Friends of Seneca Lower Slabs Trail Work Weekends

Like tools? Love getting dirty? Enjoy giving back to the climbing community? Then consider volunteering for the Friends of Seneca Lower Slabs project. The goals of the project are:

• Increase the safety of the climber trail
• Correct erosion problems on the trail and in the areas below the routes, and prevent future problems
• Develop one designated climber trail to the Lower Slabs
• Limit the disturbance created by the project to preserve the experience.

 

Seneca Rocks is best known as a multi-pitch trad crag. The Lower Slabs area features several single-pitch trad routes which are also top-ropeable. It is a popular site for groups with a range of climbing experiences.

The Lower Slabs project began in August 2009, after the USDA Forest Service started planning trail construction and the development of a viewing area along the Lower Slabs access trail formerly used primarily by climbers. This trail is a branch off the popular hiking trail that leads to the observation deck on the North Peak. The Forest Service will develop this branch into a wider and more accessible trail that ends in a new viewing area of the rocks for the public. The end of this spur and the start of the new climber access trail to the Lower Slabs climbing area will be clearly marked by a “Climbers Only” sign, similar to the sign posted at the observation deck which warns hikers to not proceed to the climbs off the North Peak-East Face.

Friends of Seneca, an all volunteer organization, will reconstruct the 600 feet of climber trail, with a 100 feet elevation gain, leading from the far side of the new Forest Service observation area to the Lower Slabs climbing area. The climber trail will meet the slabs near “Scuttle.” A series of switchbacks will be put in place to facilitate the ascent of the 80% slope that leads from “Scuttle” to “Discrepancy.” Across from “Discrepancy,” the design, provided by Ken Dzaack of Canaan Valley Institute, calls for the construction of an 80-square-feet landing that can be used as a staging area for the climbs.

On March 20, Dzaack trained a dozen crew leader volunteers. Three crews, staffed by the crew leaders and a small number of volunteers, will be kicking off the work on April 10-11, and continue to work with a growing pool of volunteers on the weekends of July 10-11 and September 25-26.

Get involved! Volunteers are still needed for the trail work weekends. Please, stop by or contact Seneca Rocks Climbing School located in the Gendarme climbing shop. Ask or leave a message for Diane Kearns, co-owner of the Gendarme/SRCS, who is coordinating the project. 

Resource documents
Trail Construction and Maintenance Notebook (pdf file)
Lower Slabs Trail Design for Friends of Seneca (pdf file)

How to volunteer
Contact Diane Kearns at the Gendarme/SRCS.

What to bring for trail work weekends
Trail work is done using native materials, rocks and stones and trees. You need to wear appropriate clothing to protect yourself. Bring your own lunch and water. The Forest Service will provide the tools. Work will proceed in good weather conditions, only.

Necessities: Boots, helmet, heavy gloves, safety glasses.

Friends of Seneca will help defer the cost of camping and Diane Kearns will provide a breakfast for the volunteers. Please contact Diane Kearns at the Gendarme/SRCS; she will put you on the mailing list for the trail work weekends.

Who are the Friends of Seneca
Friends of Seneca is an all volunteer organization that maintains the climber access trails and rescue caches at Seneca Rocks. The Friends Seneca website is seneca-rocks.com/srcs_site/information/friendsofseneca.html .

Support Friends of Seneca

If you cannot participate in the trail work, you can help by buying the Seneca Rocks 2011 calendar.

One Tough Mixed Line

After the warm spell the 3^rd week of January, temps were finally falling below freezing once again last week. In addition, two ultra cold nights held the promise of the ice’s return for the weekend.

Dr. Bob and I headed out on Saturday, not quite sure where to climb. We debated in the car heading down the turnpike. Tim was not going to join us, but he gave us some ideas about the shape the ice was in. Bob stubbornly rejected my plea to check on the easy gullies (if I’m ever leading ice again it will certainly be a gully) … SCII was not a good choice for a Saturday … Meadows might be too crowded … although much of the ECP would be at Kinzu. I suggested we should try Irishtown given that I hadn’t been there yet this season. Bob agreed, since he hadn’t been there in quite some time either.

