Climbing School Update 1/15/2016

January 15, 2016

Dear Friends,

Namaste! I hope you are all well.

We had a beautiful weather day here with crystal clear, deep blue skies and sunshine all day long. Typically, clouds will roll in by early afternoon but today was just great.

Today and tomorrow are our Instructor’s Workshop. All the western and Nepalese instructors work together to review basic skills, do some practice, and also try to help introduce and practice new skills for the professional development of our instructors. This morning was spent with half the group working on knot tying and instructional ideas for use with students when KCC officially begins. The other half of the group worked on the principles of climbing anchor construction, various forms of equalization, and then a practice session. After 90 minutes, the groups switched assignments.

After lunch in Phortse, we worked in the trees on the steep hillside on the edge of town to practice some more advanced techniques involving belaying, escaping various belays when partners have problems and need to be lowered. These techniques involve various tension transfer methods with some challenging concepts and very necessary steps. The group did exceptionally well and felt that the efforts were worthwhile.

Tomorrow we’ll be out on several ice climbs to get “warmed up”, review various techniques, as a well as discussing teaching tips.

I have included a couple of photos including a group photo from this morning. Before we really got started this morning we went around the group with each instructor (including western) stating the number of years of climbing experience as well as the number of times they have summitted Mount Everest. So, as you look at our group shot of 25 instructors, you are seeing 356 years of experience and 85 Everest summits. What that really means is that on average, I have summited Everest 3 times. Awesome!

The weather has been reasonable since we’ve been here (fantastic today) but on the chilly side. My room was 26 F again this morning when I got up. Send us some warm thoughts.

All the best,

Steve Mock – ALCF Board Member & KCC Instructor

 

posted in Steve Mock