We are teaching our kids about climbing, and they love it. They also enjoy snow and ice climbing. While these activities come with a high sense of accomplishment, they also come with higher risks. Sometimes, we like to get out and simply enjoy the views and the company. Hiking helps keep us sane.

Before I took my kids rock climbing on their first multi-pitch route, I wanted to make sure they had the skills for getting up the route but also the skills for rappelling (abseiling) down if weather or other circumstances forced a retreat. Part of that education was learning to tie a figure eight retrace (follow through), clove hitch, girth hitch (larksfoot), figure eight on a bight, and an autoblock hitch, which are key to their climbing and rappelling systems. Here's how we tie and most frequently use these five knots.

There are lots of important safety practices that go into multi-pitch climbing: building good anchors, swapping or blocking leads, efficient rope management, safety practices like first and second pieces of protection off the anchor, etc. This stuff is well covered, nuanced, and - yes - important. They have to be understood and practiced. But after doing two 1500 foot climbs with two 7 year old kids, I noticed a few other things that these two new multi-pitch climbers also needed to spend some attention on. Maybe it will help those who are new to multi-pitch climbing.

Any time you change systems in a vertical environment, you are inviting risk and therefore potential consequences. Switching from climbing up a rock climb to lowering down is one of those circumstances. And then there is the added complexity of different anchor setups requiring different steps in that transition process. This video goes through the process of both cleaning an anchor and direct lowering when coming to a two-bolt anchor with narrow fixed hardware such as tightly linked chains.

Often the riskiest part of sport climbing is the transition at the top of the climb from leading to lowering. Different anchors require different steps in that transition in order to stay safe and backed-up in case something goes wrong. This video goes through the process of both cleaning an anchor and direct lowering when coming to a two-bolt anchor with rappel rings or links.

Potentially, the transition from climbing to lowering can be the most dangerous part of sport climbing. Setting up a system without any additional eyes to check your work increases the danger, and facing different permanent hardware setups means we need to know how to manage those scenarios. This video walks through how to safely transition from at the top of a climb when facing two mussy hooks, both when cleaning an anchor or when lowering directly.

Transitioning from climbing up to being lowered down can be simple or can be tricky, depending upon the hardware you find at the anchor bolts. It can get even more complicated if you are putting in a top rope anchor for climbers to use after you. Here's how to manage this transition safely.

Our kids just completed their first sport climbing leads and their first multi-pitch climbs. We are continuing to shed some light on how we got ourselves and our kids ready so that they could make those advances in their climbing journeys. Today, we are talking about the mental checklist we impart to any new sport climbing leaders to make sure they were staying as safe as possible when up on the sharp end of the rope.

Our kids hit a few rock climbing milestones, this year, putting up their first sport climbing leads and completing their first multi-pitch climbs as seconds. Today, we are sharing how the kids progressed in skills and how we gave them exposure to some of the different demands of climbing so that we all felt comfortable letting them head up on lead.

A lot of home climbing walls go unused, often because the routes get stale and boring. Here's how I've approached setting routes for the climbers in my family so that we can always feel like the routes we have on the wall are helping us become better climbers while also being fun!

To get better at any endeavor, we need a way to talk about it. New rock climbers are not an exception. In this video, we describe and name some basic rock features, grip and foot placement types, and rock climbing techniques. This rock climbing vocabulary will help new climbers discuss their climbing with others, hopefully stimulating help, collaboration, and improvement.

Communication between climbing partners is a fundamental part of maintaining safety. Surprises create risk because you can't plan for things you can't anticipate. Solid communication can reduce surprises. Before attempting nuanced multi-partner, multi-pitch, or complicated alpine climbs, here's how we taught the new climbers in our family - our kids - good communication while working comparatively simply top rope climbs. These communication habits will form the foundation of a lifetime of safe climbing.

Our kids are young and very into rock climbing. Our philosophy has always been to empower them, and that demands they take on increasing responsibilities for safety as they become ready. If they have always been partners in keeping themselves safe they will more likely continue to be safety conscious as they enjoy a lifetime of climbing. One major milestone in that climbing journey is learning proper top rope belaying. This is how we taught our young kids how to top rope belay while ensuring we kept everyone safe along the way.

While the choice about taking ice screws or nuts or cams or pickets will always depend on route conditions and the route, itself, there are a few items that I take climbing on every trip, whether dry rock, snow, or ice, whether at the crag, in the alpine, or on a glacier. This gear helps me deal with any eventuality from standard climbing needs to terrain beyond my free climbing ability, to rescues.

The South African Rappel or South African Abseil is a technique that can get you down a single-pitch cliff using nothing but a rope when out climbing, scrambling, or even hiking. When and why would you use this rappel technique? How do you perform the rappel, safely? We provide answers to these questions in this video.

My Dad was one of my original partners for summiting peaks. Now at 74 years old, we had him out on a new summit experience, doing some technical climbing with his son and grandsons on Horsetooth Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Blue Ice produces some excellent minimalist and ultralight gear for alpine climbing and ski mountaineering. This video reviews the Choucas Pro harness and discusses the pros and cons as well as some climbing genres where the harness may excel.

Inov8 is a company with a tradition in fell running: moving over the wet mountains of the LaKe District in the UK. I've been wearing the Inov8 Roclite G 315 GTX shoes for several years, and have put them to the test on fastmoving hiking trips, fully laden backpacking trips, and even alpine climbs that demand rock scrambling. Here's my review of this versatile shoe.

La Sportiva created three versions of the Aequilibrium boot to help alpinists lose the weight of needing multiple shoes for trips that contained dry approaches with backpacking, snow filled mountaineering, and technical climbing. Can the boot accommodate all of those disparate needs? We provide a full review.

A cottage brand out of Japan, Locus Gear, has made a free standing, ultralight, dome tent with four-season toughness by producing a fabric combination of Dyneema and eVent. It's called the Djedi. After using it for a year on camping trips, backpacking trips, and alpine climbing trips, I'm providing a full review.