This course is offered as an affordable top rope instructor certification course which is available to all institutions that top rope climb and rappel and is offered as the most complete and the safest top rope instructor certification course in the country. Jim Ebert, the instructor for this National Top Rope Instructor Certification Course, is one of the most experienced climbing instructors and climbing leaders in the country. His passion for teaching people new outdoor skills will make each participant safer when they are out with their own friends or when they are instructing a group in the great outdoors.
Jim believes very strongly that anchor set-ups should be, if at all possible, taught in a five day, or longer, training course. He has seen the required time that it has actually taken students to completely master anchor set-ups, a very crucial skill from which all safe top rope climbing and rappelling is totally dependent. Having already taught over 3550 outdoor educators in his seven day Top Rope Instructor Certification Course, he has observed that offering an anchor course in less time, such as a one, two, or even a three day course, does not assure the proper amount of time necessary for most students to really learn and fully understand this very important skill. Nearly one in three anchor systems seen in every top rope area around North America is totally unsafe and should not be trusted for top rope climbing or rappelling. It has become obvious that top rope anchor training has not been taught thoroughly to enough of our nation's outdoor top rope climbers, nor to enough of the top rope group leaders and instructors that have been charged with teaching rock climbing to the general public.
Many people who want to learn how to rock climb in the outdoors seem very impatient and pressed for time, wanting to learn everything about anchor set ups in just a few hours so they can get back to the climbing. This has resulted in many climbing schools and others teaching rock climbing to accommodate these folks by offering the shortest anchor training courses imaginable. Anchor training and top rope site management safety training can definitely be compromised in these short anchor-training courses. When an anchor-training course is taught in a short period of time it is not possible to make sure that each participant thoroughly understands how to set up anchor systems. An anchor setting course requires a totally different teaching, learning and coaching process and the course should require that all participants engage in as many anchor set-up scenarios as possible in order to safely master top rope anchor set-ups. Mastering anchor placements is such a crucial and vitally important skill from which all safe outdoor top rope climbing and rappelling is dependent. Attempting to teach an anchor course in a shorter period of time does not assure the proper training nor the learning opportunities needed to master this skill. The National Top Rope Instructor Certification Course will have participants setting up as many as thirty-five different anchor systems on thirty-five different climbs and rappels. Each anchor system that is set-up will be worked on until it is perfectly constructed and equalized and able to hold over 6000 pounds. No anchor set-up will be the same. There are no short cuts to learning how to construct safe anchor systems. Sometimes climbers are just as dangerous now as when they first started climbing ten or twenty years ago because they never learned how to correctly set-up top rope climbing and rappelling anchor systems. Unfortunately, up until now, once someone proclaimed to be a good top rope climber, there was no authority that could check out their actual knowledge or correct bad anchor set up practices. Just because a top rope climber may think that they can safely set anchor systems correctly, is not enough, as it takes just one bad anchor system to cost someone their life or a serious injury. Institutions, due to growing liability concerns, are now looking to send their top rope climbing staff to be trained and reviewed and their entire staff’s outdoor skill qualifications and competencies checked out and reviewed on a yearly basis. Learning how to set safe top rope anchors is a learned skill that should be taught by experienced and knowledgeable instructors and climbers; it is not a skill that is safely acquired on one’s own, nor does it come to you naturally by just being around other rock climbers. If this were so, you would not have one in three anchor systems being so unsafe that you would avoid using them for top rope climbing or rappelling. For many indoor top rope climbers, their indoor climbing skills and abilities have reached the very highest level, they have completely mastered the climbing gym. The growing numbers of superb rock climbers is growing by leaps and bounds throughout the country. This is wonderful and healthy for the sport. However, finding a way to train all of these climbers so that they become knowledgeable and safe rock climbers, skilled in safe top rope site management and anchor set-ups is a growing concern. Many indoor and outdoor top rope climbers may be either too embarrassed to learn the basic outdoor anchoring skills tantamount for continued safe outdoor climbing or they are too impatient to learn these skills, or they have decided to “wing ” the learning process on their on. It is important, however, that you are not climbing with this person or that you have not hired one of these people while they are still “figuring things out” on their own. Out door top rope anchor skills and group management procedures are not difficult to master and can be thoroughly taught in our six-day course.
This course is directed to those institutions that want to make sure that the people that they have working for them and that they hire to work with the general public as top rope instructors are the best trained and are the most competent top rope instructors in the country. This course will assure that your staff is properly trained to safely handle outdoor groups that will be top rope climbing and rappelling in any top rope climbing and rappelling area in the country. This course will be a lot of fun! Each participant will master the anchor set-ups. If not, you can take the course again at any time at no charge. Each participant will learn how to manage a top rope climbing site safely so that they will never have a top rope accident. Each participant will be allowed to progress at his or her own rate. They will also enjoy setting up and climbing over thirty-five instructional climbs from twenty to over one hundred feet high on the best quartzite granite rock in the world!