San Juan Pickoff: a lowering based pickoff with a self-managed belay Approaching a station on a multi-pitch lower Vertical litter orientation is commonly utilized for patient safety on waterfall ice terrain The Attendant adjusts to the foot end of the litter for steep ice   The 58th [...]

This past weekend, a multi-agency SAR training exercise convened on the classic SW Colorado multi-pitch ice climb, Stairway to Heaven.  The scenario was designed as a pre-plan training for what would be a very challenging access/egress of an injured ice climber high on the route. A small hasty team of five climbers led and followed [...]

The early season ice climbing in the San Juan's continues to deliver in spades!  What a start to our winter. Frank and I visited an old stomping ground of mine and found just about perfect climbing conditions in a remote setting. My absolute favorite type of adventuring.  One of the consistent conundrums of early season [...]

Winter has arrived early in our home base of Ouray, Colorado. The Ouray Ice Park Ice Farmers turned on the water system during the first week of November. The temps have been very favorable for ice-making. We had an overnight low of 6 degrees on Monday. These images were taken just a couple of days [...]

Rigging for Rescue is preparing for another great year in 2019! Our program calendar is now live on the Programs section of our website with open registration. Some notable changes to our lineup include a number of moniker adjustments. A few of the changes that can be seen are to our the Rope Rescue I - Fundamentals and the previous Specialty [...]

Rigging for Rescue instructors Dave Shuman and Philippe Wheelock recently returned from a month in Nepal, having volunteered their time to instruct the advanced rope rescue course for the Khumbu Climbing Center (KCC) in the village of Phortse.  Phortse is in the heart of the Khumbu region of Nepal and is home to many Sherpa [...]

This past week we have been instructing a Rigging for Rescue Waterfall Ice Climbing & Rescue Workshop for a SAR Tech Squadron in Quebec, Canada. The SAR Techs have a similar mission profile to a USAF Pararescueman; rescue response is their primary job responsibility. RfR instructor Kevin Koprek had a great week training on the amazing [...]

Basic principles of rope rescue follow the LAST components of Locate, Access, Stabilize, and Transport. Waterfall Ice is no different on the big picture sequence of events; but the techniques, strategies, and terrain challenges certainly exceed your typical technical rescue call-out. The path of least resistance for patient access high on a multi-pitch waterfall ice [...]

This past week we had the distinct honor of being tapped to train some of our country's finest in ice climbing and rescue in the waterfall ice environment.  The 19th and 10th SFG units have proud histories in mountaineering, skiing, and general mountain travel. We had a terrific week sampling some of the fine terrain [...]