Naturally, we stopped at the Valley Dairy, where, just like last ice season, the staff now recognizes us as regulars and we are able to order without looking at the menus. No answer from Rayman, whom we called to see if he was interested in breakfast. A heap of pancakes, French toast and oink oink later, we wracked our brains trying to remember just how to get to Irishtown (in view of life over 50 and the troubling memory losses we have both been experiencing of late). Triumph over aging…our combined memories served; and we recognized the pull off when we got there. We were surprised by a big, brand new house on Twin Oak Road, and we also noticed quite an amount of logging on the upper cliff.

There had clearly been a lot of ice at Irishtown earlier in the month, given the refrigerator-sized chunks lying around near the cave. The ice which was left/re-formed had a very pretty, blue color, but it was not attached and there wasn’t enough of it to climb. After debating whether to relocate to the Meadows, we headed to the upper section to at least take a look.

There was plenty of ice all along the upper section. But on any given possible line, there was either ice at the bottom but not at the top, or there was ice at the top and not at the bottom. We saw one line which had clearly been picked on this season. The ice was about shoulder wide at the top. The bottom half, however, only had a very narrow column of ice on the right, and what looked like some fairly easy rock to the left. We decided this was our best bet: do a mixed start, and then transfer into the true ice-climb for the top section. Only problem with the bottom … the rock was behind the ice of course, and with both tools in the ice and the crampons on the rock, you got into an overhanging situation. It was quite hard to pull yourself up and into the ice, but we were on toprope, so we kept at it.

We each did two runs on the line, then took a break to drink some tea and practiced placing ice screws. It was not worth moving the rope, and we’d just run up the same line for a third time. “You know,” Bob said, “I’m losing my memory so fast that after this cup of tea the line will seem like a whole new climb!” See. Just goes to show that aging can have a positive effect on your climbing enjoyment.

My second run was the best of the day. I really styled it, with a heel hook on the rock, a drop knee transfer onto the ice ledge. Cool! I got hit by some ice that cut my face, which I did not notice until that tell-tale iron taste in my mouth. Bob took my picture. Wounded on one tough mixed line … but styling it, yeah! My third run was not quite a strong; also, the ice in the top section had worn off considerably from our previous runs. After his third burn on the line, Bob topped out to break down the rigging. Inspection of our tools and crampons showed noticeable wear from the dry-tooling. We, too, were pretty beat. Overhanging ice has its moments…

On the way home, we stopped by Exkursion because Bob wanted to buy the new Sabretooth crampons. Lucky for me, Fred was there, giving me an opportunity to brag about my accomplishments and show off my bloody face to him.

Another good day on the ice! I’m still feeling sore two days later… This must have been a V-ish line.

Photo credit: Bob Coblentz

Goodbye tree, hello ice!

December was the month of in between. Our fabulous rock season ended in November. December came, but ice did not. We swung our tools at the tree in Shenley park in anticipation. Then, on January 1st, the temperatures dropped below the freezing mark, where they stayed for 11 days. Finally, last weekend, we had lots of climbable ICE.

Saturday got very busy at the three ice flows at the Meadows which were in good. There was a lot of climbers from the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh, other Pittsburgh and Ohiopyle climbers, even a group from Maryland. Action at the Meadows included Sam's leader fall. This was the first time I experienced someone falling on an ice lead. All of his three screws held. Sam is fine!

Sunday up on the ridge the snow was hip deep, and, at 4F, the ice was very hard. Laura asked me if I ever wanted to lead on ice. I actually did one ice lead once, a 2+ at Thunder Bay. Before I got on the climb I made everyone there promise that if I did one ice lead they'd get forever off my back about leading ice. So there you have it, don't ask me again, I am just too scared! Toproing steep ice is just fine with me...

From the many pictures that I took last weekend, I assembled my first movie.

Check it out! 

