Take Rope Training To The Next Level

If you’re ready for a rope training upgrade, there are a few different avenues that will challenge your skillset and expand your operational range.

Here’s a deeper dive into each option for taking your rope training to the next level.

Technical Rope Rescue Specialist

Technical Rope Rescue Specialist training is for rope technicians that are ready to hone in on the complexities of rigging.  This specialized workshop focuses on highlines, monopods and A-frames, and the physics behind these advanced techniques.

What’s the practical value of diving this deep into complex rigging?

“The specialist course goes beyond just recalling how to build a sysem. It helps students understand the why behind the system,” says Raven Program Director, Ron Morrison.

Here are a few other highlights:

• Unconventional tripod use. For folks that have already taken Reed Thorne’s AHD courses, Technical Rope Rescue Specialist training will introduce different and complimentary tripod skills.
• Team leadership roles.  The specialist course will equip technicians with the ability to articulate why systems are rigged the way they are, and why unconventional rigging can still be safe.
• Physics! It’s time to prove the math. “When we say, ‘if you do a deflection system at 120 degrees you’ll be putting the same force on both anchor points’, we’ll use physics principles to prove what we’re saying,” describes Ron. “Being able to apply physics principles to the problem allows us to prove the numbers.”

Think this is the rope training upgrade for you?

An ideal candidate is someone who has mastery of both operator and technician skills, and who wants to solve more complex and uncommon rope rescue problems using equipment in appropriate, but uncommon, ways.  If you take a lead role in training for your department, and your department has a high level of variability in its response zone, book your specialist course today.

Swiftwater Rescue Technician Advanced – Water + Rope

Swiftwater Rescue Technician Advanced training comes in two forms; water, and water + rope.  

The key difference between these two forms of advanced swiftwater training is canyon topography.  For callout zones that include rivers in canyon topography, Swiftwater Rescue Technician Advanced Water + Rope delivers the skills technicians need to safely access patients.

First of all, the environment takes some getting used to.  Rope skills that felt straightforward in a high angle environment can feel more daunting when applied above class III+ water.  And moving boats across highlines, or lowering a rescuer into the water, require a level of comfort with moving water that obviuosly isn’t tested during a high angle rope course.

“Another thing we sort out is the PPE,” shares Raven instructor Craig Gerrard.  “Working in a rope environment with water PPE is new for most rope technicians.”

Finally, while rope technicians come into an Advanced Water & Rope course with all the technical building blocks they need, the application of those tools in a water environment requires a hybrid approach. Rope technicians are used to double rope systems with hard point attachments. Water technicians need systems that are releasable.  How do you build that rope system?? The intersection of these two demands is what a Swiftwater Rescue Technician Advanced Water + Rope course is all about.

Tactical Rappel Operator and Master

Tactical rappel training is a unique application of rope skills within the context of an existing high angle rope program.  Teams with HRT (hostage rescue technique) capabilities can use tactical rappel training to increase their scope of HRT response strategies.  EFE (explosive forced entry) and Non-EFE versions of tactical rappel operator training are available, depending on the capabilities of the HRT team.

Tactical Rappel Operator courses are taught by two tactical rope instructors.  Students will learn the safe use of high angle personal protective equipment, as well as how to operate and manage personal tactical equipment in high angle environments.

Responsible for establishing high angle safety systems for tactical operations and training? You’ll need to consider a rope training upgrade beyond operator level training, with Tactical Rappel Master.

Master level training is delivered by one tactical rope insturctor, and one technical rope insturctor.  “At the master level, there is more focus on rescuing out of rope systems,” explains Ron. This focus makes the combined expertise of technical and tactical rope instructors critical for effective delivery.

In both operator and master level courses, the instruction of tactical rope instructors introduces the delivery of rope training on a single rope, a significant depature from traditional technical rope rescue methodologies.