Dan Goodwin reports on our recent Rock Climbing Skills Courses out in Nanyuki…
It’s been a a busy couple of weeks on the Adventurous Training front with numerous clients coming through on multi-activity courses and Mountain Bike Foundation courses. We also ran the first Rock Climbing Skills foundation courses which went very well. This is first to be run in Kenya under the Adventurous Training Program which we are very proud of! It’s a great course developing some of the basic but essential skills to create competent seconds and group members. This is a great milestone for RVA to able to deliver certified climbing courses.
The course is essentially an introduction to rock climbing with the aim of equipping participants with the skills to move on and go climbing as a competent group member and second and use indoor walls. This allows them to then continue to the next level and onto instructor courses.
We have a great selection of venues which suit both sport and traditional venues and a climbing wall in Nanyuki allowing students to gain a foundation in the essentials such as anchor building, belaying, tying in, technique and belaying both leading climbers and seconding climbers.
The wall element also has some leading and everyone needs to experience a fall. The main reason for this is not the fall but to ensure that the belayer is able to hold a fall.
Our venues could not be any better for single pitch climbing at our main crag in the Ngare Ndare Forest which is a perfect granite dome giving routes of all grades which help get people going and progressing through to the harder climbs. We also have both bolted and traditional methods for set ups which provide the perfect learning terrain. All this with the incredible back drop of Lewa and Borana Conservancies and on onto Samburu.
We also have a good abseil and bouldering area just below camp which gives us a good first days intro into movement and technique and an abseil with a five minute walk from camp.
Everyone has left the courses feeling that they have become much more competent climbers and inspired to take that to the next level. We are hoping that for those who are based out here for longer periods that we can provide days to keep those skills up and keep adding to that all important logbook experience.
A great start to delivering a great course in a great venue. Its a huge credit to RVA to have been allowed to deliver these more instructional and certified courses and shows that we are operating at a high standard.
And looking forward to the next!
Dan Goodwin
