Rigging for Rescue in South Africa

We recently wrapped up a rope rescue training workshop in the Gauteng province of South Africa.  We had conducted a similar Rigging for Rescue program down in Cape Town in 2010. One of the participants from that workshop, Rob Thomas, runs a mountain guiding and rescue training company called the School for Mountain Leadership here in South Africa. We had approached him many months ago about the possibility of doing a workshop while we were in-country and he enthusiastically agreed to make the arrangements.

Our training session was based in the Magaliesberg Mountains north of Joburg.  The Magaliesberg is an ancient mountain range with beautiful, hard quartzite rock.  The rock climbing, by the way, is superb! The workshop consisted of 12 participants from various rescue agencies around the country.  It was a keen group and we had a terrific week of training.

Rob put the Gibbs Family up in a nice log cabin near the training site. We used the cabin as the classroom facility and also the group mess hall. It was awesome to be able to train and socialize with the South African participants. Whenever we conduct an RfR training abroad there are opportunities to gain insights into risk management preferences, decision making methodology, and of course equipment and technique differences. As Rob said during the workshop, "if you are not learning, you are not growing." Well said.  Thanks again for a memorable week!