Canyon Rescue

Nobody needs rescue skills to enjoy exploring canyons … until the day something goes wrong and you wish you had those skills.

Unlock the power of preparedness by mastering specialized canyon rescue skills BEFORE you need them. From this workshop you will gain the confidence and ability to respond swiftly and decisively in challenging emergency situations to ensure the safety of yourself and your companions. Giving you peace of mind so you can focus on having fun.

This intensive hands-on experience is designed to empower you with the knowledge and practice needed to handle rescue situations with minimal gear. Be prepared for a physically demanding experience as you spend your time honing your skills on the ropes.

To ensure a personalized and impactful learning experience, we maintain small class sizes that allow for detailed feedback, individual support, and ample opportunity to refine your skills.

What you will learn:

• Risk assessment and the rescue hierarchy
• Pre-rigging for rescue
• Anchor considerations for rescue
• Rescue loads on marginal and human anchors
• Simple, compound and complex mechanical advantage
• Improvised PCDs
• Converting static rigging to lower or haul
• Passing a knot while rappelling or ascending
• Passing a knot while lowering or hauling
• Tandem rappels and lowers
• Pick-offs and assisted rappels
• Diminishing loop counter balance
• Assisted diminishing loop counter balance
• Skate blocks
• Track line lowers and hauls

This workshop is ideal for …

• Recreational canyoneers, canyon leaders and professional canyon guides.
• Individuals from various other rope disciplines, including climbing and caving.
• Backcountry rangers, search and rescue teams, and fire and rescue personnel.

Your instructor …

Rich Carlson, is known to many as “the father of technical canyoneering”, with more than 35 years guiding, teaching and training other guides and instructors. Rich was also the founder of the American Canyoneering Association and Canyon Guides International, and the designer of the Rock Exotica Totem and the Bluewater VT Prusik.

Why learn from Rich Carlson?

If you are looking for someone to teach you just a few quick techniques that you can memorize, with hopes they will keep you safe and get you through every problem you encounter, some of the less experienced instructors can provide that for you.

But …

• if you want your mind to be stretched to gain an understanding of the underlying principles involved in safe and efficient anchor, rigging and rescue systems
• if you want to learn a critical thinking approach to problem-solving that will enable you to assess each situation and adjust your response accordingly
• if you want to acquire improv skills to utilize the simple gear you have at hand, rather than relying solely on the latest hardware and technology
• if your goal is to become not only “trained”, but truly competent and self-reliant

… then this workshop is what you have been looking for.

Experience cutting-edge technical training designed to empower you with improvisational skills using ultralight, multi-purpose gear.

Gear that each student must provide:

• harness
• helmet
• leather gloves (well fitting)
• one 7mm Bluewater VT Prusik
• 20-feet one inch tubular webbing
• one 7mm or 8mm quick link
• one locking HMS carabiner

Yes, it is a short gear list. But it is enough to rappel, ascend, perform transitions, create a progress capture device for a haul system, build retrievable anchors and much more. The emphasis in this workshop is on resolving problems efficiently with the minimal gear listed above – along with the gear included in the A-TRR (Adaptable Totem Response Rack), which will be provided for your use during the workshop.