes, though.
It's not somewhere I go a lot, but I'd be interested to hear what the policy is - is this just for lead climbing, or is it a new thing, or did we just happen to get away with it?
We were there 5 /6 years ago when my kid was in ycs uk finals. We just really wanted to go back but I'm a single mum and I climb too so being restricted to bouldering when my daughter belays better than many adults feels really rough. But it's still a kind of special place. Just proper sad
I got 2 different replies and the website is super confusing. 1 reply said its fine and the other was you need an assessment. I asked them to clarify and got a very 'formal' we need £30! Maybe new rules bit very out of whack with other walls.
>”I climb too so being restricted to bouldering when my daughter belays better than many adults feels really rough”
If you do decide to splash the cash, there are also autobelays that could keep you going until junior has been vetted.
Ratho is pretty chilly this time of year so down jackets for belaying are required.
It's actually no problem: in Scotland, you can now self-identity as over 18.
So, in Scotland you can decide the fate of the country as soon as you are 16 - without any check whatsoever.
But at Ratho these same voters have to go through a one hour assessment ??
Simple question - quite apart from the yawning chasm between the Scottish Government and Ratho's ( or their insurers ?) assessment of 16 and 17-year-olds - what the f**k would the assessor find to do that takes an entire hour !!!
(Editted for spelling mistake !)
> So, in Scotland you can decide the fate of the country as soon as you are 16 - without any check whatsoever.
> Bot at Ratho these same voters have to go through a one hour assessment ??
I refuse to set foot inside Ratho until they make Sun, Mail and Express readers undergo a six month long course and week long assessment, at their own cost, before allowing them though the door unsupervised.
There’s a big difference between expressing your preference in a vote and literally holding someone’s life in your hands.
> I refuse to set foot inside Ratho until they make Sun, Mail and Express readers undergo a six month long course and week long assessment, at their own cost, before allowing them though the door unsupervised.
You're out-of-date, pal: that's already the case. And Guardian readers get a _twelve_ month course and assessment!
> There’s a big difference between expressing your preference in a vote and literally holding someone’s life in your hands.
Oh I'm not so sure about that!
Does NICAS cover climbing or belaying as well? If it includes belaying then I'd agree it's double dipping, but the UK doesn't have a nationally recognised certification so c'est la vie
I see no problem with a standard belay competence check, in fact it should be mandatory.
However, £30 for an hour check? I would guess there may be an instructional element but this would be superfluous for a competent belayer
Thread:
Do you think we could get to atleast 15 posts without any unnecessary political snipes?
Agreed but why can't she face the same checks as any other human being? She also does Nicas and tbh is a better belayer than plenty I see week in week out.
1 whole hour is choking! She'll be bored into a coma! If they offered an hour of intensive belaying coaching, including practice catches and things like dropped rope after failed clip then I'd pay it happily.
See reply above I'm super in favour of checking belayers - all and any but 1 whole hr for all under 18s costing nearly £30? That's not about being unwilling to prove it.
Sounds excessive to me.
Our wall does a standard competency test for a 14 year old and we also do a chat with parent and young person about the risks involved and make sure all parties are clear that it's not just about knowing the skills but also acting in a responsible manner.
I do think taking extra care when assessing youngsters is important, but it shouldn't cost anything extra and I don't think it needs a full hour!
I can’t speak for Ratho, but I kinda see why they would be more worried about children belaying than adults and feel they need to be more thorough.
Obviously, humans are highly variable and one can find competent children and incompetent adults but I guess there must be some evidence, that, on balance, adults can be expected to be more responsible than children, hence the less rigorous testing regime.
I think they might have a couple instructors involved, one as a crash test dummy taking falls and another backing up the student belayer which would go some way to explaining the high cost.
Edit: I wonder if the whole hour thing has to do with the size of group? Perhaps if it turns out only one or two are on the test, it’ll all be gone through in twenty minutes or something.
> Does NICAS cover climbing or belaying as well? If it includes belaying then I'd agree it's double dipping, but the UK doesn't have a nationally recognised certification so c'est la vie
At the higher levels, (4?, 5 definitely), NICAS covers lead climbing and belaying. It’s a very good scheme and anyone who completes it should come out a very competent indoor climber. My son went through it a few years ago and I was impressed by the whole scheme.
> Do you think we could get to atleast 15 posts without any unnecessary political snipes?
Assigning a legal age of responsibility for _anything_ is, of necessity, a legal and political question.
If Ratho has recently changed its stance, why do you think that might be?
