Looking for Anchor Class

FourT6and2 wrote: Yeah I tried that, but not showing anybody in my area. That's why I posted the links in my OP... those are the three in my area.

Touchstone Climbing gym offers classes designed to teach indoor climbers the skills they need to move outside. I have no experience with them, but I imagine they have to cover anchors.

For guides in the Bay Area you may want to check out the Outdoor Adventure Club. I met the owner of the company a year ago while taking a WFR class and my current boss has joined several of his backpacking trips. From what I can tell he has a good group of high-level guides working under him and would certainly have the ability to put together an anchor class for you. The website specifies that his guides are AMGA certified.

outdooradventureclub.com/

It is also worth noting that Las Vegas is a very short flight away from you and is an excellent place to hire a guide and go climb amazingly fun routes and learn new skills. There are a number of guide services down there and they'll certainly offer a range of experiences.

Something to think about if you're going to pay a bunch for a single guide and think of that as the gold standard. There are many "correct" ways to build anchors depending on your gear, time, location and other factors. There are also little tricks that people learn along the way to increase speed, efficiency and how clean/simple they are.

Basically, I think the best way to learn is to climb with as many different people as you can and ask them questions while you climb. You've already read books and I'm sure you've watched videos and you hopefully have some common sense so you probably already know everything you need to.

I've climbed with a few guides and the big takeaway is that everyone does it different. A friend, who was a guide, was the first one to teach me and if I always did it the way he taught me it would be a PITA in many cases.

Also, what people have already said, go build a bunch of anchors at ground level. Then yank on them in a bunch of different directions to see what happens. Then pull one of the pieces to see what happens. Then try to take it apart without making a bird's nest.

A bunch of cheap classes or multiple climbing sessions with fellow climbers will have a bigger payoff and save you some money. Don't take one "comprehensive" class and refuse to adapt later.

Just my 2 cents.

Nathan Self wrote:Stagg: Sorry I'm always saying that, I guess. Sounded like 46&2 wanted expert instruction, didn't have a mentor, and didn't exactly trust the classes he'd found--but that doesn't mean AMGA is the way to go.... (Also, aren't you the "no whine" guy? Please don't let my simpleton advice offend you.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that your advice is bad, just that there are other ways to do it as well that shouldn't be discounted.

FrankPS wrote: Their description says they are partnered with the AMGA. I don't know how good the classes are, but I'm sure you'd learn something good. The REI-haters on this website might say otherwise. I've never taken any REI classes before, but the price is right and the subject is what you want. This is something like what you're looking for, isn't it?

Two of the links I posted in my OP are the same price, give or take $10. If I were building a house, the last place I would go for advice is Home Depot.

John Vanek wrote:As in most things in life, we can seek instruction and guidance, but our best learning comes from experience.

How am I supposed to build anchors on my own with zero instruction? I can build all the shitty anchors I can on my own, doesn't mean it will make me good at building GOOD anchors. This advice makes sense for AFTER I take a class of some sort. You can't gain experience if you're dead from trying it the first time on your own and failing ;)

Ryan Hill wrote: Touchstone Climbing gym offers classes designed to teach indoor climbers the skills they need to move outside. I have no experience with them, but I imagine they have to cover anchors. For guides in the Bay Area you may want to check out the Outdoor Adventure Club. I met the owner of the company a year ago while taking a WFR class and my current boss has joined several of his backpacking trips. From what I can tell he has a good group of high-level guides working under him and would certainly have the ability to put together an anchor class for you. The website specifies that his guides are AMGA certified. outdooradventureclub.com/ It is also worth noting that Las Vegas is a very short flight away from you and is an excellent place to hire a guide and go climb amazingly fun routes and learn new skills. There are a number of guide services down there and they'll certainly offer a range of experiences.

Touchstone doesn't offer anchor classes. Just called and asked.

And for like the fourth time in this thread... I have tried contacting Outdoor Adventure Club numerous times. With zero response.

