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This is a two day course at Plas-y-Brenin for multi-pitch climbers. "The course that every multi-pitch climber should have been on will teach you how to get out of those tricky situations that should never arise but sometimes do. If you have any doubt how you would react in an emergency then this weekend, covering self rescue technique and how to look after an injured partner, is an ideal way to put you and your climbing partner's minds at rest." It cost £155 for two days back in June 2001. It was an excellent course and despite the fact that I already knew how to escape the system and set up a hoist (crevasse rescue) I still learnt loads of stuff. There were six off us on the course and we had three instructors, that's 1:2 for the mathematically challenged. As usual the quality of the instruction was faultless, they explained everything well, then went through it with you until you'd got it right, no matter how long that took. It was structured so that we started simply and gradually built up, each stage just added 1 new thing. Day one was spent in the teaching wall, day two was out on a crag, which worked out just fine, 'cos Saturday morning was wet and Sunday was beautifully sunny. We're all now highly practised in locking off a belay plate, must have done it 20-30 times each. The things we covered were: Locking off a belay plate, Locking off a friction hitch, Unassisted hoist with an autobloc, Assisted hoist with autobloc, Assisted hoist with Ropeman, Escaping the system with anchors in reach and out of reach, Backing up prussics, Replacing prussics with a releasable anchor, Increasing the hoist to a 6:1, Abseiling to assist a stricken climber, Counterbalanced abseil to get to a stricken climber quickly, Rescuing a stricken climber; Stirrup hoist, Lowering past a knot in the rope, Prussicing up a rope, Abseiling past a knot in the rope, Rescuing a stricken leader. And last but not least: tying a clove hitch one handed, tying in to an out of reach anchor without using a karabiner on the harness and cutting through a rope with a prussic loop. Next time we're out, we'll all be showing off with the one handed clove hitches. You might see us practising some of the stuff we learnt but you sure won't see us practising leader rescue: two of you hanging on one bit of gear of unknown quality with a body weight counterbalance to anchor the rope whilst you prussic up. Well scary. |