UIAA-Handbook_FLIP__

Introduction
A handbook for field use
I have met many climbers from around the world
who told me that they acquired their basic technical
knowledge by studying the drawings in Petzl catalogues.
These catalogues have always offered a wealth
of information.
When Jean-Jacques Eleouet, first secretary
general of the Petzl Foundation (established in
2005), approached me to develop a handbook
based on these illustrations, I was immediately on
board. The text would be secondary. Ideally anyone,
regardless of his or her origins, education or level of
literacy, could use the handbook. Thus we created a
first draft. It was put to the test during sessions in
Nepal, organized in collaboration with the Nepal
Mountaineering Association, the Petzl Foundation
and the International Mountaineering and Climbing
Federation (UIAA).
The handbook was very well received, and the
child has since grown into an adolescent. Fueled
by the enthusiasm of the Petzl Foundation, which
secured the motivated collaboration of the UIAA’s
Mountaineering Commission, the handbook has
evolved and attracted input from other organizations
with first-rate “know-how.” The current Englishlanguage
version is the most elaborate to date, but it
is still a work in progress. The document will continue
evolving and expanding to cover other aspects of the
alpine world.
This handbook is a compendium of the essential
skills one must acquire in order to become a
hiking, climbing or mountaineering volunteer leader.
This is by no means a bible! This work is neither
exhaustive nor compulsory. A number of prominent
UIAA-member climbing federations have produced
more detailed, more complex and more advanced
manuals. It is not the intent of this handbook to
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