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Guiding & Climbing InstructionSouthern Arizona offers excellent year-round rock climbing. The weather, rock quality, and variety of climbing available here yield amazing opportunities for adventure. The climbing season is year-round, and the climbs range from single-pitch roadside sport routes to long, scary, backcountry traditional routes.I have been working for Arizona Climbing Guides in Tucson since 2005. ACG is one of the few guiding services in Arizona that has guides certified for multipitch climbing. If you're looking for a climbing guide for Cochise Stronghold or Mount Lemmon, this is the place to go. For further information or to arrange a booking, go to http://www.climbarizona.com. Who can benefit from a certified guide?Anyone! Whether you're a beginner or have been climbing for 30 years, you can always learn something to make you a better climber.Instruction for Beginning ClimbersFor the beginning climber, learning the right techniques can save hours of frustration, help avoid dangerous situations, and reduce the chances of getting hurt. Over thousands of days of climbing, I've seen a clear difference between beginners who learned from a certified guide and beginners who learn from their friends.Learning to make placements, lead, build anchors, belay, route find, rescue, and manage time, rope, and transitions are critical to climb safely and efficiently. Teaching these skills requires a completely sound knowledge base, a logical approach to teaching, and a massive amount of experience. Very few recreational climbers possess these qualifications. A certified guide, however, has undergone rigorous training and examination to demonstrate competence in both climbing and instruction. Bottom line: while there's some investment in taking classes as a beginner, you'll be a better, safer climber for it. Instruction for Advanced ClimbersEven for people who have been climbing for years, there is always something to learn. I have been climbing since 1997 and have watched thousands of people climb. A few of them have been excellent - great movement skills, a wide array of technical skills, and a good sense of when to apply them. The vast majority, however, have obvious weaknesses that are slowing them down, limiting what they can climb, them at increased risk, or just making their climbing less enjoyable.I put together a quick self-test below. These questions are geared toward traditional multipitch climbing, but many of the skills are applicable in all types of climbing. Honestly ask yourself these questions:
You might be asking if you really need to learn all of this. My answer: the more you know, and the greater your experiences, the more fun you can safely have. In climbing, greater skill leads to greater adventures. Guided climbing for beginning or advanced climbersOf course, guides are not only good for instruction. Ever been to a great climbing area for only a day or two? Or have you been eyeing up a remote, challenging climb but need help getting to the top? In either case, a guide is just the right person to help.For guiding or instruction in southern Arizona, the place to go is Arizona Climbing Guides. See www.climbarizona.com for further information.
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