Plas y Brenin Mountain Leader Training (II)
27th June 2008
Another day on the Mountain Leader training course at Plas y Brenin, the objective today was to try some ropework in the context of the Mountain Leader role. This is a bit odd for climbers and mountaineers though, you’re always inclined to use more kit like a few slings or carabiners and not having a harness feels wrong. The context for Mountain Leader though is basically just using a rope. The trainers suggest using 9mm or greater for this, personally I either use a real rope (Mammut Serenity 8.9mm super dry) or a Beal randonnée which is only 8mm. The Beal is certainly more difficult to handle but at 37g/m it’s a great weight to carry, the Serenity is a full on climbing rope and rated for single rope alpine use and at 52g/m is a reasonable weight to carry.
Anyway, we had a good day in some reasonable weather and learnt a few things. I’ve read how to do a “south African” abseil but never tried it and it works just great, it’s certainly more effective than the classic abseil I’d default to. On the other hand, they make a lot of use of overhand knots which I don’t think will displace 25 years of bowlines and figure of eight knots for me!
