One of the first things veteran guide and senior instructor Paul Haraf made clear during the class is that there are infinite situations that might require some level of self-rescue, from spraining your ankle and not being able to complete a climb to a belayer being knocked unconscious from a falling rock. While there are numerous ways to haul and lower, we’ve outlined simple and efficient methods that are versatile for a number of situations and easy to learn by beginners and longtime climbers alike. The class emphasized two skills-hauling and lowering-as the most important techniques to learn when first delving into self-rescue. In an effort to expand and improve upon my own knowledge of self-rescue, I attended an Advanced Rock Rescue course offered by the REI Outdoor School. Unfortunately, since learning and practicing these skills takes time away from actual climbing, very few climbers educate themselves about these essential self-rescue skills, and even fewer climbers regularly practice them. There’s an understood credo in climbing that every climbing team is responsible for their own safety, and knowing how to escape from a bad situation, whether it’s injury, weather, or rockfall, should be in every climber’s bag of tricks.
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