Safety first and foremost

Rock climbing is dangerous. Or can be very dangerous without proper training, and without knowing your own personal physical and mental limits. Above and beyond, safety should always be your main focus when undertaking any rock climbing activity! Your actions, if carried out wrong, may have serious or fatal outcome.

BRV is continuously concerned with safety. We aim to educate our member’s safety awareness, and to promote and encourage a healthy safety climbing culture.  

Registration of accidents

Norsk Klatreforbund (Norwegian Climbing Federation, NKF) compiles and registers all rock climbing accidents in Norway. It is of importance for the accident-preventive work that NKF and the climbing clubs do, that you registrar  the accident. Both outdoors accidents, and indoor accidents are collected here.
You may find more statistikk  on rock climbing related accidents in Norway on NKF’s own web page.

Use helmet

A climbing helmet is just as much part of the basic climbing gear as the harness and the shoes. In Norway, climbers commonly use helmet on trad climbs and ice- or alpine routes. When going to the sports crag however, climbers tend to leave the helmet at home.
The climbing helmets of today are lightweight, functional, and don’t effect the adventure of your climb, or the way you perform.  Falls may be easier to control on bolted sports routes. On trad or aid climbs, pieces may come out, and a long and undesirably uncontrolled fall may be the outcome.

Head injuries may be hard to mend, and even smaller head injuries can be fatal. There have been several incidents in Norway, over the past few years, where the use of a proper climbing helmet noticeable reduced the extent of the outcome of the injury, and in at least one of the reported accidents the helmet saved life! Bear in mind that even small pebbles hurt you when dropped 30-60ft, not to mention the effect of a descender, carabiner or other hardware dropped from above. If the rock you’re about to get on have loose rocks or are of poorer quality, the belayer should wear a helmet. And do consider the helmet, even on bolted sports routes, if you’re pushing your limits or are climbing new (to you) routes.