Granite Arches Climbing Guides

North Carolina Climbing Guides

north What we offer: Granite Arches Climbing Guides offers private rock climbing instruction and guiding in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Our climbing venues are just hours from from Atlanta, Charlotte, Knoxville, Asheville, and other large southeastern cities. Looking Glass, Table Rock, Linville Gorge, Moore's Wall, Pigeon Mountain, Whitesides, Shortoff, Tennessee Wall, Mount Yonah--and other nearby mountains--can provide a lifetime of first-class adventure right here in the southeast. Granite Arches' intensive instruction and can help both beginning and more advanced climbers meet their goals with maximum enjoyment, efficiency and safety. Guided instruction is personalized and can cover beginner, intermediate, lead climbing and rescue material. Guided instruction and climbing is tailored to the client's goals, is highly personalized, and is loosely organized around the following knowledge suites:

Intro to Outdoor Rock Climbing: gear overview; basic climbing movement and techniques; belaying and ground anchors; basic risk assessment; and more.

Top Rope Setup: rock and tree analysis; rigging options; media selection and ERNEST analysis; cliff side safety systems; and more.

Lead Climbing I: single-point protection workshop (nuts, sliders, cams, etc.); rope physics/selection; rack selection and organization; reading routes, choosing placements and riggings; avoiding zipper, z clips and backclips; learning to control rope travel and drag; lead climbing psychology. The course makes extensive use of mock leads with transitions into anchors.

Lead Climbing II: advanced leading concepts, theory and practice (exploiting cam angles, wedge physics, building awareness of vector dynamics; utilizing multidirectional anchors as URPs while leading; identifying and managing critical curvature) and involves advanced mock leading problems.

Multi-pitch Climbing: complex anchors, macro-micro route finding, anchor selection and orientation, and more.

Self-Rescue I & II: belay escapes, directs, knot passes, raises, lowers, ascensions, pick-offs, rescue theory/planning, and more.

Guide Skills Course: client care, climbing with multiple clients, advanced belay systems, advanced rappel systems, transitions, and more.

Who we are: Swis Stockton is a USMGA Certified Rock Instructor, an AMGA Certified Rock Instructor, and he is WEMT, NREMT Paramedic and Wilderness Advanced Life Support (WALS) certified. WALS is the highest level of wilderness medical training. No other guide in the southeastern U.S. holds this level of combined wilderness medical training and guide certification. Learn more about him here. Drew Dekle has been teaching climbing to numerous groups and individuals for decades and has logued hundreds of guiding days in the southeastern U.S.. He is WFR certified through WMA and his expertise is used by the Forest Service to replace aging bolts and make climbing safer. He is an avid snow skier. Rod Thomas is a great addition to Granite Arches, he is talented guide and a former ski instructor having worked many winters in Idaho. He holds WFR certification through WMA and he is an AMGA Certified Rock Instructor. Learn more about our guides here. We hope to climb with you soon!

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Click here to learn more about our guiding and climbing trips in North Carolina and the surrounding mountains.