The goal is to come up with a skills list for climbers. Let's see what we can come up with. Maybe lets step back a bit from the teachers/student dichotomy that reared its head in that last posting and create a skills list for climbers to voluntarily assess themselves. If you are sure you are capable of all of these, then you should know all of these skills well enough able to teach them (subject to your skill at teaching.)

I'll propose 3 assumptions, and 3 ideas for organization.

----We all want to be safe, progressive climbers, and to pass it along to our students.
----We want to balance personal _style_ with solid justifications for every life-support situation.
----We want to have a general skills list that can be agreed upon rather than a specific knot by knot procedure list that everyone disagrees with.


----And a basic outline to begin with. When adding something, maybe suggest a section letter so they can be assembled into a coherent whole more easily.

a. Tree and ropework basics
a. Ropes
b. Knot families
c. Tree access/line rigging
d. DdRt
e. SRT ascending
f. SRT descending
g. Basic pulley rigs
h. Rescues, backups, belays

----If you disagree on something with someone, try to propose an alternative that encompasses both viewpoints.....
----Lastly, remember that everyone knows something and nobody knows everything. If someone comes up with a great area for you to improve your own skills, lets use that as the inspiration to go and practice it in the backyard!

So, lets generate some material!

Hooray for redpanda!!

I've been thinking about posting something like this for a few weeks and just never got off my duff.

Unfortunately, I can't add to the list right now, but do want to say that I'm sure we can collectively come up with what would amount to a syllabus for recreational climbers.

I would hope that TCI and others would share such information with us. I'm not asking that they give away information that could earn them a living, but the truth is that if someone wants it, they simply would go through the training, take notes and then publish it.

As I suggested in an earlier post, if someone would publish such a syllabus or even a full-blown course, it would be marketable. After all, don't we all have "The Tree Climbers Companion;" and probably "Recreational Tree Climbing;" and maybe "On Rope?"

Seems to me that the first to publish such a thing would earn (a) some bread, and (b) our heartfelt thanks.

There are many components to tree climbng. Each component that Redpanda listed will have many sub components. The subject of tree climbing will be a large conversation with many subject headings that will be separate from each other so the thread will stay true to the topic.

This is no small feat, tree climbing community. You are asking to eat an elephant, with many ramifications that will impact the future of our fledging activity.

This will not be a quick conversation either. I have no idea how long the conversation will take place nor do I know what the end product will look like. Are we up to this as a community?

This topic has been ebbing and flowing for quite some time, and the ones who are doing the majority of the teaching (that I know of) are bringing up at least 150+ first time climbers every month. These are the guys and gals that have put in the 'dirt time' working with the public. It all looks good on paper but it needs to be put into action - logic is not the same as experience.
The reason for this post is to remind ALL of YOU that a majority of us are meeting in Nebraska this Fall, even the instructors from as far away as Japan and Taiwan will be attending this rendezvous and we will be sharing and learning what has been working and what has knot! This way we can make sure that we are all on the same page.
So start making notes come up with an outline and meet us in Nebraska.
Hope 2 c ya there

First off, I'd like to thank Redpanda for starting this outline. I believe, with the help of other individuals, this will be a promising thread to teach and learn.

I have only been in the arboricultural field for around a year now. I moved up the ranks quickly in my company. Started climbing from the first day, to running crews six months later.

The company that I work for has about a dozen employees, three foreman, including myself. I can say proudly that I work for the best company in our area with two of the most qualified arborist around. But, there is only so much that I can learn from them. There is only so much I can learn from rereading "The Tree Climbers Companion" and misc. other books. Now, I have an opportunity to learn new ideas and techniques from others around the world.

The idea of trying to setup a universal guideline is great. Though I work with two other arborist, they each have a completely different way of training and running crews. I have tried to take the best of what they have taught me and what I've read to form a better way of handling job situations. I want to be safe and excel in this field.

What bothers me is the "tone" of treeman's post. It seems to have negative connotations with the desire to help out fellow climbers. I understand that this is your business and you don't want to lose your footing. I don't think that'll happen. I know that I'll be moving to the Atlanta area soon and am planning on taking your courses. Hopefully that doesn't sound hypocritical, but I realize that there is a difference between written and first-hand education.

I wish that I could help Red with his outline, but I am in a constant state of learning at this piont-in-time. I can, however, provide a good, honest opinion of what might be to complicated for a "newbie" to understand.

Well there you go. First down.

While I disagree with all but one of the reasons the scouts have listed, they have brought about a good point: none of us have considered threat assessment as part of our standards discussions. Our uniform standards should include the assessment of structure within the tree as part of training. The tree itself speaks volumes about it's ability to support a climber, evidence of actual strenght has been established by the safety record of those currently partipating, though any arborist will tell you that not every limb will support one's weight. This said most lead climbing rock climbers know that all protection measures are not failproof, hidden conditions always exist, and may cause failure.
All elevated operations involve risk and assume failure is inevitible. The trick is to provide for recognition of the obvious flaws.

As far as backup is considered, I personally climb on two points of contact as long as two points are available

The time is now.

Climb Safe!
Icabod