Discussion: who led the training? migh...

who led the training? might think about getting back into rock-climbing someday, too bad no good outdoor rock in local area. I've done guided top rope climbs, nothing on my own. severe downside to mistakes. :)

Jon @ Vertical Voyages. Excellent knowledgeable instruction that was just the level of info I could handle in one sitting. It was at P.M., an area that opened up about a year ago. I was underimpressed, but it is close to stl, nice scenery, and if just looking for some warmup climbs might just be the ticket. I learned (actually re-learned since I used to do this quite a bit about 10-15 years ago) enough to set up a toprope for others or for solo climbs.

great, yes, I met Jon at a tree climb in the big white oak tree out at . . . oh yeah, this park near Gray Summit. billy had a great time. he seemed very knowledgeable. the uneasy thing about these canopy or tree climbs is that you use this fairly complicated knot to ascend the tree using the rope, and there is no redundancy, like in a top rope where you have three or four anchors, in the tree, there was just this one rope, so it sort of freaked me out. he assured us in x years of climbing, they never had this one knot fail. OK, great, I don't want to be the first! I think it there were too many branches to have a second safety rope.