Top Rope Climbing Instructor

For detailed information including the equipment list, course outlines, pre-study, prerequisites, and how to sign up, please go here.

The TRCI course was created to address the needs of guides, instructors and organizations who offer, or hope to offer, climbing in a top roping environment. Though the course deals in part with foundation level instructing and guiding skills this should not be viewed as a basic course. It is important for those thinking about taking a TRCI to consider this fact as you will be asked to come to the course meeting certain prerequisite skills (more on these below) and you may be asked to demonstrate these skills at the beginning of the course.

On the other hand, you do not need to be an instructor to benefit from the course. We often have "civilians" - people who just want to be better climbers and who have no interest in working in the field - take and enjoy the course.

Our Toprope Site Mangers Courses are taught by Todd Vogel and Alan Jolley. Alan also maintains his own website at coloradomountainguides.com.

Getting over the edge safely: Instructor rapping off a cordellete, transitioning to a master point sling-shot top rope rappel. Of course there's a third hand back up tool already on the rope.

What to ask of a TRSM Instructor: Alan and Todd both have been involved with the program since its beginning in 1998 and have taught over 150 TRSM courses between them. Before you choose a course we urge you to consider far more than dates, price, and location. To help ensure you receive the highest quality instruction on your course we offer the following criteria as a general guideline for choosing among the instructors:

-Do they have a background in experiential and outdoor education, not just rock climbing guiding?
-How long have they been involved with the top rope site manager course program and how many Top Rope Instructor courses have they taught?
-Have the instructors been active in developing the TR curriculum?
-Have the instructors been active in discovering and developing standards for top rope climbing?
-What sort of course materials are provided?
-Are adjunct course materials available via the internet from the course provider?
-Consider the terrain where the course is offered. More challenging terrain means more learning for you. Proximity to suitable terrain means less time spent driving and more time spent learning.
-Price: as with most things, in the TR course you get what you pay for.
-Dates: our course is available for custom dates, at group rates, if you have a group of four or more people.

If you apply the above criteria to our top rope instructor programs we think you will agree we are well able to claim one of the best TR courses around.

Our backgrounds: Todd and Alan both have hundreds if not thousands of days working top rope based programs in institutional, organizational development, and experiential education settings, as well as hundreds of days simply teaching top roped based rock and ice climbing. Todd and Alan have both been involved with the program since it's inception (1998) and together as of this writing (spring 2005) have taught more than 80 TRSM programs between them. The two represent two of the five members (currently) of the AMGA's TRSM Advisory Committee, helping create and modify the TRSM curriculum. Todd is a past member of the AMGA board of directors and Alan is a current member of the board of directors as well as part of the AMGA rock discipline examiner and instructor pool. Todd is one of three TRSM instructors who train and evaluate new providers of the TRSM program.

Alan and Todd have both been active in technical issues surrounding top rope climbing. For example, recently they both took a field trip to the Blue Water Rope factory near Atlanta, Georgia to spend several days testing anchoring knots in various materials in search of data-based answers to many of the questions around knot and anchor strength needs and values in the top roping environment. Their data from this trip has been incorporated into the course manual provided with our course. This Video (4.0mb, quicktime) showing how ropes are made is one of the things we brought back from our experience there.

Course Structure:

The course is taught in three "modules". The first module is the "Top Rope Climbing Instructor - base manager, this is a three day session. The second module adds skills for managing sites from the top such as ocean cliffs and is the Top Rope Climbing Instructor - top manager, a one day module. The third module is the exam. You will see these module offered in various configurations, that is the idea of the module approach. I offer these three in Joshua Tree in the order stated above in a one-course format and, in the Eastern Sierra, the three may be taken indepentdently.

This course follows the curriculumn of the Professional Climbing Instructor's Association (PCIA) and students will need to become members of the PCIA prior to taking the course. Much more information on the PCIA can be found here.

Base Managed Climbing Instructor Module^tm:

-If the first module is completed but no further modules are taken or completed the student is considered an Assistant Base Managed Climbing Instructor^tm. This phase of the course covers anchoring skills, knots to know an teach, belay methods, site managment, LNT for climbing instructors and much more.

-If the first module is completed and the exam taken and passed the student is a PCIA - Certified Base Managed Climbing Instuctor^tm.

Top Managed Climbing Instructor^tm:

-If the first and second (bottom and top managed) modules are taken, and the exam taken and passed the student is a PCIA Certified Top Rope Climbing Instructor^tm. The top managed module includes skills for lowering participants from the top of a cliff, hauling systems, and group managment at a top managed site.

The vast majority of top roping in the US ocurrs at Bottom Managed sites so most students will be interested in the Base managed certification.

All site content is copyright 2007 Outdoor Link, llc. All photos at this site are by Todd Vogel unless otherwise credited. Contact us at 2635 Highland Drive, Bishop, CA 93514 or tel 760-920-0774, fax 760-873-4800. E-mail us at info-at-outdoorlink.org. Of course you need to substitute the @ symbol. We operate under permit from the following agencies: Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park, Tahoe National Forest; Outdoor Link, llc member Todd Vogel is also a member of Sierra Mountain Center, llc and through SMC we have commercial access to Toiyabe National Forest, Inyo National Forest and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Outdoor Link, llc prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, marital status, religion, sexual orientation, or political beliefs.

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