I'm SPECIFICALLY asking about the three guides I linked to in my OP. And why would I fly to Las Vegas? I can just go to Tahoe and hire Petch to teach me anchors. But the point is... I live in SF. And Tahoe is full of snow right now. Whereas the Bay Area is currently 70 degrees and sunny. :)

FourT6and2 wrote: Two of the links I posted in my OP are the same price, give or take $10. If I were building a house, the last place I would go for advice is Home Depot. How am I supposed to build anchors on my own with zero instruction? I can build all the shitty anchors I can on my own, doesn't mean it will make me good at building GOOD anchors. This advice makes sense for AFTER I take a class of some sort. You can't gain experience if you're dead from trying it the first time on your own and failing ;) Touchstone doesn't offer anchor classes. Just called and asked. And for like the fourth time in this thread... I have tried contacting Outdoor Adventure Club numerous times. With zero response. I'm SPECIFICALLY asking about the three guides I linked to in my OP. And why would I fly to Las Vegas? I can just go to Tahoe and hire Petch to teach me anchors. But the point is... I live in SF. And Tahoe is full of snow right now. Whereas the Bay Area is currently 70 degrees and sunny. :)

I think you're overanalyzing this. Just take a class.

FourT6and2 wrote: How am I supposed to build anchors on my own with zero instruction? I can build all the shitty anchors I can on my own, doesn't mean it will make me good at building GOOD anchors.

I learned to build anchors by reading John Long's anchor books, going out to some boulders for practice, and then having experienced climbers from local clubs like Cragmont Climbing Club evaluate my gear & anchors.

If you really want to learn, there are many ways. Safe climbing existed long before the AMGA existed. Google around and you'll find that SERENE / ERNEST are the prevailing schools of thought on anchors, there's plenty of literature out there for it, and it just isn't that hard.

A second thought. Typically anchor building is included in self-rescue courses. These are usually one day courses. Learn how to get yourself out of trouble and get instruction on anchors. ASI (and others) offer self-rescue courses.

Hi there. I'm in SF bay area too and out of the 3 you listed I've taken a beginner class with adventure out it was great. Very professional trained instructor that focused on safety first. I too am now looking to learn how to build good anchors safely. I wanted to see who you ended up going with and if you would recommend them? Thanks!

46&2,
how about the Sierra Club? They might still offer classes in climbing. University outing club at SF state/UCSF/UCB/Stanford?

Y'all are kinda late to the party. I took a class a while ago with SAANO Adventures. Great guy. Learned a lot. Been climbing outdoors and building anchors and shit for a while now. Yay me. :) Been out climbing almost every weekend since I made this thread back in February.

The one-on-one class I took went over everything from top-rope setups to lead/multi-pitch belay stations to basic self-rescue, etc.

It was a curse. Because now I see other people's setups when they climb at the crag and I wince. And I have friends who think they know how to build a safe anchor, but they really don't. A guy I climbed with for a bit who claims he's been climbing for like 5 years—he tied a death triangle (somehow) from a pre-made anchor I tied for him to just clip into the bolts. Somehow he managed to untie it and re-tie it into a death triangle. I haven't climbed with him since.

Excellent to hear about your anchors. Build 'em, test 'em, tear 'em apart. Sorry to hear about the curse. You don't have to wait for someone to tie a death triangle - look at their shoelaces - if they stay tied, ok.

As long as the ";curse"; is appropriately applied, consider it a blessing. One of the hardest things to teach in an anchors course (and something I had to learn by climbing with other people afterwards) is the difference between ";good enough"; and ";perfect"; anchors. Time and efficiency are factors, and if it takes you 20 minutes to rig an anchor, that's a problem on long routes. If you use up all of your partner's gear for the next pitch building your anchor, that's also a problem. Obviously, both are null on TR setups, but good things to practice on the ground when the consequences are less severe. You can always place another piece, replace a nonlocker with a locker, use a cam instead of a nut (or vice versa), etc, but the question needs to become: is this necessary? Just a cursory glance around the forum lately shows that many people haven't quite mastered this concept when it comes to anchor building. ;)

Getting experienced advice is important. Finding it is not so easy. AMG certification above the SPI level is one way to narrow things down. Clubs and meetups are more hit-and-miss, although you could get competent advice there too. An advantage of guides, beyond whatever certification provides, is that they are more likely to have thought about how to teach things.