Another rewarding experience on the drive back home to Pittsburgh on Sunday night was that we saw a sun pillar. This is only the second time I've seen one. My first sighting of this phenomenon was on that ice climbing trip to Thunder Bay. Sun pillars occur when the sun is low in the sky and its light reflects off of ice crystals in the Earth's atmosphere. That gives you another visual of just how cold it was on Sunday! I did not have my camera handy in the car. The picture to the left is from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, where you can read more about this photograph of a sun pillar.

Ohiopyle State Park: A Trip Report for the ECP Newsletter

End of Season at Seneca

Snowflakes

Falling
into the rock passing the spirits of the lost climbers.

On my mind
falling
snowflakes.

Leadership Lessons from the Death Zone

A Review of Chris Warner and Don Schmincke’s High-Altitude Leadership: What the World’s Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success, Jossey-Bass, 2008


Climbing mountains is not a sport; it is a lifestyle. I am convinced of this because I am a rock climber myself. The peaks I have scaled are tiny compared to Mt. Everest. I have climbed no higher than a few thousand feet, never above the 26,000 feet mark that hails the beginning of the death zone. And lasting a few days at most, in such wild places as West Virginia, my climbing trips hardly merit being called expeditions. Yet I have had many epic and insightful adventures leading teams of students on these smaller-scale pursuits. They have provided me with a rich backdrop for reflection on leadership. When I saw the title “High-Altitude Leadership,” I knew I had to read it.

“An expedition is a journey of physical, emotional, and intellectual brutality that kicks the crap out of you and in which the opportunity for things going wrong is built into the formula. [] Seeking high altitude leadership also promises to kick the crap out of you,” the authors tell us in the introduction. This book is a collaboration between mountaineer, entrepreneur, and owner of Earth Treks, Chris Warner, and climber, author, and founder of The SAGA Leadership Institute, Don Schmincke. The two men share experiences in the areas of climbing and entrepreneurship, and after meeting on a climbing expedition, they discover that “the dynamics of mountaineering provide tailor-made metaphors for business challenges.” Warner and Schmincke team up to eventually deliver this transdisciplinary book about business leadership intensified by working in the death zone. They define high altitude leaders as “those who lead themselves and their teams to produce peak performance in the face of extreme challenges by overcoming the dangers not foreseen or addressed by current, pop leadership theory.”

The key lessons of this book derive from “the dangers.” There are eight; and they are each exposed in separate chapters that include case studies, survival tips and key learnings. Warner and Schmincke start from the obvious truth that “dangers threaten every leader at some point in their journey.” The significance of these eight dangers of leading is that they magnify as leaders climb higher, either up the mountain or up the corporate ladder. A leader who deals with these key dangers effectively practices high altitude leadership. The eight dangers which high altitude leaders must face are: fear of death, selfishness, tool seduction, arrogance, lone heroism, cowardice, comfort, and gravity.

Fear of death causes a leader’s mind to freeze up. When that happens, the leader is unable to take decisive action. Death is the ultimate danger to mountaineers. In the business world, death is not (usually) physical. Rather, it occurs with the demise of a great idea, a plan, a career. Or it means company bankruptcy. Fear of death can be conquered; the way to do so is by embracing it. The acceptance of death, as one possible outcome of a leadership action, frees and empowers a leader for innovation, decisiveness and action.

Selfishness is the egocentric leader behavior that can politically poison a team. Think withholding information, playing favorites, or protecting sacred cow projects. Warner and Schmincke discuss the dangerous, unproductive, dysfunctional (DUD) conditions that exist in companies as a result of selfish behavior. They tell leaders to purge selfishness from themselves and from their team. This is a tall order. The recommended strategy for filling it is by creating passion in followers through the telling a compelling saga. The saga unifies, because it provides the team with something worth fighting for, to “die” for. And thus it increases productivity.

Tool seduction addresses the question, “are you using your tools, or are they using you?” This chapter exposes the high failure rate of implementing management fads, usually when tools replace the deeper work of adaptation to change. Leaders who successfully avert tool seduction can put their energies into planning for the unknown, and continuously adapt to changing conditions.

