Climbing Technical Advisory Committee (PCE)
The Climbing Technical Advisory Committee (CTAC) provides recommendations on new and existing skills/techniques and equipment through research and testing. This includes research of existing standards and equipment, as well as new innovations. CTAC works closely with Curriculum Committee to provide expertise and input on the skills and techniques taught in Mountaineers climbing courses.
What is happening now?
In 2019, CTAC created a new and comprehensive vetting process to ensure the committee is following an improved process for evaluating and reporting skills, techniques, and equipment. This new process is designed to help create consistency and transparency in how the group comes to decisions. The process will also help CTAC create standardized reports on the work that was done, so everyone can see how a decision was made.
For more information on our process, see our process guide document located here.
Getting in Touch
CTAC encourages anyone with questions about particular techniques, equipment, best practices, etc., to submit a request for investigation here. Anyone can submit a request: climb leaders, instructors, course students, or the general public are all welcome. CTAC will consider the request at our next meeting (occurring monthly, near the end of each month), and determine if the request is within our committee's scope. If so, we will prioritize it based on our current docket and let you know when you can expect our final report.
Have a topic you'd like us to look into?
For all other inquiries, please drop us an email at ctac.mountaineers@gmail.com.
Technical Reports
A list of our published reports is below:
- CTAC-2019-01. Advice on the Use of Personal Tethers. Updated March 2019.
- CTAC-2019-02. Personal Tethers and the Extended Rappel. Updated March 2019.
Technical Report previews
In an effort to get early feedback from the larger community on our in-progress reports, we are posting rough drafts of these reports below. They are all watermarked as draft reports to make their status clear. It should be noted that these reports do not currently meet the presentation or editorial standards of the committee, and may be missing content, have unfinished layouts, include various typographical and/or grammatical errors, etc.
Note: Draft reports do not represent a final recommendation by the Committee.
- CTAC-2019-03. Pre-Rigged Rappels.
- CTAC-2019-04. Lightweight Climbing Harnesses.
- CTAC-2019-05. Fixed-Point Belays.
- CTAC-2019-06. Attaching to a Multi-Pitch Anchor.