Climbing

It’s a skills check that must be completed before you use our ropes and auto-belays. Climbing comes with an inherent risk and danger; the belay competency test is one of the ways we try to mitigate this. If you haven’t passed a competency test or don’t have the required experience no worries, as long as you’re under the supervision of an instructor or someone else who has passed, then you can still climb! We ask people to complete belay competency tests at the beginning of their session and on a day in which they’ve received no instruction in order to test you recall.

How do I go about completing a competency test?

You do not need to book a competency test, just turn up and let the member of staff behind the desk you want to do one. They’ll hand you an acceptance of risk form and once that’s completed, they’ll ask you to set up and demonstrate that you can do the following things independently:

• Put on and secure a climbing harness correctly
• Tie into a rope using an appropriate climbing knot
• Set up and use a belay device to safely take in slack
• Safely catch a fall with a belay device
• Safely lower someone to the ground with a belay device

If you’ve successfully passed the Belay Competency Test you can crack on and climb using our ropes and auto belays in line with our conditions and rules of use. You can also supervise/mentor up to two people, meaning their knots, harness, and any belaying they may do is directly monitored by you. They cannot set up or belay while you yourself are not on the ground with them.