Training Events & resources

MAA Training Courses Overview 

MAA provides year-round training opportunities for members to increase their knowledge and skills proficiency at all levels of climbing year round. Only Apex members have access to all training events. Apex members also have access to a climbing specific fitness program. Our training program options are sequential and custom, breaking all climbing skills into disciplines and levels. We use this to build upon the foundation of what you already know and can do, to increase your proficiency and competency with the guidance of mentors along the way. Each member’s skills and events are automatically documented on their profile and provides common reference to accurately match team members and objectives. Members may attend training at any level as they deem appropriate. Here are all our training program components:

Climbing Fitness Program

For Apex members we've custom built a number of climbing-specific fitness workouts to help you get stronger, go higher and last longer. This self-guided program can be customized to suit your climbing outcomes ranging from powerful sport climbing to expedition level endurance climbing.

On-Mountain Training Courses

We offer 26 days of on-mountain technical skills training from beginner to advanced in rock climbing (9 days), ice climbing (4 days), snow climbing (4 days), mountaineering (6 days) and skiing (3 days). Training courses are taught by certified instructors and all courses are only included in their entirety in Apex membership. Base and Associate members have access to our rock climbing series, some snow training, and mountaineering courses only. The entire ice, snow, and ski training courses are only available to Apex members.

Climbing Technical Training Videos

All paying membership levels have access to our online training video courses, which can be viewed at any time and in any sequence. These have been filmed over the course of many years online and in the field, totaling over 24 hours of thorough video instruction.

MAA Disciplines and Evaluations

Mountain Ascent organizes all our events and training into four disciplines: Rock Climbing, Snow Climbing, Ice Climbing, and Mountaineering. We've further divided each of these disciplines into sequential course modules which describe the skills, knowledge, and know-how required at each step. This helps us classify events, organize our training program and provide a common framework for our members to share.

We also use these parameters to help evaluate each member's skills and proficiency, and that is documented on their MAA profile. It's a tracking and evaluation system that's very useful for finding climbing partners, and to help us carefully choose teams for regular climbs and expeditions.