Arrogance is apparent when leaders have so high an opinion of themselves that it will kill them. They fall into the metaphorical crevasse; or they get backstabbed by their followers. “Arrogant leaders ignore warnings on mountains and in boardrooms.” They endanger themselves and their teams. The cure for a leader that is infected by arrogance is humility. But can an arrogant leader truly learn to become humble? Warner and Schmincke think so, and provide some strategies. Humility makes it possible to admit to mistakes and failures, to learn from them, and to commit to a path of continuous improvement.

Lone heroism is in evidence when a leader uses the mantra: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” Lone heroism causes weak teams, low accountability, misaligned direction, demoralization, and hostages; and the resulting damage can be extensive. The remedy for lone heroism is partnership. Warner and Schmincke assert, “There are no more messianic leaders. The few who came before aren’t interested in working for your corporation. You’ll have to settle for creating powerful partnerships.”

Cowardice encapsulates a leader’s risk-avoidance behavior. Cowardice propels leaders to seek safety instead of peak performance. The counterforce to cowardice is bravery. Warner and Schmincke believe bravery can be instilled by shame, but comment that shaming people is no longer politically correct. They deride current managerial practices because they coddle followers and do not get the job done. High latitude leaders tell the truth and walk the talk.

Comfort leads to stagnation, and vice versa. Yet “great achievements sometimes require enduring extreme discomfort.” Thus Warner and Schmincke caution, “Don’t lead if you lack the willingness to be uncomfortable.” Their high altitude leaders are not seduced by the status quo. Rather, they inspire their teams to move onward and upward even when that path is downright unpleasant. This requires perseverance, combined with a good sense for when to retreat, rethink, and return to face the challenge another day.

Gravity is the last of the dangers; it has the capacity to kill a leader who did everything right. Gravity simply exists. Just like bad luck. It is a metaphor for environmental variables a leader cannot control. The only countermeasure for gravity is good luck. While a leader can sometimes get lucky by chance, luck can also be created through several proven techniques. A leader can maximize chance opportunities by being open to new experiences, or by following a gut instinct. Another method is to visualize a positive outcome.

In the final chapter of their book, Warner and Schmincke dare any aspiring high altitude leaders to ask themselves: “When have I laid it all on the line to make my dream come true?” They encourage the reader to consider the final lesson, “that high altitude leaders don’t seek to conquer the great goals; these are the results of their conquering themselves.”

The strength of this book is in the combination of mountaineering sagas told by Warner, with observations of corporate America recounted by Schmincke. Death is the key to making the book such a seductively good read. The stories told by Warner are sensationally dramatic case studies of decision-making in high altitude climbing teams. They are compelling not only because they are educational, but because they are vivid, engrossing accounts of his personal experiences of leadership and followership under the highest of stakes. I gobbled them up with morbid fascination. The examples woven in by Schmincke are expositions of similarly extreme corporate environments that he encountered in his consulting practice. I am less familiar with his arena, and thought the business examples were less powerful than the mountaineering ones. Yet the lessons that the authors derive form this amalgamation resonate well with me, perhaps because many of them are familiar from the leadership literature. By examining them from the extreme perspective of high altitude leadership, the authors make such well-known leadership and management themes as passion, failure, adaptive change, continuous improvement, and perseverance, fresh and relevant once again. The taste of adventure they gave me, combined with their direct, tell-it-as-it-is writing style, had me finish this book in record time. I came away from it not as much with new knowledge or skill, but with a feeling – a sense of being invigorated and ready to take on new leadership challenges. After all, climbing is not a sport; it is a lifestyle, and so is leadership.

Credits: The image of Chris Warner and Don Schmincke’s book jacket was downloaded from http://highaltitudeleadership.com/.

Christine L. Dvonch edited the manuscript for English.

Note: This manuscript has been submitted to Integral Leadership Review. The article appeared here: Integral Leadership Review, Volume IX, No.5

Taking the AMGA's SPI Course

What is the difference between a pizza and a professional guide? The pizza feeds a family of four.