> I can’t speak for Ratho, but I kinda see why they would be more worried about children belaying than adults ...
What is the legal definition of a 'child'?
I think you can see that we are in contentious territory.
> Having Nicas level 4 means nowt ...
What is NICAS?
> Is £50 for the pair of us going to be worth the half day left?
Ultimately a commercial question for you, I guess.
(I'm not defending the policy, btw.)
> Assigning a legal age of responsibility for _anything_ is, of necessity, a legal and political question.
It's not legal. It's a businesses' internal procedures.
> If Ratho has recently changed its stance, why do you think that might be?
I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd would say it may be to do with their insurers or external advice received. This is utter speculation. I have no idea!
> So, in Scotland you can decide the fate of the country as soon as you are 16 - without any check whatsoever.
> But at Ratho these same voters have to go through a one hour assessment ??
They have to do a test to drive a car too.
> It's not legal. It's a businesses' internal procedures.
But perhaps it is based on laws related to the age at which competence/liability can be legally assumed, or imputed?
(Equally, this specific occurrence could have arisen because the City of Edinburgh Council is totally shit. It wouldn't be the first time.)
It's a fair point.
I think the Crux here is the length and cost of the assessment which seems, based on the information I have in front of me, to be a bit excessive in my view. I don't think anyone is arguing for no belay safety checks!
My safety assessment may be wrong though.
>”I think you can see that we are in contentious territory.”
I’d have thought under 16 wasn’t particularly contentious.
I can see that 16/17 year olds might be more debatable. However given the cost of insurance for a 17 year old driver it seems like someone has already crunched the numbers.
> But perhaps it is based on laws related to the age at which competence/liability can be legally assumed, or imputed?
> (Equally, this specific occurrence could have arisen because the City of Edinburgh Council is totally shit. It wouldn't be the first time.)
It might be.
It might not.
I don't know enough about it.
(Although, I have also heard some fairly negative reports about the City of Edinburgh Council so that's entirely possible!)
Yup. She's level 5 and would have it if she logged her climbs! Thankfully her belaying is better than her paperwork.
If it's an hour with fall catching and advanced technique happy days and happy to pay. If its a quiz on a vid and walking tour without even watching her actually belay then less so. I've asked them about the focus on belaying and if my paying for 1 hr advanced belay coaching would meet insurers requirement. I'll report back what they say.
Yep, that’s familiar, my son took ages to get level 5 because he was rubbish at paperwork!
£30 seems steep, but it is the norm to have to do the wall's assessment before a young person can belay without *direct* supervision, which almost certainly means tailing though I'm conscious some will supervise directly without actually holding the rope in some cases.
It would be unusual not to allow a young person to belay with someone tailing them.
If you are climbing, you are *not* supervising. I think all walls would agree with that! At our Scout wall I don't leave the ground unless there's another instructor there.
We climb at a number of walls, none have ever asked if supervising you don't leave the ground - nor has Ratho.
Her safety and the safety of other climbers is hugely important to me which is why I've invested countless hours of time and what must be now 1000's on years of NICAS. In fact we switched from climbing teams and comps back to NICAS and outdoor knowledge for exactly that reason.
I have no issue with her skill being checked - most walls do that and so far none have even charged for it. They instead have us coming back and back again.
Edit : this based on what I think an Mia should get and I guess they maybe have to work for less ?
An hour to check someone's belaying? Seems a bit excessive to me.
I'd be happy to pay £27 - the exact amount for her to have an hour with an MIA taking her through belaying - I genuinely feel they would quickly grasp that she's skilled and interested and push what she knows. I've asked if an hr advanced belay coaching would be reasonable instead.
I think if we were climbing side by side you'd see the evidence that being a safe member of a climbing crew, indoor and out, has been the goal of all the support she'd had. Matters far more than climbing grade or podiums.
> I’m guessing that would be MIA
... which highlights a huge problem with the awards system - as was, at least. I know it's been overhauled in recent years, and hopefully it's no longer the case that to have any paper ticket 'qualification' to assess someone's indoor wall belaying requires an award that's more suited to wet weather scrambling and that used not to even require the holder ever to have even visited an indoor wall!
I don't think an hour for a decent belaying test is excessive at all. The person being needed to be assessed needs to tie in, lead something, take a fall or two , then belay someone, hold some lead falls and maybe some top rope belaying as well. Add in the paperwork and an hour flies by, and that's someones time to pay for. You might think the above is excessive, but then you're prepared to accept a test that's not really worth anything.
