Stanford Alpine Club Review of PCGI RESCUE COURSE:
From: Chris Chan and Dave Johnson
Co-Presidents - Stanford Alpine Club
3165 Maddux Dr.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Subject: Professional Climbing Guide Institute - Rescue Course
Date: May 8, 2009
As co-presidents of the Stanford Alpine Club (SAC), Dave Johnson and I asked Zeke Federman (PCGI Approved Mentor and Assessor and Director of the Sierra Rock Climbing School) to run a PCGI Rescue Course for six of our instructors this past April, in order to broaden the knowledge base of our instructors and improve the safety of our classes. Zeke Federman worked with SAC to help us choose the PCGI course that best fit our needs, and he personally instructed the course. Throughout our entire interaction, Zeke demonstrated the highest standard of professionalism and efficiency.
SAC teaches a variety of courses to introduce Stanford students to technical rock climbing. In order to maintain a safe teaching environment, SAC periodically has its instructors trained professionally. Since SAC is not a typical guide service, we wanted a class that specifically fit our instructors needs. Zeke carefully considered the background and objectives of our instructors, and offered the PCGI Rescue Course, which met our requirements. All expectations for the course were laid out clearly, in terms of both the technical material and also the level of competency our instructors would attain upon completion of the course.
Zeke has an extensive climbing background, and his technical knowledge was very apparent throughout the course. He ably fielded all of our questions, and supported his answers with concrete examples from the results of recent research. Throughout the course, Zeke would describe the context of the material, which helped us anticipate the situations in our own instructional trips where we might utilize the techniques being taught. He has also demonstrated his personal investment in rock climbing safety through his own experiments and his work at the testing facilities at Yates Gear.
Zeke takes safety very seriously and he encourages an open dialogue and an honest assessment of all climbing practices. Where certain questions have still not been resolved through his own testing or the guiding community, Zeke clearly communicated the ambiguity, followed by his recommendation for safe practices. He was open to hearing our ideas and thought carefully about the strengths and weaknesses of our technical suggestions, describing these to us while sharing his overall opinion.
Zeke is a patient and thorough teacher. When we made mistakes during our hands-on practice, he corrected us patiently and in good humor. He always acknowledged the gravity of climbing rescues and provided example scenarios to better prepare our instructors for real-world situations. His desire for us to assimilate the best information possible came through when he spent extra time with us resolving our questions about hauling systems, and reviewing his knowledge to assess whether he was conveying the correct information.
Zeke is not only knowledgeable, communicative and entertaining, he is also extremely committed to excellent instruction and safety, to the improvement of climbers’ technical competence and self awareness, and to the progress of knowledge in the wider climbing community. Our instructors benefited immensely from our interaction with Zeke, Sierra Rock Climbing School and PCGI. We would not hesitate to recommend them to other aspiring climbers, teachers and guides.
Sincerely,
Chris Chan and Dave Johnson
Co-Presidents
Stanford Alpine Club
SAC Web Site: http://alpineclub.stanford.edu/
Related Links: PCGI - ClimbingGuidesInstitute.org
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)