Hi everyone,
I have booked a ‘Learn to Lead Trad’ course that goes over 3 days in the Blue Mountains with ASM – 11, 12, 13 December. Is anyone keen to come along ? The cost isn’t student friendly ($750) but hopefully you could apply to the ANUMC expedition fund and get a discount. In my view, there are only a few people in the climb who can climb trad and it would be beneficial to have more people climbing trad.
Ideally, I would like someone to join me and stay on after the course so we can consolidate our skills. I have found if you do a course and don’t practice the skills, you ‘lose’ them pretty quickly. I have done a fair bit of ‘fake’ trad, where you go off a top rope and have a second rope with your gear. Even after the course I might be hesitant to place trad anchors for my second and me, so I may go off bolts for my second and place gear for myself.
Anyway, I would appreciate the company and hopefully we can do lots of 10-14 routes in the blue mountains after the course. I will car camp in free camping, I have a full rack that you can borrow. I'm happy to drive up from Canberra to the Blue Mountains.
I don't think this is appropriate for total beginners, so you need intermediate skills, e.g you know how to clean a sport route safely, you have lead climbed, you know basic anchor principles, you know how to coil a rope quickly, you know some knots and when to use them and are comfortable abseiling and on multi pitches. I am happy to teach these (But realise I'm no expert) before the course.
Camp somewhere near Katoomba