Sadly you can't do such a test in the UK, and then take that documentation to any other climbing wall. Obvious gap there BMC If NICAS covers this, then it's a shame Ratho won't accept that - is there a link to what NICAS does guarantee to cover teaching? (Guarantee operative word)
So true!
Although we were lucky enough to be introduced to trad by an ex RAF MR MIA who worked at our local wall as an instructor.
I'm not going to pay. I just won't do roped climbing - if they are happy for her to have something she'll get value from then maybe next time.
This time I'll just find out what it includes and who does it. Hats off if it is something that directly impacts young people's belaying - not a walking tour, figure 8 demo, hand to knee 123 with a top rope at best. (Not knocking that - just at the price is a rip off).
> Sadly you can't do such a test in the UK, and then take that documentation to any other climbing wall. Obvious gap there BMC
Your profile says you're in Norway so perhaps you don't realise that 'belay tests' are not normally required by UK climbing walls or their insurers, nor is there any kind of legislation that requires it.
The BMC getting involved in any kind of an effort to change that would be controversial amongst its members to say the very least.
Beginners need instruction and supervision. But all that's required of experienced climbers coming in to climb unsupervised is that they're sufficiently experienced to understand the associated risks. (And evaluating that that is indeed the case is the sole purpose of the "belay test" some walls conduct, where someone demonstrates that they can tie in to a harness or whatever in about 5 mins flat.)
A climbing wall instructor or someone with a site specific sign off by a technical advisor should be able to check top rope belaying.
A rock climbing instructor, climbing wall development instructor or site specific sign off should be able to check lead belaying.
A mountaineering and climbing instructor (or wmci or guide) would be able to run the training courses for the above instructors and sign people off at a specific location without a bit of paper.
To the op, it sounds like they are being a bit over zealous and rigid. I can understand having a policy in place but sometimes these things needs to be worked around pragmatically, your solution of an hour's coaching sounds like a reasonable compromise.
Genuinely surprised at that. You can't supervise adequately if you aren't in a position to immediately physically intervene to prevent a dangerous situation. Thus if they allow a supervisor to climb when supervising, the whole policy is an utter sham, they may as well just let kids or novices belay if you say they're good enough.
To be honest if I ran a commercial wall my rule would be that the supervisor must tail at all times. It just keeps the situation manageable and observable. If you want to get a climb in, climb in a three with two experienced climbers so one can always properly supervise.
If more stricter tests become normal then it makes a lot of sense to have a certification that you can use various walls. Whether the BMC administer that or someone else is a matter of practicality. I don't understand the legal responsibility of a wall owner in the UK,
The other advantage of a centralised card is that there are a lot of small unmanned walls around Norway , or with no-one capable of assessing proficiency, so you need such a card to allow you in
Update:
It'll be 1 hr and anything over the check will be for her coaching and it's 1:1.
No problem with that at all. It'd have helped a bit if that was what it said on the tin but it is at least worthwhile.
> I'm a little cycnical that claiming to be 'experienced' and demonstrating you can tie in in 5 minutes is a very good way to carry on..
And yet it seems to work perfectly well, as evidenced by the rarity of serious accidents in British climbing walls. (Especially for roped climbing - the vast majority of accidents that require medical treatment at climbing walls are associated with bouldering.)
I don't know why you put the word "experienced" in inverted commas like that - people coming in to a climbing wall to climb unsupervised only claim to be competent to climb indoors safely, it's hardly a high bar and one that most of the customers in any given wall at any given time genuinely clear easily. It's not as if they're claiming to be mountaineers or anything, only to have climbed enough to have learnt the absolute basics of putting on a harness, tying in and belaying.
> Having seen enough experienced people do some pretty ropey things I'd rather be safe than sorry.
I've seen that too very occasionally. From people who would effortlessly pass any test you would care to set them, because under test conditions they'll focus on what they're doing and inattention is the root cause of their dodginess, not inability. So what would be the point of the test?
> If more stricter tests become normal..
I sincerely hope they won't and there's no reason to think they might, because there's nothing exerting any pressure to move things in that direction so far as I'm aware. If British climbing walls were significantly more dangerous than gyms, swimming pools, 5-a-side football pitches etc., then maybe there would be. But they're not - as a punter you're no more likely to be injured as a result of a visit to a climbing wall than to a gym, leisure centre or swimming pool.
