Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin – Intro to Trad Climbing

Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin – Intro to Trad Climbing

Check it out: Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin – Intro to Trad Climbing

Internationally certified mountain guides Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin will teach you the fundamentals of trad climbing in this 8-week online course offered by Climbing Magazine. From placing/removing gear and proper belay techniques, to how to make an anchor and manage a stuck rope, Intro to Trad Climbing takes the guesswork out of exploring traditionally protected climbs. If you’re a sport climber who wants to add a new dimension to your climbing, a gym climber who wants to explore all that your local trad area has to offer, or a seasoned climber who just wants to revisit the basics, this course is for you.

Combined, IFMGA guides Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin have more than 75 years of experience rock climbing, guiding, and teaching climbing all over the world. They are also the authors of the just-released The Mountain Guide Manual (Falcon, 2017). This course will walk you through catastrophe knots, making trad/alpine quickdraws, belaying the leader and the follower, managing risk, and the right way to place gear to best protect your partner and yourself.

How This Course Works

We know you have a busy schedule, so we’ve designed this course to be taken at your own pace. You’ll learn through a variety of interactive formats, including video instruction, photo descriptions, and more. Each lesson builds on the last, and, while we’ve designed the course to be 8 weeks long, you can take it as quickly or slowly as you want. Plus, once you purchase the course, the lessons are yours forever.

Syllabus:

1) Trad-Specific Gear

• Passive (nuts, hexes, Tricams) and active (cams) protection
• Accessories (alpine draws, nut tools, trad harness, helmet, bullet pack, Prusiks, shoes, knife, cordelettes, quad-length slings)
• Belay devices (guide-style plaquettes, GiGi, Gri-Gri)

2) Gear Placement

• Getting it right (strength, security, ease of removal; accuracy and efficiency)
• How to practice placing (quick, accurate placements); weighting placements
• Critical elements to consider (secondary pulls, direction of pull)

3) Lead Protection System

• Understanding the difference between Trad and Sport climbing
• Protection strategies (considering location of cruxes, strategic runouts, objective hazards like ledges below a fall)
• Protecting the pitch
• Rack management
• Looking at the whole pitch
• Protecting your second

4) Anchors

• NERDSS overview (Ne=No Extension, R=Redundant, D=Distributed, S=Strength, and S=Simplicity)
• Required materials: cordelette, quad-length slings, shorter slings
• Anchor strategies (high anchor, conserving pieces for leading/cruxes, single- and multi-point anchors)

5) Belaying

• Lead-belaying fundamentals
• Top-belaying fundamentals
• Strategies to increase safety
• Special situations (disparity in weight, awkward stance, low anchor, out-of-sight leader)
• Giving a good belay

6) Rope Management

• Establishing a safe belay area
• Mid-cliff belay stance (rope management, comfort and safety)
• Managing the rope
• Strategies (swapping leads or block leading, transition)

7) Rappelling

• Rappelling fundamentals (body position, gloves, progression downward, third-hand back-up)
• The rappel rig (extension, third hand, devices)
• Friction hitches (autoblock and Prusik)
• How to add friction for wet/skinny/frozen ropes
• Carabiner brake

8) Special Problems

• Hauling a partner at a crux
• Lowering a partner with a guide-style plaquette
• Stuck rappel ropes (strategies, safety, releading a pitch with a free end)