About Skills Training
Our club was created so its members could be exposed to the wonders of nature and the great outdoors.
Many activities require training before members can participate safely; examples of skilled adventurous activity include but aren’t limited to…
- Abseiling
- Canyoning
- Caving
- Navigation
- Rock Climbing
- Camping
And many more as time goes on…
Most new members don’t have the skills needed to take part in these trips, and that’s ok! OAC has its own skills courses on offer, instructed by endorsed and experienced Trip Leaders*. These skills trips, the equipment required to take part in them, are included in your annual membership fee. Our trip leaders volunteer their time to help get newer members skilled up for future trips.
As a general rule, most of the introductory level courses are posted at the start of term near O’day, and more advanced trips occur later in the year as needed/requested.
Skills Trips Offered
Rock Skills – Intro to Trad Climbing
Rock Skills – Intro to Multipitch
Recognition of Existing Skills
Some members come to the club with existing experience and skills in their discipline. For those people, it may not be necessary to complete the courses offered by OAC. For those who have existing skills, you are able to contact safety@utsoac.org.au and request recognition of you existing skills. In some cases, you may be asked to provide evidence of your skills to a current trip leader before we sign you off in our system. For those who have done training through an external commercial provider, if a transcript of activities performed is emailed through, we can use this instead of a skills demonstration.
Abseil Skills 1
Abseil Skills 1 is intended for people who have never been abseiling before, or have not abseiled in a long time. The course will tend to run for half a day and covers the following key outcomes:
- Demonstrate safety around cliff edges.
- Demonstrate safety at bottom of cliff.
- Uses ABCDE when preparing to abseil.
- Abseil on single and double rope using abseil devices.
- Abseil on vertical wall.
- Abseil past overhang.
- Perform a fireman’s belay.
- Butterfly coil a rope.
- Use appropriate communication when abseiling.
Abseil Skills 2
Abseil Skills 2 is intended for people who are comfortable abseiling, and are looking to expand their knowledge to building anchor systems and learn basic self-rescue techniques. The course will tend to run for a full day and covers the following key outcomes:
- Extended rappel (3rd hand on belay loop).
- Ascending a rope using prusiks.
- Assess and replace established anchors.
- Use appropriate techniques to establish an anchor.
- Joining ropes using appropriate knots.
- Transition between ascent and descent while abseiling.
- Locking off device using appropriate methods.
- Set abseil lines using single-rope technique.
Rock Skills 1
Rock Skills 1 is intended for people who have never been rock climbing before, or have not climbed in a long time. The course will tend to run for half a day and covers the following key outcomes:
- Demonstrate safety around cliff edges.
- Demonstrate safety at bottom of cliff.
- Perform appropriate checks of belayer.
- Perform appropriate checks of climber.
- Uses communication between climber and belayer.
- Perform a belay.
- Perform basic rock climbs.
- Butterfly coil a rope.
Rock Skills 2
Rock Skills 2 is intended for people who are comfortable climbing top-rope pitches, and are looking to expand their knowledge to building anchor systems and learn basic self-rescue techniques. The course will tend to run for a full day and covers the following key outcomes:
- Maintain safety using a safety line.
- Evaluate fixed protection.
- Setup a basic sports anchor.
- Understand the principle of a sports anchor (SERENE).
- Perform anchor safety checks.
- Setup a top-rope using an anchor.
- Clean an anchor.
Rock Skills 3 (Intro to Lead)
We’re working on distilling the key outcomes for this course right now
Intro to Trad Climbing
We’re working on distilling the key outcomes for this course right now
Intro to Multi-pitch Climbing
We’re working on distilling the key outcomes for this course right now
Perform Vertical Rescue
Perform Vertical Rescue covers core skills in providing assistance to others in rescue situations. People who take this course tend to be highly experienced with various rope techniques and are looking to develop additional technical skills and are progressing towards Trip Leadership within the club for certain types of trips. The course will tend to run for a full day and covers the following key outcomes:
- Participate in two rescue scenarios of conscious personsÂ
- Convert anchor to a hauling system.
- Convert anchor to a lowering system.
- Change a hauling system to a lowering system.
- Change a lowering system to a hauling system.
- Bypass a knot in a lowering and/or hauling system.
- Maintain communication with your team and rescuee.
- Ascend and descend past a knot.
- Change between rope systems while descending or ascending.
Other Skills
In addition, there are sometimes one-off workshops when leaders get the inspiration to try something new. These can be camp cooking, snorkelling, mushroom foraging, rogaining, fishing… sky’s the limit.
*Contact the current Safety Officer (safety@utsoac.org.au) if you’re curious about the process of becoming one of our volunteer Trip Leaders.
