The Climbing Company

Essential Self-Rescue Skills

This is a two-day course covering tips, tricks and practising rescue scenarios that anyone could come across in the outdoors. These essential skills you should know to become a safe outdoor climber, and the tool-box of skills you can draw from to enhance your everyday climbing experience will be valuable as well!

Basic Rescue Skills all climbers should know

Would you know what to do if something out-of-the-ordinary happened while you and a partner were out rock climbing? Are you sure? This course lays the foundations for self rescue in some of the most common situations rock climbers find themselves in. A full 2-day course will give you a set of skills you can use regularly – not just in the odd “emergency” situation, but often to make your normal climbing day a little more comfortable as well. Make no mistake – all outdoor climbers of all levels should know and have spent dedicated time practicing these skills.
I am often told that the “Essential Rescue” weekend is among the most fun and informative weekends that many of my participants have done. I hope you will agree!

Next Course Date

Essential Self-Rescue Skills
4 spots left

$520.00
Sat, 15 Nov, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm / Sun, 16 Nov, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Geboor/Camel's Hump, Mt Macedon
Book Now


Whack your details here and we’ll coordinate together to choose dates that suit you.

What will we learn?

On this course you will learn:

  • Tying off a belay device
  • Escaping the belay to attend to an emergency situation
  • Z-drags and assisted hoists
  • Additional prusik knots and their uses
  • Prusiking up, and prusiking past a knot
  • Abseiling down, and abseiling past a knot
  • Retrievable single rope abseil
  • Lowering a partner past a knot (i.e. lowering a partner more than the rope length)
  • Various ways to belay if you don’t have a belay device

Prerequisites

The participants start this session with knowledge of indoor “lead” climbing, and will have a lead-pass from any indoor climbing gym.

Location

This course is held on an outdoor location on real trad climbing routes. The area we climb at and the grade of the routes will be tailored to the group participant’s skill levels.

Duration

12 hours contact time split over two sessions.

What do we need to own/bring?

The only piece of equipment you need to own before this course is a standard climbing harness suitable for lead-climbing indoors. All other climbing safety equipment is provided by Melbourne Climbing School, however if you own any of the following equipment please bring it along with you – learning with your own equipment is far better and will provide a great start to your outdoor climbing experience!

  • Helmet *
  • One locking biner suitable for belaying
  • One belay device
  • If you own a chalk bag, rope, quickdraws, slings and any other sport- or trad-climbing equipment please let us know prior to the course, and we can plan to teach you using your own gear instead.
    * Helmets are worn on all outdoor Melbourne Climbing School courses – but as with all of the other climbing safety equipment, we have these if you don’t own one, and we will not charge any extra for their use on the course.
    Closed footwear such as tennis shoes are fine for learning on if you do not own climbing shoes.
    Non-climbing gear: You will need to bring suitable clothing and footwear for light hiking, and your own lunch and water for the day (and a camera!).
  • Essential Self-Rescue Skills
Essential Self-Rescue Skills - Image 1
5 Over 59 Reviews
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Cameron Scates 3 months ago
Had Aaron teach me and three others over two days. Very informative and answers any questions you have with climbing with confidence. Over all great person and teacher
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duncan wakes-miller 1 month ago
Great course location and instructors. Really helpful in preparation for my trip to the Himalayas
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Mike Wilson 1 month ago
As an unskilled an inexperienced alpine trekker, I was looking for course to give the me basic knowledge I needed, ideally in a fun and safe environment – and got that and more. Pauli was a highly experienced, very passionate, safety conscious guide with a great energy and sense of humour. He and Hamid adjusted plans and arranged course content specific to our needs … and then patiently helped a bunch of beginners go from confusion, to some understanding, and then to enjoyment.

Thanks for a great weekend. Highly recommended.
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Junge Zhang 1 month ago
Amazing trad course taught by Aaron himself and it couldn’t have been better👍.
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Martin Aylward 1 month ago
Huge shout out to Hamid and Pauly I have just completed both alpine 1 and alpine 2 courses and they were sick, I learnt heaps from basic walking techniques to complex rope systems with crevasse rescue to self arrests I would highly recommend these courses I went in as a complete beginner and now I can’t wait to get back out there despite getting absolutely drenched today I still had the best time these guys know there stuff and are great at teaching it. Yew cheers guys
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A 1 month ago
Excellent course and very enjoyable delivery. Thank you for a brilliant weekend – perfect preparation for our upcoming Himalayan trip
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Alejandro Gaete 2 months ago
I would say that Hamid is an excellent teacher and a very professional one. Hamid was always there to reassure and mentor me even though I had no prior experience. Hamid was always kind and willing to assist me, even though I probably needed more help than anyone else. The course was great , there was structure and safe rails that enable us to test our confidence. Thank you Hamid. I anticipate returning for Alpine 2 next year, in the meantime I will put the lessons into practice.
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Ben M 2 months ago
Couldn’t be more full of praise for this course. Hamid was a fantastic instructor, very safe, managed to keep a broad age group of participants ranging from 12-50+ happy and at levels that suited each individual’s skills. We finished with a solid understanding of basic alpine skills, which sets a platform for future adventures. We will definitely be coming back for other courses run by The Climbing Company. Highly recommended.
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upcoming sessions:

November 2025

Essential Self-Rescue Skills
4 spots left

$520.00
Sat, 15 Nov, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm / Sun, 16 Nov, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Geboor/Camel's Hump, Mt Macedon
Book Now

December 2025

Essential Self-Rescue Skills
4 spots left

$520.00
Wed, 10 Dec, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm / Thu, 11 Dec, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Geboor/Camel's Hump, Mt Macedon
Book Now

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