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Total Climbing | Home
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Total Climbing
Total Climbing is the combined services of the Boulder Rock Club, the Colorado Mountain School and Robyn Erbesfield’s ABC for Kidz program. This unique combination allows us to offer the most complete climbing curriculum anywhere and is the first of its kind in the world. We’ve created a learning and experience continuum that starts with the natural fun of climbing and play for toddlers, continues with competition programs for eager youths, offers custom climbing experiences, and finishes with instruction and training for experts and guides. Ultimately, some of the kids currently involved in our youth programs will grow up to become our elite guides!
Over the last year, with help from experienced guides and climbers, I built the Total Climbing curriculum. I modeled it after my own path to becoming a competent climber, and developed it so that we now offer a similar progression for our students. I learned from my father, Mike Donahue, who was a guide and owner of the Colorado Mountain School from 1981-1998. During those years, I observed over one hundred guides teaching and thousands of students learning. I noticed what worked and what didn’t. Standards skyrocketed as sport climbing was invented, and climbing gyms gave millions of people access to climbing. I learned valuable lessons from evaluating accidents – most were avoidable mistakes, made by all levels of climbers, in environments ranging from gyms to big walls.
I watched Tommy Caldwell, a well-known local climber, learn from his father, another former Colorado Mountain School guide, and go on to set world standards for having fun and staying safe on extreme climbs. I realized that the best way to learn involves climbing indoors and outside with expert instructors. It requires both specific training and fun-filled climbing frenzies without regard for difficulty. It means climbing in a variety of terrain and studying a wide range of climbing styles.