This joke, told to us by Patrick Weaver, our instructor, briefly lightened the mood during our morning hike on day two of the American Mountain Guide Association’s Single-Pitch Instructor course. Mostly, the atmosphere of the course was very serious. Many of the scenarios in the course revolve around something going wrong, and a rescue. The guide’s job is to anticipate what could possibly go wrong, assess the risk, act responsibly and with the safety and enjoyment of the clients in mind, and be skilled in rescue techniques. I experienced the course as extremely intense—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Two weeks later, I am still digesting the mountain of information that was packed into the course.



The SPI Course

The SPI three-day training course is the first step to becoming a professional climbing guide. The second step is a two-day assessment, aka, the exam. The three-day course curriculum covers 19 sessions. They are listed in the AGMA SPI 2009 program manual, which was part of the course materials. For each session, the manual also provides the goals, required equipment, and a rationale. The session topics are:

Session 1: SPI and AMGA Program Overview
Session 2: Professionalism
Session 3: Equipment
Session 4: Knots and Hitches
Session 5: Belaying
Session 6: Protection and Anchoring
Session 7: Teaching Skills
Session 8: Selecting the Climbing Site
Session 9: Site Organization and Group Management
Session 10: Base-Managed Sites
Session 11: Assistance Skills— Base-Managed Sites
Session 12: Programming and Risk Management
Session 13: Instructor Demo Lead Climb
Session 14: Top-Managed Sites
Session 15: Lowering
Session 16: Assistance Skills—Top-Managed Sites
Session 17: Rappelling
Session 18: Climbing Movement
Session 19: Review Session


Experiencing the SPI Course

I had become interested in the course because I am increasingly taking students climbing. Taking students from the University of Pittsburgh and the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh climbing has been a good experience for me. I have learned so much every time I have led a rope team. However, I am also very aware of the mistakes I have made. Some of them are etched into my memory because of their great potential for disaster. It is true that field experience provides tremendous opportunity for learning. However, how should we structure our learning so that it does not occur at the expense of those who trust us as their guides and teachers?

After several years of learning from friends and from experience, it had become time for me to contrast my knowledge with some kind of standard. I was also curious about what it entails to be a professional climbing guide. Talking throughout the season with Diane Kearns of The Gendarme and Seneca Rocks Climbing School, and Tom Cecil of Seneca Rocks Mountain Guides, I decided the SPI course was what I needed. Luckily I had enough experience, in terms of years climbing and the number of traditional routes I have led, to fulfill the pre-requisites for taking the course. Before I’ll be able to proceed to the assessment, however, I will have to lead a lot more routes at 5.6 and above; and that has given me an incentive this season to try harder to break into that grade.

Patrick Weaver owns Appalachian Mountain Institute, and usually guides and teaches in North Carolina or Kentucky. Because several climbers from the east coast had expressed an interest in the SPI course, Diane Kearns had facilitated bringing Patrick to Seneca Rocks to teach the course. This was an advantage for us students because we would be able to learn in a familiar environment.


After several months of planning, I finally drove to Seneca on the evening of September 11, 2009.


Day One

I began my day with cappuccino and a delicious quiche and an impromptu lesson from Tom Cecil at the Ground Up. Tony Barnes was away for a trip, and I was surprised to be served breakfast by Tom, who was assisted by Gina. While brewing my coffee, Tom inquired what I was up to this weekend. A good question, since I was by myself, and trad climbers usually come in pairs. I told him that I was taking the SPI course. I also shared that I had spend the previous day in front of my computer practicing the Munter Mule knot, which I knew I would need but continued to have trouble with. While I was eating my breakfast, Tom disappeared into the climbing gym and returned with a short rope and a carabiner. He clipped the carabiner to the armrest of my chair and asked me to tie a Munter Mule. I did manage to get one done, but what the computer animation did not show were the variation and reasons Tom proceeded to demonstrate for me. Thus my learning experience got off to a good start.

