Ropework refresher
Steve Pease of
Vertical Relief ran an excellent
Mountain Leader ropework refresher workshop yesterday evening for
MTA members in the South East. Here's a little bit of feedback from some of the attendees:
Chris Loy
Having done my Mountain Leader assessment nearly seven years ago, but not practised the techniques taught on the Mountain Leader courses much since then, the
workshop was very useful not only for revising those techniques, but also as
a reminder of the need to keep skills up to date by practising them at regular intervals. In the last couple of years I’ve started doing some rock climbing and become a bit more familiar with various knots and belay methods, but the workshop was a reminder that a Mountain Leader requires different skills from a rock climber in order to keep a walking group safe without the aid of climbing hardware,
using the rope only as a last resort.
What I thought was most useful about the workshop was not so much the revision of the ropework techniques themselves, but putting this in context of
general good practice in managing a party on the hill,
how to reassure nervous clients, the use of other techniques such as
spotting and
how to avoid getting into a situation where use of a rope is necessary.
The other people who attended the workshop, all working towards their Mountain Leader assessments, were clearly keen to improve their skills in this area and it was obvious that they enjoyed the workshop just as much as I did. One thing we all agreed on was that we would like to see more ML-related workshops offered in the south east of England.
Members of my club, Bremex Mountaineering and Climbing Club, would certainly find these workshops useful, so I will be spreading the word to them in future.
Louise Buchanan
The evening was really useful, it was nice to meet other ML’s / aspirant ML’s and there was
great discussion within the team. Steve managed the session in a relaxed and informative way and gave great examples of the techniques he’s used with clients and what assessors are looking for.
It was really valuable to have an event in the South East and I’d be very keen to attend future workshops – topics such as micro nav, night nav, contour only nav, management of emergency situations and group management come to mind. Hopefully all of which can be done within the constraints of the size of our hills in the South East!
Click here to read more about Louise and her outdoor journey so far.
Photos by Steve PeaseFUTURE WORKSHOPS
Keep an eye on the
MTA workshop programme for more future CPD workshops like this!