According to the plan, I was going onto the second step of the "Mountain" ladder, the Mountain 2 class. But just a couple of days before departure, while on course with Rock 2. I got offered to join Mountain 3, a preparatory course to the assistant alpine guide exam. Of course, I jumped straight-on-to-it!
First out we were in the area around Banff/Kenmore in Alberta. For our first day we did short-roping. The goal was to recognize what was acceptable for us to short-rope and how much we actually can 'hold' when someone slips (not so much).
When short-roping you are working in a shortened rope between you and your guest(s), in order to link sections in a climb that is unpractical/dangerous or slow to pitch. As the direct coaching of a guest makes them feel as a team worker, it increases their competency to tackle such terrain.
As some of the pictures suggest there was a slightly steep nature to this course, and as we progressed we continuously added elements to it. A big deal is the transitions between a pitch and a stretch of short-roping, and how to do this efficiently without having your guest wait for you.
This is a picture series from the ridge of Lorette: the nature of the ridge gave us good opportunities to practice hip belays and scrambling on lose sandstone. We shared the spot with a fraction from Mountain 2, witch gave us some issues on a bottleneck section of the ridge. But other than that it was a good day in class!
To Be Continued!
To Be Continued!