Climb Leader: Crevasse Rescue Recertification (Saturday Session)

Activity Notes

ACTIVITY NOTES

Location: White River West Sno-Park.

Climb Leader re-cert education is intended to be a structured learning environment, for someone who is already largely educated in the topic, for them to re-gain some lost knowledge, and get some general hands-on practice time with the known skills. CR are perishable skills, and need to be literally practiced for someone to maintain their skills.

Please let (just) me know how you would rate yourself:

1. I feel confident in my ability to do crevasse rescue, and I could teach it
2. I feel confident in my ability to do crevasse rescue, but I want to spend the entire session practicing it
3. I am not feeling so confident in my ability to do crevasse rescue
4. I am really rusty on crevasse rescue

If none of the above fits, let me know your specific situation.  I would like to make sure everyone is covered, no matter where they are, and want to arrange teams so that everyone can get as much out of this as possible.

Besides doing a rope team rescue of another rope team, we’ll focus the rest of our time practicing what the ICS class has focused on, which tended to be “asides” for most of us.  While what we all learned works and is effective, ICS has moved to what AMGA has embraced, which is to start with a drop C off of the “back” end (rescue coils end) of the rope off of the backup knot for the friction knot onto which the load of the fallen climber was transferred.  If more mechanical advantage is needed, add it to that drop C.  This tended to be a scenario that people were taught sort of as an afterthough in skill builders and all of the ICS classes I’ve taught, but now is the main scenario with NO talk of load releasable friction hitches, nor any discussion of hauling the person up, directly, on the side of the rope on which they are hanging.  So, stuff that we’ve known/were taught, but hadn’t been our focal point, is what will be the focus for the recertification class. . .  Knowing that the new crop of ICS students doesn’t know about our “tried and true” methods is certainly something that’s important to be aware of when accepting ICS students on climbs.