After breakfast, I headed over to the Gendarme, where I had a chance to briefly catch up with Diane. Her big news was that Arthur had been injured in a motorcycle accident and was wheel-chair bound. What a shock this must be for couple who so enjoys being physically active. I also met the course instructor, Patrick, and the three other students, John, Jonathan, and Sean.

Every day of the course, we had lecture sessions outside of the Gendarme. Every day we hiked to the rocks for applied lessons, with increasing amounts of gear. Patrick did not teach the sessions strictly in the order they are listed above. Thus, on the first day, we learned about equipment, protection, selecting the climbing site, top-managed sites, and lowering.

My favorite lesson was the lesson on equipment. Patrick had brought a big bag full of old gear, and asked us to each grab five pieces and tell him what, if anything, was wrong with them. I will never again pocket a piece of booty without carefully looking for the signs of wear and tear I learned about during this session. I also successfully, meaning to AMGA standards, built a gear anchor with a cordelette in a location that Patrick chose for me.

The first day of the course was quite cold and windy. Temperatures on the Lowers Slabs probably only reached into the fifties. And while I usually like colder temperatures for climbing, the temperatures had still been in the eighties in Pittsburgh. This sudden change perhaps contributed to draining my energy as the day went on. And the overwhelming amount of information and my attempts to translate them into practice most definitely wore me down. I felt like a student again, rather than the master! At the end of the day, Patrick did start into the assistance skills for top-managed sites, but called it a day when he noticed how exhausted we had become after the ten hours we had been studying and practicing in the cold wind.

We retired to the front porch for some well deserved pizza and beer. And we enjoyed the companionship of other climbers who had been out on the rock climbing that day.


Day Two

On day two we started even earlier than on the first day to make up for not completing enough material on the first day. We met at 7:45 am in front of the Gendarme, and did not return until about 7 pm, making for an eleven-hour-long study day. We did our practical sessions on the Lower Slabs again, in slightly warmer temperatures and less wind. I did not feel quite the same amount of mental overload and fatigue than the day before. Many of the topics we covered were more familiar to me: knots and hitches, belaying, teaching skills, base-managed sites, including the required assistance skills. Patrick also got to do his instructor demo lead climb, on “Scuttle”. We watched him jealously, since this weekend did not include any climbing for us.

I did bugger up one of my assignments that day. I was to build a top-rope anchor with a static rope…but the rope we had picked up in the Gendarme was shorter than it should have been, the rock above the route was rotten and did not take pro, one tree was too close to the edge, and the other, off-center from the climb. With enough time and gear I would have been able to rig an anchor, but trying to use the techniques I had just learned in a situation that was not straightforward, I was so slow that Patrick eventually took over. On the third day, he did demonstrate to us that he can build an anchor with a 100 foot static in just three minutes. That was quite impressive and gives me the gold standard for efficient performance that I can now strive for.


In another exercise, I had to rescue Sean, who pretended to be stuck about 15 feet up a route. I had to take over the belay from his belayer, ascend the rope to Sean, than bring him down with me. I got it all done, which was satisfying. Yet I did not do it well enough. Sean descended by about 3 feet during my rescue. If he had had a foot stuck in a crack for instance, I would have broken it during my rescue. More practice is needed on this scenario as well…

The evening was fun and grew quite late because after class was over, we decided to head to Hellbender, a Mexican restaurant in Davis. Patrick volunteered to drive and loaded all of us into his van. We spent the ride decompressing by talking more climbing, and dinner stuffing ourselves with monster-sized, tasty burritos.


Day Three

On the third day, we hiked up to Luncheon Ledge. I rejoiced, because I had to build another top-rope anchor to make up for my failure from the day before, and the place Patrick chose for me was right at the bottom of Old Ladies, a route I am quite familiar with. My anchor, part traditional, part tree, went up quickly enough, and my gear placements were pronounced bomber. So far so good.


