What is a Climbing Permit?
The adventurous activity permit scheme is designed to ensure that only people with the relevant skills and experience lead adventurous activities for the young people. Therefore all activities classed as adventurous can only be led by someone holding the appropriate permit. Additionally young people (under 18) can take part in adventurous activities for themselves with personal activity permits.
A climbing permit is required for all climbing and abseiling activities, except bouldering and those using auto belay systems.
Levels of Permit
There are five levels of permit available for climbing. These are:
- Artificial Top Rope
- Natural Top Rope
- Artificial Lead
- Natural Lead
- Multi-Pitch
Each permit can be restricted (such as through specific locations, no abseiling, etc.) to end up with an individual permit to the level of the competence and requirements of any person. All natural rock permits cover the equivalent artificial permits, unless restrictions state otherwise.
Types of Permit
There are three types of permit available for climbing. These are:
Personal – If you hold a personal climbing permit you can go climbing with other youth members (under 18) who also hold a personal climbing permit. Climbing undertaken must only be to the level of the person with the lowest permit held within the activity group. It does not allow you to go climbing with anyone not holding a climbing permit.
Leadership – If you have a leadership permit for top rope climbing you can lead up to two top rope climbing systems at a time, unless a restriction is in place reducing the number of ropes to one. If you have a leadership permit for lead climbing, you can lead one climbing rope system at a time. If you have a leadership permit to lead multi-pitch climbing you can lead one rope system at a time.
Supervisory – If you hold a permit to supervise climbing then you can supervise up to three rope systems at a time. You should remain in a position to be able to effectively supervise and assist all rope systems. You remain responsible for all the groups you are supervising, but can designate someone with the appropriate skills to be the rope leader of each group. Note: No supervisory permit is available for multi-pitch climbing.
Designations
When supervising more than one rope system, the holder of a climbing supervisory permit needs to designate a rope leader for each group. This rope leader can then act as the belayer. This designation lasts only for the current activity while the permit holder is supervising.
People designated as rope leaders should hold the relevant skills; including being able to competently belay, and be responsible enough to lead the rope system that has been set up. There is no problem with making young people rope leaders if they are up to the role, and it can be used as a useful development tool to encourage people to work towards gaining permits.
The leader needs to consider the type of belay device being used based on the experience and competency of the individual belayers / climbers.