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Posted by Bill S on June 21, 2007 at 9:06:30 pm EDT
In reply to What are other people paid to teach rappelling? posted by Pam Gaddis on June 21, 2007 at 7:32:02 pm EDT

Pam -
Most of us who work with youth groups do so for free as far as time goes. When we use our own gear, most of us figure out a lifetime of the gear (using the UIAA/CE dictated values plus estimates of how many kids rappelling down the line will put significant wear on the rope) and do some hand-waving math to come up with a rough value. It's on a per-kid basis, but figuring about 10 minutes per kid (basic instruction, harnessing them up, sending them down, undoing them) and 5 hours of working the stations is 30 kids per day per station. I mostly work with Boy Scouts (I'm Council Climbing Director for 2 Scout Councils, and so I have the Councils buy the gear, both for the "in-town" programs and the summer camp programs.

Some individual units do hire professional guide services, hence pay professional guide fees. The two guide services run by people I know (in both cases, climbing partners from years back) charge $25-50 per youth participant for a day, depending on the activities (climbing is usually included as well as rappelling). A retired guide who used to work with me based his fee on the commercial permit fees he had to pay in the local state and national parks in addition to the wear and tear on the gear, but again, basically donated his time to youth groups.

Most of what I do these days in these lines is train the adult leaders, using the training program that BSA has come up with as a result of legal and insurance considerations. There are several levels of training - Climbing Director, Lead Climbing Instructor, Climbing Instructor, and Bouldering Facilitator, plus trainee positions for youths 16 to 18 who work under the adult instructors. There is a parallel ropes course program, called COPE (Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience). The adults trained for instructing in that program are not considered qualified to teach or supervise the climbing activities. Again, all these folks are volunteers. Summer camp staff are paid salaries for the summer, but the expenses there are part of the camp fees.

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