Gym to Crag 102

Trip Details

As gym climbing continues to rise in popularity, we are seeing more of our students arrive with a solid foundation of movement skills, and an understanding of how to tie in and belay. However, they are not quite ready for intermediate climbing outdoors.

So, now that you’re red pointing this and on-sighting that, while crushing a few V things along the way, it’s time to see what those hard-won indoor climbing skills can do for you at the great Seneca Rocks! Our Gym to Crag course will focus on translating the gym knowledge you have into skills applicable to multi-pitch trad climbing and rappelling.

Day 01

Our Gym to Crag course will review all of the information covered in our comprehensive basic, but at an accelerated rate. This ensures you have all the basic skills before we move on to more advanced material. We will review tying in and proper lead belay technique before moving on to ground anchors and climbing techniques not normally found in a gym. Students are then introduced to hand placed anchors and how to remove them from the rock and properly rack them on the harness. The rest of the day will involve putting these new skills together in a multi-pitch environment.

Day 02

The second day allows us to customize this course to the students and introduce new material as the students demonstrate competency with previously covered course material. Many groups climb to the South Peak of Seneca to experience a true technical summit while reinforcing old skills and learning new ones. Available topics include advanced rappel techniques, introduction to self-rescue concepts and preparedness, as well as building top rope anchors.

Day 03

Continued practice of techniques with an instructor helps students walk away from the course “owning” the skills they have been taught. Long-term retention is the goal and we find that almost all students need this third day to really cement their new skills. If mastery is apparent, our skilled and flexible instructors can seamlessly integrate content from a higher-level course. Though this course is also offered in an abbreviated two-day version, please note the enormous amount of information to be learned is best suited to a three-day course. This course is taught with a maximum of a 3 to 1 Ratio.