ACMG (The Association of Canadian Mountain Guides)
The ACMG is the organization that I’m a member of that is responsible for training and certifying guides in Canada. You probably heard me mention it in the context of its Climbing Guide Manual.
The ACMG is the professional association of trained and certified mountain guides, ski guides, alpine guides, rock guides, hiking guides, via ferrata guides and climbing instructors dedicated to upholding and advancing the profession of mountain guiding and climbing instruction in Canada.
ACMG Climbing Guide Manual
The ACMG makes its technical manuals available for sale to the public. These are the same manuals that are used to teach guides! They’re roughly $20 for a digital copy (which is what I use) or $50 printed.
The great part about the Climbing Guide Manual is that it contains a curated selection of best practices. There are a hundred ways to build an anchor, rig a haul system, or set up a rappel. But 99% of the time, you’re best off using one of the ‘preferred’ methods from the manual. Instead of the overwhelming options of HowNot2 or Alpine Savvy, you have a set of core techniques to focus on. Once you have that material locked in, by all means explore the variations that abound on Instagram.
There are two great ways to use this manual surrounding your courses. First, you can use it as a primer before a course. Signed up for Rock Rescue? Read through that material, and try a few systems in advance. You’ll come to the course primed, and be able to spend more time refining, asking great questions, and really dialing things in.
Just came out of a Rock Rescue course, and there was too much to remember? Those videos you took will be great, but the manual can point you to which skills to practice and remind you of the details. And of course, feel free to reach out to me with questions.
ACMG Technical Manuals are available through Amazon, Google, and Apple, as well as in print.
TABVAR (The Association of Bow Valley Area Rockclimbers)
TABVAR collects and distributes funding for climbing routes in the Bow Valley. We receive donations from individuals and organizations and pass it on to route developers and retrofitters.
Retrofitting refers to fixing up old climbing routes. We have many old and sketchy bolts in the Rockies, and someone has to do the work of replacing them. Facilitating these efforts is my main role on the TABVAR board of directors.
TABVAR donors get perks! If you donate $100 to become a Super Supporter you get 15% off at MEC, Monod Sports and Vertical Addiction. If you buy enough gear (like me) you come out ahead, and fund climbing routes at the same time.
Fixed Point Belay
The fixed point belay is an amazing system for belaying leaders on multi-pitch climbs. Unfortunately, it’s a bit complicated, and we don’t generally have time to cover it during public courses. If you’d like to use it, learn it thoroughly and practice in a low-consequence environment. It’s also something that can be taught as part a day of private guiding.
I don’t have a free authoritative resource to point you too, but you can find information online (or in the Climbing Guide Manual!)
Place to Practice
So you’ve just developed new skills, and you want to know where to go to practice them. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it can help get you started.
Top Rope
This is unfortunately a tricky one, as most venues in the Rockies don’t have easy top access. If you’re stoked on climbing and want to open up more terrain, consider taking a lead course!
- Yam Bluffs
Lead Sport Climbing
The world is your oyster. What does that expression even mean? We have lifetimes worth of sport climbing. Grab a guidebook and follow your heart. Some suggestions:
- Grassi Lakes (Canmore)
- Back of the Lake (Lake Louise)
- Moose Mountain (Bragg Creek)
- Cougar Creek (Canmore)
- The Black Band (Tunnel Mountain, Banff)
Multi-pitch
You don’t have to be in true multi-pitch terrain to practice. You can do any single-pitch route as a multi by belaying your partner up to you and rappelling! There are also places that are intentionally set up to have short (2-15m) pitches so you can practice. If you want to get practice on real multi-pitch terrain, consider routes that are easy for you so you can do a lot of pitches and focus on practicing transitions.
Practice Areas
- Sunshine Slabs (The Ledge)
- Zygote
- Wasootch C Slab
Easy Multipitch
- Aftonroe (Banff)
- Rundlehorn (Banff)
Trad Climbing
Unfortunately, we have limited single pitch trad climbing. But, we have lifetimes of multi-pitch and alpine! Bring some trad gear out with you to place on sport climbs for practice, or check out:
- Back of the Lake (Lake Louise)
- Birdwatchers Crag (Kananaskis)
- Wasootch Slabs (Kananaskis)
Rock Rescue
For rock rescue, you truley do not need a decicated location. You can practice in your kitchen, dragging your couch over to your table. Or some trees on a hill in the park. It helps to have some sort of load pulling on the rope, whether that’s your buddy, a weight on a pulley, or even a bungee cord.
If you’re dangling your buddy off a cliff, you have their life in your hands, so make very sure you’re doing everything safely.
Consider doing some rope ascension or a quick raise or lower as part of your crag day. Rock Rescue is like Avalanche Safety, we hope to never need to use it ‘for real’, but if we don’t practice, we’ll forget.