> I don't understand the legal responsibility of a wall owner in the UK,
They are responsible for ensuring that the wall, in-situ top ropes, quickdraws and clips are sound, as well as all the usual stuff that goes with operating any building open to the public and perhaps also serving food and drink to people. They're not responsible for assessing the abilities of their punters, nor for protecting them from the normal, foreseeable risks associated with climbing.
As long as the punters have sufficient knowledge to recognise those risks - for example that if you fall off and deck it's going to hurt - it's for them to deal with that, and doing so is a vital and integral part of the activity.
I would suggest that a wall owners liability will be tested and defined by the courts not by what we think.So it’s a more complex area than we think.
> I would suggest that a wall owners liability will be tested and defined by the courts..
Climbing walls are not new and there are a lot of them these days: it already has been.
> I would suggest that a wall owners liability will be tested and defined by the courts not by what we think.So it’s a more complex area than we think.
I used to do quite a bit of expert witness work, mainly defending walls from liability claims. Broadly speaking the law requires a wall to take reasonable measures to ensure user safety, but the courts don't decide what reasonable measures might be; rather they seek 'best practice' advice from industry bodies such as the BMC and the ABC. However, even though it's largely up to such bodies to describe good/best practice, which they do, their advice would not hold such sway if it were to be notably out of sync with other comparable activities. Climbing is actually quite different from most other activities and the 'volenti non fit injuria' principle that has served climbing well over the years isn't the easiest to apply when minors are involved. Nevertheless it's up to climbing bodies to propose and encourage responsible alternatives, and if they are successful in doing so, the courts will generally accept their advice and not "define" their own liability for wall owners.
Take your point . But it suggests to me that climbing wall owners liability will change and evolve with time as issues are tested by people continually bringing cases to court. These things are never static and it could be dangerous to just assume everything stays the same.
After all who would have thought that heading in football would change.
It all worked out then?
I kept an eye out for you but didn’t spot any mother daughter combos that looked like they needed the offer of a belay…
> If you are are climbing next to me I should not have to pay attention to what you or your daughter are doing .
You absolutely should be paying attention to what other people are doing, at the wall, at the crag and especially at a bouldering wall. It's essential that you don't climb (or walk) into a position where a falling climber might hit you. This is really basic stuff.
The daughter does have an award, NICAS level 4 which is generally a higher standard of climbing competency that most adults at the wall have.
This is the assessment criteria;
Demonstrate knowledge of rope types, their care, coiling and maintenance.
Demonstrate understanding of the hazards and risks of lead climbing.
Lead belay proficiently with appropriate selection of belay device.
Safely hold a leader fall.
Lead climb fluidly clipping all quickdraws correctly.
Improve lead climbing ability by one grade.
Complete 30 lead climbs at F5a(5) or above.
Complete 30 lead belays.
Complete 10 top rope climbs at F5c(5+) or above.
MIA hasn't been the name of an award for a while now, like I said above Indoor development instructor, RCI and RCDI are all appropriate awards for checking lead belaying competency.
Also if you are choosing to climb under another climber and they fall off and land on you, it's probably your own fault, not theirs.
Finally if I was running a private session it would be more like £50+ per hour.
In that case you should be arguing for a higher standard of belay testing for all climbers rather than just children.
> There’s a big difference between expressing your preference in a vote and literally holding someone’s life in your hands.
An awful lot of people have had their lives turned upside-down (and far far worse) due to us leaving the EU. Never underestimate the power of some bad voting decisions.
In my experience (as an older experienced climber) it tends to be the older more experienced climbers who are sloppy belayers at climbing walls whereas the youngsters who have gone through the NICAS scheme are generally very good and attentive belayers...
Nothing wrong with competency checks for belaying, infact I would encourage them - but this should be done free of charge at the wall. The majority of sketchy belaying I see is done by adults - why don't they have to pay?
Not sure if this is a new thing but i've not seen it before at Ratho. Also how will they know who has had an 'assessment' and who hasnt? I've not seen people walking around with some form of tag on their harness or anything.. What happens to the youth programmes then where they are all belaying each other leading (Under semi-supervision)
> Sadly you can't do such a test in the UK, and then take that documentation to any other climbing wall. Obvious gap there BMC
Some sort of world wide recognised certificate would be really handy.
I have them for PADI scubadiving. It means they can look up my details and qualifications at dive centers online (I lost all my cards years ago) and that's all the proof they need. Easy peasy.
I have no climbing qualification to speak of, but wouldn't mind doing formal training/checks or whatever for climbing walls once if it meant it would always be valid.
I suspect it might go that way eventually.