You will still have to put in time on your own. Read various books and try to fully master the theory. Then get out and practice.

Anchors require (1) good pieces and (2) effective and efficient rigging. Practicing these skills together can be misleading. The first thing you want to do is learn to place good gear that can also be removed with relative ease. I think there are two gold-standard approaches to this.

Ground school. Place gear on the ground, connect a sling, and bounce test the piece. (Careful---make sure you won't get hit in the face if the piece blows.) You can do this with entire anchors, but then the load distribution can mask how good the pieces are, so stick to single placements.

Top rope aid. Top rope a pitch climbing it using direct aid. (Do not do this on popular routes!) Bounce test each piece. In addition to getting comfortable doing some improvised aid climbing (an essential and overlooked skill for new climbers), top rope aid forces you to adapt the gear you have left to the situation in front of you. Lower off and "second" the aid pitch, removing all your gear.

In both these cases, you should be making an explicit decision before bounce testing about how good your placement is. If it blows, think again about how you decided it was good and what you will do next time to eliminate that mistake.

Of course, expert commentary is going to be extremely helpful. Did you make the best possible placement for the situation? Did you miss possibilities? Did you make appropriate choices between using cams or nuts? Did you use up everything of a particular size in your anchor, leaving nothing of that size for the next pitch? Did you maximize the ability to remove the gear without compromising its strength and reliability? Etc etc. Don't skip the bounce test, because even the experts are sometimes wrong about what will and will not hold.

While doing this, strive for efficiency. The ideal is that the first piece you snatch off the rack is the best one for the job. This isn't always the reality for even the most experienced climbers, but you want to cut down as much as possible the time it takes get gear in.

Ok, on to rigging. Don't bother with this until you start to feel that you can place good gear. Once you can place good gear, the reality is, in spite of the endless discussions, that there are many effective ways to rig good pieces together and the differences don't really matter. Hopefully, as a new climber, you will not get into situations in which you can't get good gear, in which case rigging can be more consequential.

If you find yourself in a challenging situation, don't forget that you might be able to find a better locale (usually by climbing down some). Don't get tunnel-vision and assume you have to build an anchor where you are currently standing. Turning this around, think hard about passing a stance reasonably far up with good anchor possibilities just to stretch out the lead a bit. A shorter pitch with an easily-built bombproof anchor will in many cases turn out to be not only a safer choice than a rope-stretcher to a bad stance, but also a faster overall choice in spite of the shorter pitch length.

You should know a bunch of fast, effective, gear-minimising rigging techniques. The most basic is to be able to rig good anchors with just the rope, if for no other reason than you may have to do this if you drop some of the extras people use. You should also have rigging strategies for cordelettes and various types of slings. The variations on the SERENE acronym need to be taken with some grains of salt, particularly the idea of equalization, which is practically unachievable. You generally want to rig so that you get as good a load distribution as possible and, in case any piece fails, your system will not be subject to large extensions.

Rigging practice is best done at ground school and not on the shower-curtain rod. There isn't all that much to it, but the challenges come from the variations in placements of the anchor points. You won't learn much if your practice anchor points are equally-spaced and horizontal. For each set of placements, rig them with the rope only, then with a cordelette, then with a combination of slings.

Do pay attention to load directions. Multipitch anchors have to be able to survive upward loads, and some anchors have to be able to resist sidewards loads. Make sure you understand the directions loads might come from and that your rigging accounts for the loading possibilities you'll face.