Vertical Futures

These sessions are for young people living in Bristol, aged 16-25 who meet our eligibility criteria (see FAQs below). We will prioritise referrals for those young people who are not in education, training or employment.

In these sessions you’ll have the opportunity to try out different skills needed for a variety of ropes based careers. Rock Climbing Instructor, Industrial Rope Access and Arborist (Tree Surgery) skills.

We run 6 outdoor group sessions, 2 indoor group sessions and 4 individual indoor sessions. We meet with you and talk to you about your goals and make a plan for the sessions. Our instructors are focussed on your needs and are lead by you.

We run the sessions for free for young people who meet our eligibility criteria (dependent on funding), and we offer sessions at a cost for organisations or individuals who have the budget to pay for them.

The groups are for up to 6 people depending on the needs of the young people in the cohort for each year.

All of the Crux Climbing Vertical Futures Instructors have worked within these different jobs. We have a range of volunteers who can join some of our sessions to talk to young people about their lives in these different ropes based jobs.

Some examples of these jobs are: professional climber, working in indoor climbing walls, cleaning windows on skyscrapers in London, to building giant tree houses, rigging ropes for camera people to film wildlife, wildlife camera people, rigging ropes for adventure films, looking after (pruning) trees in arboretums, fixing wind turbines in Sweden!

There are many opportunities to travel the country and the world with ropes based careers if you enjoy learning knots, using equipment and learning how to keep yourself and others safe!

If you enjoy the sessions and the types of skills involved, we will sign post you and support you as best we can to access the relevant training to move into a career in one of these sectors.

For committed young people who are ready, there are also opportunities to volunteer or do work experience with Crux Climbing on our Climb Calm sessions.