Climbing

There are lots of different ways to climb – indoors or outdoors, on a natural rock face or on a man-made structure, ‘bouldering’ at low level or wearing a harness connected to a rope with a ‘belayer’ on the ground to keep you safe. There is something suitable for all sections.

Bouldering

Bouldering (traversing across a wall at low level or climbing to a low height with some type of soft matting) can be ran with no more than a suitable site and a risk assessment. For anything higher, or where the risk assessment says it is necessary, a safety system must be in place consisting of a climbing rope (attached to a suitable anchor point) being controlled by a qualified person known as the ‘belayer’. Of course it can get more complicated than that – there are different types of belaying and auto-belays, but the most common type is top rope belaying. The rope goes from the belayer up to a top anchor point then back down to the climber.

Top Rope / Belaying

Within Scouting a leader wishing to run a top rope belay (or anything more advanced) will need a climbing & abseiling AAP (Adventurous Activities Permit) to be able to run climbing as an activity. You could also take your group to a commercial provider for them to run climbing for you, and if it’s just over 18’s taking part you can run it under the ‘Adult groups’ rule with no permit required.

County Team

We have a great team within the county to support climbing instructors and anyone who wants to become one. If you already have the skills needed to run sessions and a knowledge of the associated Scout Association rules, a couple of assessors just need to see you running a session. If they are happy that you are capable of running sessions on your own they will submit a technical recommendation for a permit. Permits are actually granted by the district’s lead volunteer (or county lead volunteer when appropriate).

If you need to brush up on your skills, or even if you’ve never worn a harness before, the county team will train you and get you to the standard required for an assessment. The skills that you need to hold your own permit are shown on the Climbing Permit Assessment Checklist.

Permit checklist

Climbing Courses & Assessment

At least once per year the county offers a ‘Climbing training/assessment day’. The county assessors will provide whatever you want – basic training (for anyone who has never belayed before), refresher / top- up training (to get you to the standard required to be assessed), assessment, or just general advice / passing on experience. Please note though – it’s not possible to be trained and assessed the same day. There should be some practice / consolidation of learning in between.

If you’d like to arrange training or an assessment, get in touch with the climbing team.

Another way to gain some of the skills is to achieve a National Governing Body award, in this case from Mountain Training. But even this may not cover everything required for a permit assessment, so take a look at that checklist above.

Permits can be renewed without requiring another assessment if you can produce a log showing you taking an active part in sessions while you’ve held the permit. Just send in your log to the climbing team. Don’t worry if you haven’t ran enough sessions – if you’re still confident to run them we just need to see one session run by you the same as a normal assessment.

Please don’t run a belayed climbing session without a permit (or without someone with a supervisory permit present) – you will be suspended if you do.

Climbing activities page
Climbing & abseiling factsheet
Activity helmets factsheet

You can get in touch with the climbing team on the Facebook group or email [email protected]