Melbourne Climbing School has courses designed to teach safety skills to all levels, from absolute beginner to advanced rescue skills. Check them out below.

(2 days. No prior experience necessary)

Top Rope Anchors and Abseiling

Top-rope rock climbing, in simple terms, is a system in which a climbing rope runs from a person (called a belayer) stationed at the bottom of a cliff face, up through an anchor system set at the top of the cliff, and back down to the climber. It is the absolute simplest way for beginners to experience rock climbing in the outdoors, and requires a minimum of equipment. If you have ever been to an indoor-rock climbing wall, it is likely you were taught the basic techniques that climbers use when top-roping (like belaying and tying a figure-8 knot), however in that indoor situation you will have found the rope already in place at the top of their artificial wall.

The aim of this course is to provide a comprehensive set of skills that you can use to set up your own top-rope climbs in the outdoors.  These skills include:

  • Anchors. You need the ability to set safe anchors at the top of the cliff, capable of holding a fall.
  • Abseiling. To get down safely, you can either walk (which is how you got up there) or you can abseil. We will learn the latter… with a prusik backup.
  • Belaying and Lowering. You need to know how to safely belay a climber as they ascend the cliff (it’s not just as simple as holding the rope), and you need to know how to safely lower them to the ground after they have finished climbing.
  • Rope Management. As well as tying a Figure-8 for the climber and threading the belay device to belay with, you need to know how to manage the excess rope on the ground and how to care for the rope
  • Safety. You need to know how to create a safe climbing environment by recognising and mitigating the dangers of climbing, by wearing a helmet, using redundant anchors and ensuring your own safety by securing yourself while you build and dismantle the anchors.

On this course you will learn to:

  • Identify established rock-climbing areas suitable for top-rope climbing, as well as areas that are not suitable.
  • Secure yourself at the top of a cliff while building an anchor.
  • Build effective top-rope climbing EARNEST anchors.
  • Abseil safely with a prusik backup.
  • Return at the end of your session without leaving any of your gear behind.
  • Inspect fixed climbing hardware and anchors before you use them.
  • Recognise the most common top-rope climbing mistakes and easy methods to mitigate them.
  • Make intelligent decisions in the outdoors.

All climbing safety equipment is supplied 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 *
  • Harness
  • Locking biner(s)
  • Belay device

* 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.

Melbourne Climbing School can rent shoes to participants on these courses – regardless please bring closed footwear such as tennis shoes as they are fine for learning in.

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!).

The price is $460 per person.

Top-Rope Anchors and Abseiling course Poster

Top Rope Anchors and Abseiling

$480.00 inc. GST

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Don’t see the course you want coming up? If you would like one, please email info@melbourneclimbingschool.com.au or simply call Aaron on 0424 383 831 to book a new date for a skills course.

Course Title

(One day. Need to know how to “lead” climb indoors)

Sport Climbing (Indoor to Outdoor) conversion course

The aim of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction to climbing “Sport” routes in the outdoors, tailored specifically to Melbourne’s rapidly growing indoor climbing community.

For those of you who don’t know – Sport climbing means that there are permanent bolts/hardware in the rock, which has the advantage that a minimum of gear is required to safely climb on them (you don’t need to buy as much gear to start climbing in the outdoors, yay!). Since the fixed hardware is specially designed for this purpose, the techniques to learn are much simpler than traditional – “trad” – climbing, and can be comprehensively covered in just one day.

On this course you will learn to:

  • Apply indoor lead-belay and lead-climbing techniques to outdoor rock
  • Return at the end of your session without leaving any of your equipment behind
  • Inspect fixed sport climbing hardware and anchors before you use them
  • Recognise the most common sport climbing mistakes and easy methods to mitigate them
  • Make intelligent decisions in the outdoors.

BONUS – as part of this course you will learn about the humble prusik loop – a very simple, extremely useful piece of climbing equipment that not many sport climbers carry or even own. You will learn just how useful it can be in all sorts of situations, and as a special thank-you for signing up to this course – we’ll give you one to keep!

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

Duration: The session will take approximately 6 hours of learning time.

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

Session Goal: The goal of the session is to first introduce environmental concerns when climbing in the outdoors and how to mitigate these. Every participant will then climb three outdoor sport climbs, each practicing a different skill set. The climbs, in order, are:

  1. a practice run using skills used in regular indoor lead-climbing.
  2. a basic lead-climb utilising methods they learned during the indoor session,
  3. safely bailing from a sport route, without leaving a leaver-biner behind – and when it is appropriate to do this.

Finally, if time allows, participants will learn some additional skills, including belaying from the top of a route (and safely lowering a partner), how to how to prusik up a rope, e.g. to regain a roof after falling off, and how to clip a bolt that is out of reach.

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-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!).

The course price is $230 per person.

Sport Climbing 1-day course poster

Sport Climbing (Indoor to Outdoor)

$240.00 inc. GST

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Don’t see the course you want coming up? If you would like one, please email info@melbourneclimbingschool.com.au or simply call Aaron on 0424 383 831 to book a new date for a skills course.