Next, Jonathan and I were assigned to set up a releasable rappel. Unfortunately, we had both forgotten the set-up that Patrick had shown us at the end of day one, and we rigged a regular rappel. Patrick quizzed us for a while to jog our memory about the releasable rappel, but quickly realized we were drawing a blank. It was quite frustrating to me that I couldn’t reproduce something I had just learned two days ago. But then again, I told myself, I’d only seen it done once. I found this set-up particularly confusing because it involves three ropes. Basically, there is rope everywhere you look, and it is critical to do steps in the right order and to keep the area around the master point well organized. Patrick showed us how to rig this scenario once again, and we accomplished to do it by ourselves shortly thereafter. Jonathan and I also both successfully practiced the releasable rappel scenario with back-up belay by the guide on a second rope, which assumed that our client had become stuck on rappel.

While working through our lessons on Luncheon Ledge, we saw Tom Cecil getting ready and then lead up “Crack of Dawn”. That was a treat and a diversion. (For the record, Patrick did not watch Tom climb so as not to spoil his opportunity for an onsight of this route.)

My favorite lesson of the day was the one on climbing movement. Patrick had clearly put a lot of thought into the lesson plan, and he had good demonstrations to make his points. At about 4 pm, we headed back to the Gendarme for final lessons on SPI and AMGA programs, and professionalism.

The ten-hour day ended with a private, personal skills assessment of each of us by the instructor. (If you are, or have ever been Catholic, think confessional….). I appreciated the opportunity to talk about what I had learned, and what I self-assessed I have yet to learn. Patrick provided me with valuable feedback. He also emailed me a few days after the course feedback in writing on an AMGA candidate evaluation form; I understand that it will become part of my AMGA record.

After we had sorted our gear, and exchanged email addresses, it was time to part ways.


Reflections

The course required more stamina and concentration than I had expected. I woke up on the second day thinking I must really love climbing if I am putting myself through this strenuous experience. The course felt more like a review course for the exam than a training course to me. The AMGA materials had been quite explicit that this was not going to be a belay course, not an anchor course, and not a knots course. Instead, proficiency in these areas was expected of the course participants. That was clear to me and I felt knowledgeable in these areas. But there is still so much more to learn, and the pre-existing knowledge and skill of us four course participants was quite different. Some of the lessons learned on the SPI course carry over into my life as a professor and educator. Now I appreciate once again the difference between a professor, who has had a lifetime to grapple with ideas and concepts, and a student learning about them for the very first time. And then we profs like to throw new combinations of problems at students on the exam…and act surprised when they can’t put it all together. I realized it is plain hard to repeat a new skill correctly on the first try, even harder to integrate a brand-new skill into a variation of the original scenario. I must have known this back in the day. How could I forget.

The course is no substitute for experience. There are many skills that I will begin to incorporate into my climbing repertoire. I hope that by practicing them and experiencing them in many different situations, I will become efficient at executing them even under pressure. An important lesson that I am now aware of is to always take in the big picture of a situation. I am usually good at that, but as pressure on me increases, my focus narrows and this is when I start to make mistakes. Better mastery of the technical skills will free up some of my brain power for the task of maintaining the big picture.

The course sets a high standard for professional certification. I came to understand why guiding is sometimes also referred to as rockcraft. I also learned that the difference between a climber and a professional guide is this: Climbers carry a guidebook, professional guides carry a notebook. If you are planning to take this course, be prepared to take plenty of notes and photos. This is especially important since the technical section of the SPI course manual is not very extensive or detailed.


The course emphasizes leadership and managerial skills. I enjoy contemplating these in great detail in my current role as instructor in an academic leadership seminar. The SPI course was a good fit to what I already know, and gave me new perspectives and insights on informed consent, group management, and risk management.

Will I take the exam? I don’t know. After a lifetime of taking exams in academia, you’d think I’d be used to taking exams. But on the contrary, I’ve sort of grown averse to them. On the other hand, if I truly master all of the material, the exam should be a breeze for me, and I should go for it on principal. I just haven’t been able to make up my mind about it. And then there is the issue of leading more 5.6s on gear. Perhaps next season…

Photo credit: The photo of the Munter Muler on my harness was taken by John; Jonathan took the one of me lowering.