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Crag Climbing Course - Seattle - 2015

Climbing Course

Crag Climbing Course

Crag Climbing Course - Seattle

Contacts

Loni Uchytil
Loni Uchytil
Leader
Download the CRAG COURSE APPLICATION here. 

Course Description
The Crag Climbing course is designed to teach the skills, knowledge, and techniques needed to safely lead traditional routes on outdoor crags. The course consists of one hands-on skill assessment/review, one gym climbing session, and five weekend field trips. The Crag course is NOT an introductory climbing course.

Eligibility
The course is open to climbers age 16 and over. Prerequisites include the ability to LEAD CLIMB 5.6 or better outside or inside on bolted routes. Knowledge of basic climbing knots, safe belay technique and setting and cleaning sport anchors is also required. Acceptance is based on meeting the course's prerequisites and acceptance of the course application by course leader. Other factors considered are based on past and current climbing experience. Students are screened to select those with the highest potential for course completion. The class size will be limited to 24 QUALIFIED applicants.

Download the CRAG COURSE APPLICATION here. 

Please make sure that you are available for ALL field trips prior to sending your application. Students are required to be present for ALL field trips and there are no opportunities for make up. Please note this course requires each student to own or have access to their own rack of climbing gear.

For a complete list of gear and course dates visit the Seattle Mountaineeers Crag Climbing Course webpage.

Badges you will earn:

Course Requirements

This course has no scheduled activities.

Roster
Required Equipment

Gear each student MUST HAVE:

  1. Helmet, harness, rock shoes
  2. 1 personal Anchoring device with a locking biner
  3. Auto blocking belay device either the Petzel Reverso or the BD Auto block with locking Belay biner
  4. 6 Alpine slings 60cmx8mm
  5. 12 standard sized biners (2 for each sling)
  6. 3 locking biners in addition to the others already mentioned (standard sized)
  7. Set of Cams - one cam each matching the following Black Diamond sizes: .3, .4, .5, .75 #1, #2, #3
  8. One biner (7 total) for each cam to rake them (these do not need to be full size)
  9. Set of Nuts/stoppers, a nut tool, and one biner to rack the nuts (does not need to be full size)
  10. Small water hydration pack with water pouch and enough room for food and warm layers.
  11. 20' Cordalette.  This can be made out of 20' of 5-6mm Nylon Cord, 5mm Tech Cord or 5mm Spectra Cord.

 

You will be climbing in groups of 2 when you go out to do your multi pitch routes and will be combining

your gear to make one full rack and sharing these items as your climb.  Please make sure to purchase 2 to 3 colors of electricians tape or duck tape and mark ALL your gear.  You can find this tape online or at Home Depot.  We will be discussing gear and have some brands on hand for your review at the kick-off party so if you have questions you may hold off purchasing gear until afterward.  

Optional Gear you will want to consider:

  1. Ropes will be provided for this course but if you plan to continue climbing after the course you will need to purchase a light weight 60m, preferably bi-colored and light 9.4-9.8 rope.  See crag course packages at Promountain sports it is a killer deal!
  2. Light weight approach shoes.  Many multi pitch climbs have walk-offs so you will need to have a good pair of shoes to hike in and off. You will need to carry these shoes on the climb with you, so the lighter the better. FiveTen brand has a couple of really nice models--their Guide Tennie and the Warhawk are a couple of examples.
  3. Additional set of small Cams. The recommended set of MUST have Cams is meant to cover most bases and not overwhelm your budget. However you will very quickly find that having a set of cams in the smaller range of sizes gives you more options and is much needed so if you can afford to purchase these cams to start with it would be highly advised.
  4. Having some light weight warm layers that can stuff down very small inside of a pack or attached to a harness can be essential.  Sometimes on multi pitch climbs you can end up on Belay stations waiting for a very long time and it can get very cold/hot depending on the weather so you need to be prepared with appropriate clothing options for your safety and comfort.  We'll discuss gear more at the kick off party.
  5. Last but not least, we will be discussing the mental aspect of lead climbing in this course and some of the materials we will be using will be coming from a wonderful book called "The Rock Warrior's Way" by Arno Ilgnor. If you have a chance to purchase and read this book this winter you will be a step ahead of things. 

 

Course Materials

You must register for this course to see course materials.