Top Rope Rock Climbing Leader Field Handbook
The purpose of this field handbook is to support the Alpine Club of Canada's top rope rock climbing leader training program, as well as to act as an ongoing resource for top rope leaders. It is designed to highlight techniques and applications commonly used by top rope leaders to assist in the delivery of a successful top roping outing.
Contents
Foreword and Introduction
Why the handbook exists, how the competency profiles were built, who the handbook is for, and the limits of what it covers.
Designing a Top Roping Outing
Pre-trip planning for a top roping outing — objectives, venue and route selection, permits and closures, evacuation planning, prerequisites, ratios, and pre-trip communication with participants.
Preparing for a Top Roping Outing
Coordinating with participants, gathering and interpreting weather information, and completing the pre-trip risk assessment that decides whether the outing goes ahead.
Delivery of a Top Roping Outing
Administering waivers, managing the group on the day, and the risk management cycle — situational awareness, hazard recognition and mitigation, and participant demonstrated competency.
Wilderness Ethics and Ecology
Low impact travel, human waste management, group size, wildlife precautions, and the interpretive skills that let a leader share local flora, fauna, and history with a group.
Technical Systems – Equipment and Rope Systems
Hard and soft goods, equipment inspection and lifespan, the knots and hitches a top rope leader needs, top rope belaying, and rappelling.
Technical Systems – Anchors and Rescue
Anchor criteria and configurations, extensions, tethering, threading an anchor, directional quick draws, and improvised rescue from below and above.
Rock Climbing Movement
Hand, foot, and body positions for face, crack, corner and chimney, and slab climbing — the movement vocabulary a leader needs to model and coach.
Responding to Emergencies
Protect, call, care — first aid basics, what to tell organized rescue, and how to manage the uninjured members of the group while an emergency is running.
Top Rope Leader Resources
2 items
Credits
Written by Derek Wilding. Design by Suzan Chamney, The Alpine Club of Canada. Cover photo by Max Malynowsky.
Content sourced from the print edition, ISBN 978-0-920330-63-0.
All rights reserved. No portion of this handbook may be copied or reproduced without the permission of the author or the subject.
Acknowledgement
The Alpine Club of Canada would like to thank our partners the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) and the Petzl Foundation for allowing the use of content from their publication Alpine Skills: Summer including information, images and graphics throughout this handbook.
Technical drawings have been made available by the Petzl Foundation to illustrate the Top Rope Rock Climbing Handbook of The Alpine Club of Canada. These drawings belong to Petzl (© Petzl). They cannot be modified or used for commercial purposes.
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