Online trad climbing courses

Can anyone recommend good trad climbing courses available online? With limited time to get outside, I'd like to learn as much as I can about placing gear, building anchors, etc., before practicing at the crag. This Outside Learning course looks pretty solid.

VDiff Climbing is a great resource. Plenty of free material as well as a solid self-rescue video course that I've taken and gotten a lot out of. 

• Trad climbing basics e-book
• Trad climber's guide to problem solving e-book

Ryan of HowNot2 also has a "how not to trad climb" video plus plenty of others that are worth a watch - check out his Youtube channel ("HowNot2" on youtube)

Those guys are both legit but I'm always skeptical of Outside stuff.  Maybe start here before you shell out any cash? https://amga.com/rock-videos/

No canned online course can critique your placements, protection strategy, or anchors.

mbk wrote:

No canned online course can critique your placements, protection strategy, or anchors.

Correct, but some homework prior to working with a mentor is better than no homework

Videoracles has the best instructional climbing videos I've found so far. Roddy McCalley explains things exceptionally clearly and concisely, and the videos are always kept to a reasonable length. Obviously hands-on experience and feedback are critical when you are actually learning, but these videos are an excellent starting point

Lake wrote:

Videoracles has the best instructional climbing videos I've found so far. Roddy McCalley explains things exceptionally clearly and concisely, and the videos are always kept to a reasonable length. Obviously hands-on experience and feedback are critical when you are actually learning, but these videos are an excellent starting point

+1 on Roddy's stuff. Simple, clear, concise.

Dave MacLeod has some really good videos. Not really a course, but some useful food for thought. I particularly like this one.

Adam Blair wrote:

Can anyone recommend good trad climbing courses available online? With limited time to get outside, I'd like to learn as much as I can about placing gear, building anchors, etc., before practicing at the crag. This Outside Learning course looks pretty solid.

Hit me up and we'll go climbing

DMM has a video play list.  However, it's British so you'll learn how to abseil instead of rappel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJofyuybTSEzkENLWTA_D_hFa-g3B4dYR

Tim Dolan wrote:

DMM has a video play list.  However, it's British so you'll learn how to abseil instead of rappel.

"Remember, don't ab without some tape and a couple crabs".

Thanks y’all, this is great!

I've found this to be an exceptionally enlightening recourse. https://people.bath.ac.uk/dac33/high/

"This site started its life as a way of presenting the images from the ebook High: Advanced Multipitch Climbing, by David Coley and Andy Kirkpatrick. In order to keep the cost of the book to a minimum most of these were not included in the book. However the site has grown to be far more extensive and now contains much original material not in the book, together with an appendix covering most knots used in climbing, an essay on climbing grades and a bibliography in the form of web links. We suggest you print some of the PDFs and take them on your travels. We would also love you to buy the book – which costs less than a screwgate."