The Alpine Club has a great history of mentorship and knowledge transfer from veterans to novice alpinists. In order to honor these roots we have aimed to set up a casual community setting to help climbers hone their skills on rock, meet like minded individuals, and build confidence. For three weeks we’ve (Hans Whitefield, Tyler Kennedy) organized evening workshops at the Fleming Beach to promote and grow our community.
Rock Workshop Wednesdays compliments the many transition to outdoors and beginner rock climbing experiences offered by guides. Confidence with rope systems is difficult to develop without regular practice. We aim to provide a basis to practice and rehearse the skills learned from instructors without an additional price tag.
Fleming is a great place to progress these skills as there are a variety of bolted anchors, with and without exposure. We were able to comfortably rehearse our anchor setups and rappels above fisherman’s wall, and provide a less daunting rappel for the mentees. We limited the groups to 6 climbers to ensure that individual coaching and step by step progression through skills could be maintained.
While rope work was our main focus, it didn’t hurt to get in some enjoyable laps on the granite of the main Fleming wall. The Macaulay point harbor provided some exceptional views and is a great location for observing the antics of otters and seals.
The workshop was exceptionally easy to run, and we hope that other members across the island are inspired to organize their own regular events. We were thrilled to have Colin Dams volunteer to help us run one evening and were able to have 8 attendees in a single evening, Providing a safe and sociable space to engage with alpinism can only benefit our club and we hope this can be the start of a great ACCVI tradition.
