Intermediate Rockcraft-The Next Step (2-3 days)

After learning the fundamentals of multi-pitch climbing, more advanced techniques are introduced during the class. Examples of our curriculum would include understanding the concepts of protection (i.e. hexcentrics, stoppers, tri-cams, camming devices), evaluating anchor placements, equalization with cordelettes and slings, preventing shock loading and incorporating redundancy in anchors.

Route finding and movement clinics focus on pre-visualization techniques, precision footwork and reading the rock. You will refine such techniques as lay-backing, mantling, edging, jamming and stemming. Face and crack climbing techniques are practiced along with a variety of self-rescue techniques giving you alternative methods for belaying, rappelling and ascending. This course builds confidence by making you more self-reliant and sets a solid foundation for entry into our Learning to Lead course.

Release and Registration forms are now online!

Classes begin on Saturdays and Tuesdays.

Individual bookings welcome (you don't need to fill a class!).
All prices are per person.

2 day: $295

3 day: $375

Student to instructor ratio 3 to 1.

Climbing shoes and technical equipment provided

Typical 3 -Day Class

To design the best program for you we’ll need to ask you a few questions, such as have you or your climbing partner followed any traditional climbs (protected only by removable gear? If so, where and how many? Have you followed any multi-pitch climbs?

A typical class would go like this…

Saturday – On the Rock You guys show up at our place in downtown Seneca Rocks, WV, by 8:30 am, and meet your guide. First, we’ll review your experience to get an idea of what the day will be, and make sure you have all the equipment you need. (Bring the gear you already use, and we’ll fill in the gaps.) Then we head to the crag. Your guide will figure out a route that relatively easy for you – although all the routes at Seneca have their own interesting challenges, whether it be steepness, awkwardness or exposure – so we can be sure that we’re all speaking the same language on fundamentals, such as knots, anchoring, belaying the leader, direction of pull, and so on. You and your partner will be following your guide, removing protection on your way up the pitches to the summit of Seneca Rocks. Seneca’s exposure, and objective hazards such as rockfall, will keep your interest no matter what the grade. Meanwhile, under your guide’s supervision, you and your partner will be learning essential skills of traditional lead climbing: building bombproof anchors, belaying one another and learning about protection by removing the gear your guide has placed. At many strategic locations on the rock we’ll also introduce and teach skills such as rope management at hanging belays, equalizing anchors, basic self-rescue techniques, etc. Learning will follow a logical progression based on you’re and your partner’s learning styles and comfort zones. We’ll head back around 5, take an hour break, and then come back to our one-of-a-kind indoor climbing center.

Saturday evening – Trad Wall Climbing Center Your guide will design your evening session to complement and reinforce the skills and information you and your partner learned during the day. Our one-of-a-kind Trad Climbing Center gives you the opportunity to practice placing protection and building anchors in actual rock walls and cracks (see our website, www.senecarocks.com). Because the skills you will learn are so specialized, and visits to the crag so limited, that we’ve found it’s amazing how well an evening session helps you master and retain the skills and information you learned during the day. We’ll call it a night around 9.

Sunday – On the Rock! Today you and your partner get to apply all your learning from Saturday. You’ll tackle tougher multi-pitch climbs, and maybe your guide will throw you a curve by having one of you ‘play dead’ and walk the other one through a basic self-rescue. By this time, you should be using the guidebook to help your guide make decisions for your party along the way. Today you might emphasize mileage, jetting up as many routes as possible, or work on more difficult routes, with your guide helping you through tricky sequences. Your guide can also hold mini-clinics along the way, depending on your and your partners’ interest and abilities. Your day will end around 5, unless you’re staying a third day.

Sunday evening – Seminar If you’re staying a third day, it starts about an hour after you get down from the crag. By this time, you will have learned most of the skills to make you a competent second to a lead climber. But what if something goes wrong? Everyone who participates in lead climbing should know how to escape the belay, how to climb a rope using prussiks, and the basics of raising and lowering a climber. These are complex techniques, but when you’re out in the wilderness and your partner’s injured, they are indispensable. This evening will also provide your guide the opportunity to go over information and skills based on observation of your and your partner’s climbing over the past two days.

Monday – On the Rock Your final day may be a stretch – multi-pitch climbing at or slightly above your comfort zone. If you want to lead, you may be sweating the hanging belays, roofs or precarious rests, thinking about how it would feel on the sharp end. It won’t be as much trouble to remove the gear, and skills like rope management and anchor building will start to feel like instinct. If you want more lessons, your guide will be happy to oblige, but today is all about the climbing. A full day on the rocks, on routes you, your partner and your guide get to choose.