Single Pitch Trad Climbing

(2-days. Need to know how to “lead” climb indoors)

Single Pitch Trad Climbing Course

In sport climbing areas the rock has been pre-prepared with fixed metal bolts and rings drilled and glued in place permanently. But in trad climbing areas there are no such permanent placements – instead the rock usually has natural features – cracks, holes, gaps and protrusions – that not only serve as hand and/or foot-holds, but can serve as handy places to put temporary protection such as cams, nuts, hexes and slings. This is the essence of trad climbing – placing temporary hardware on your way up the rock, that you can clip the rope to to stay attached and safe.

Trad climbing can seem like a scary concept to most people, and learning to place the gear well is an art – but with the right mentor and adequate practice you will not find that it is not nearly as daunting as it appears. Additionally the rope skills needed to effectively manage the session are much more complicated than in sport climbing, but again a structured course will teach you this. Once those two small hurdles are overcome, you will discover an all new amazing and incredibly rewarding aspect of climbing that you never knew existed!

On this course you will learn to:

  • Adjust belay habits to suit traditional rock climbing
  • Prepare your gear prior to leaving the ground ready for safe, efficient climbing
  • Identify the best type of gear for a particular rock feature
  • Build multi-point EARNEST anchor systems using trad gear and your rope
  • Return at the end of your session without leaving any of your equipment behind
  • Recognise the most common trad climbing mistakes and easy methods to mitigate them

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: 2 days

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!).

The price is $460 per person.

Single Pitch Trad Climbing poster

Single Pitch Trad

$520.00 inc. GST

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SKU: spt Category:

Don’t see the course you want coming up? If you would like one, please email info@melbourneclimbingschool.com.au or simply call Aaron on 0424 383 831 to book a new date for a skills course.

Multi Pitch Trad Climbing

(2-day course is for people who know how to single-pitch trad climb already . A 6-day course has no prior knowledge requirements, but it will be helpful if you have top-rope climbed indoors before.)

Multi-Pitch Trad Climbing Course

Do you hunger for thrilling exposure? Do you want to really challenge your control over your fear of heights? How about the amazing views that most people simply will never see?

Taking your single-pitch trad-climbing skills on longer, multi-pitch routes can seem like an even scarier prospect than trad climbing was in the previous course, but again once you have covered the techniques you will find it not nearly as scary and will discover an even more amazing aspect of the vertical world you already love.

Among the skills covered in this course are:

  • Planning your day before you start, preparing for any eventuality
  • The importance of clear, concise communication on multi-pitch routes
  • Additional types of anchor systems
  • Additional belay techniques
  • Smooth transitioning from top-belay to lead-belay while on the wall
  • The importance of staying vigilant even after arriving at the top
  • Preparing equipment for a walking descent, or –
  • Using two ropes for very-long abseils

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: 2 days for participants who have Single-Pitch trad skills already, or 4-days for those with lead-or sport-climbing skills only, or 6 days for top-rope climbers or those who have never climbed before.

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!).

The price is $460 per person.

Multi Pitch Trad Course Poster

Multi Pitch Trad

$480.00 – $960.00 inc. GST

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SKU: mpt Category:

Don’t see the course you want coming up? If you would like one, please email info@melbourneclimbingschool.com.au or simply call Aaron on 0424 383 831 to book a new date for a skills course.

Essential Rescue Skills

(2 days. Need to have minimum Top-roping or Sport Climbing skills already, not necessarily through MCS)

Essential Rescue Skills Course

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!

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

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!).

The price is $460 per person.

Essential Self-Rescue Skills Poster

Essential Self-Rescue Skills

$480.00 inc. GST

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Don’t see the course you want coming up? If you would like one, please email info@melbourneclimbingschool.com.au or simply call Aaron on 0424 383 831 to book a new date for a skills course.

Advanced Rescue Skills

(2 days. Need to know the Essential Rescue Skills first)

Advanced Rescue Skills Course

Do you enjoy getting way out of your comfort zone? Have you covered all of the essential rescue skills already? Do you find yourself in situations where you think “I really don’t want to have an epic here”? This advanced course expands on the essential skills covered already, tackling some more advanced topics that will hopefully be seldom used, but are carefully designed to get you safely out of some of the most complicated situations. We will take turns acting as the “casualty” and the rescuer, inventing and responding to some really far-out situations competently and efficiently.

Among the skills you will learn are:

  • Assisted Abseils (getting an unconscious person to the ground)
  • Lowering past a knot (getting a conscious casualty to the ground from a multi-pitch climb)
  • Z-drags without an auto-block belay device
  • Rescuing an unconscious person from a lead climb

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!).

The price is $460 per person. This course is booked on demand – please contact me to organise a time. Note minimum numbers apply (generally two participants are needed)

Advanced Rescue Skills Course Poster A

Advanced Rescue Skills

$480.00 inc. GST

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