Southern Adventures offers free rock climbing clinics for students and faculty to learn throughout the academic year in the Southern Adventures Center at the RAC.

There are two types of clinics offered. One is a belay Clinic and the other is a lead Clinic.

“It’s open to all students and faculty and it’s free. They can participate by coming to our center and signing up,” Spenser Herkelman, Southern Adventure Program Director, said.

The belay clinics are designed towards learning technique of belaying and assist students in becoming belay certified at the RAC.

On the other hand, lead clinics are designed for students to learn lead climbing and belay technique.

However, to participate on a lead clinic, participants must be currently belay certified, for at least six months, and be able to complete the 5.9 test at the RAC wall cleanly.

“You don’t need to have any pre-obligations to do the belay clinic and the lead clinic only requires having the ability to climb and have your belay certification for six months,” Herkelman said.

Each clinic has a limit of ten people for safety and since only two student staff teach the course, according to Herkelman.

Southern Adventure’s big event is the “Southern Sendfest Bouldering Competition” that will take next semester in March.

In addition, they offer monthly “Bouldering Night Out” series and have an open high challenge course.

“The Open High Challenge Course is our high challenge course, which is located out in the woods. It’s open to any faculty, staff, or student. They could come in and sign-up, just like you would for a belay clinic and it’s totally free,” Herkelman said.

The next available Belay Clinic is on Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. While the next Lead Clinic will take place on Oct. 8 at 7 pm.

“They are posted online. We also tweet them out when we have them coming up and have them on the calendar provided by the RAC. Anybody can participate,” Herkelman said.