It’s been a relatively brief but intense journey since I first learned to climb a year and a half ago, and along the way I have discovered a love for the pursuit. Nick and I soon decided that we wanted to add it to the list of activities the Wild Wolf ESU can offer its young people, and to that end we both worked towards and gained our permits to offer climbing and abseiling on crags and artificial walls within Scouting. However, I wanted to add the potential to assess and instruct others in climbing both in Scouting and without, so began the journey towards becoming a Rock Climbing Instructor (RCI). This journey culminated in my waking up at 4am on Friday 20th September to go and meet someone for a few last routes for the logbook ahead of my assessment on the Saturday and Sunday.

Having had a fantastic sunny day out on Holyhead Mountain, I showed up at the car park for Tremadog’s Upper Tier (the crag we’d be at that day) to meet the other candidates for assessment and our course director, Sam Leary of Leading Edge

Saturday AM

This session was all about being a safe and competent personal climber, as part of the award’s remit is leading up a single-pitch climb then bringing someone up after you. First, we built multi-point anchors as if we had just led up a route, then lowered each other down off them so we could then demonstrate good belaying from the top of a climb. Then, we converted our anchors into a personal abseil (those pesky seconds are always leaving gear stuck in the route!)

Saturday PM

The second part of the day contained the dreaded personal lead climb – it was never going to be at a grade I couldn’t generally handle, but my climbing style isn’t overly suited to chimneys and cracks – so naturally, I ended up being given a crack climb! As I read the guidebook description, the words ‘totter’ and ‘fight’ leapt out at me and I groaned inwardly.

As it happened, the route was OK, although I wouldn’t say I dealt with the crux in the most graceful manner possible. Sam then abseiled down to check my gear placements, and pleasingly they were rated as ‘marvellous’. The day finished with solving common problems from above – what to do with a stuck climber, or how to escape the belay system to check on a climber when they’re unresponsive. The heavens opened just as we were on our way back to the vehicles, so I had a very damp – but positive – feedback session.

Sunday AM

The crew met up at Lion Rocks in Llanberis (a very popular area with beginners, families and commercial groups) to go through the skills and setups needed if we were climbing with a larger group – Sam was kept very busy indeed zipping between us as we rigged anchors for clients to climb on, a releasable abseil for group use, and a setup to enable us to teach belaying from above. Somehow we managed to dodge the rain, and headed to the vehicles to head for the indoor part of the course.

Sunday PM

After lunch and theory at the cafe of the Beacon Climbing Centre in Caernarfon, we headed for the bouldering wall to demonstrate movement skills and run parts of a mock session with clients, before doing a personal indoor lead climb and demonstrating how we would handle teaching the common elements of climbing such as belaying and tying-in. Finally, we looked at how to prevent and solve some common problems, and demonstrated we understood the principles of sport climbing.

This led us on to the individual debrief, which was a really positive conversation that started with a handshake and words of congratulation from Sam, before diving into elements of my practice that had been strong, and any things to work on, and what the next steps within the award framework would be.