From June 3-5th, Mountain Madness guides Jaime Pollitte and Marina Fitzpatrick taught an AMGA Single Pitch Instructor (SPI) course in Leavenworth, WA. The AMGA SPI course is the only internationally recognized single pitch rock climbing instructor course, and it is geared towards training rock climbing instructors and guides to proficiently instruct and facilitate the sport of rock climbing in a single pitch setting.
The weather was perfect for the weekend, and a group of three women from the Seattle area as well as one lady from Nelson, BC gathered on the first day of the course for some classroom lessons and a bit of team bonding/icebreakers before heading out into the field. The first day of the course covered general client care, terrain assessment, and a number of technical systems.
The second day of the course consisted of mostly practical assessment and hands on skill building, as well as building systems to belay and lower clients in a cliff setting, and even a bit of rock climbing! The final day of the course was focused on understanding more about terrain assessment, more practice of technical skills, and deciding when each technical skill practiced in earlier days would be useful and appropriate.
Other topics covered in the course included risk management, mountain sense, communication with clients, professionalism, various types of anchor building using traditional gear and rock rescue skills, use of static rigging lines for moving around easier in a cliff setting, use of static lines to rig fixed lines for 3rd/4th class terrain, and a ton of other useful rope skills for making rock climbing safe and fun. All of the ladies left the course feeling confident in their single pitch rock climbing skills, and each of us learned a bunch of new tricks and rope skills useful for both teaching and for personal climbing.
A huge thank you to Jaime and Marina at Mountain Madness guides for being amazing instructors for this course, and for supporting SheJumps in our mission to educate women and encourage them in the outdoor sports world!
Also, thanks to our awesome partners for providing the women in this course with some goodies:
EcoLips
Essential Wipes
7/5/2017
Krystin Norman
Seattle Ambassador
Big thanks to our sponsors!
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