Guides Course done....

I completed the ten day AMGA Rock Instructor Course yesterday. This was a great experience. I have a host of new rope tricks now and am certainly a better guide. I am also happy to have spent an extended amount of time with the course instructor Alain Comeau. Alain's Yoda like presentation, his sense of humor and deep knowledge and love of guiding was inspiring.

Much of the course was about fine tuning techniques that I have been using for quite a while, both guide and recreational climber. The short roping, short pitching and the rescue scenario are largely new. I continually find myself shaking my head about the years of climbing that I had never practiced belay escape much less rappelling to an injured climber and initiating a rescue of them. It always was more fun to get out and do the moves than play around with all that. It is amazingly good fortune that I never needed these skills on the Diamond or on Canon or a host of other places I've visited where things can go very wrong. Pursuing this guiding discipline has been an eye opener.