Melbourne Climbing School was formed in late 2015 and aims to offer Melbourne’s rapidly growing community of climbing enthusiasts a safe and effective transition into the amazing world of outdoor rock.

Who are we?

Aaron Lowndes
Aaron LowndesOwner, ACIA Climbing Guide Instructor Trainer/Assessor
Aaron has more than 2 decades of rock-climbing experience. He has travelled all over the world in pursuit of amazing rock, and enjoys classic low-grade adventure routes just as much as harder technical climbing (if grade 29/8a/5.13a means anything to you, that’s his top so far). Prior to starting Melbourne Climbing School, Aaron spent countless weekends voluntarily teaching organised groups rock climbing safety skills, and has facilitated hundreds of new climbers in their transition onto real rock.

Now fully qualified and with a thriving business, Aaron is fully committed to the rock climbing industry, and is a current board member of the Australian Climbing Instructor’s Association (ACIA).

Mona John von Freyend
Mona John von FreyendCommunications strategy and project management
Mona is the behind the scenes person responsible for MCS’ social media channels and planning for future projects.

She has been rock climbing for 10 years and loves trad and interesting cracks and just generally enjoys being out in nature. She’s super passionate about creating inclusive and welcoming spaces that bring people together and foster their love of the outdoors.

Follow her on instagram @mona.is.happy.in.nature

Jo Lee
Jo LeeACIA Single Pitch Guide
Jo is no stranger to the climbing world – she spent 6 years travelling, climbing and instructing around the globe, easily enthused about long, epic, multi-pitch trad climbing, is a lover of all big furry doggo friends and the founder of Women Uprising (give her a follow at @womenuprisingaus)
Anyone who’s participated in one of our @shewentwild.co trips will know her as the super friendly, competent, smiley person who can coax the most timid newbie to attempt the big airy abseil.
As a qualified SPG guide, she will be MCS’s go-to person for all things guiding related.
Hamid Shafhagi
Hamid ShafhagiIFMGA guide (the only one in Australia!)
Having written two instruction manuals for Navigation training in Iran, plus another for Bigwall climbing, Hamid is the founder of these courses in Iran and has taught them in Iran, Europe, and Australia.

Hamid operates his own Iran-based guiding business, and spends his Australia-based months running courses, guiding and ski touring. Make sure to check out skitouring.com.au as well!

John Kazanas
John KazanasACIA Single and Multi-Pitch Guide
John is a passionate rock climber who has been an ACIA qualified single and multi-pitch climbing guide since 2015. He has been rock climbing since 2003 in both sport and trad climbing environments.

John has also spent many years in various alpine environments backcountry skiing and ice climbing including in New Zealand’s Southern Alps and on its highest peak Mt Cook. He has also summited the world’s highest mountain Mt Everest (8864m).

With a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, John is also a Private Pilot with over 20 year’s flying experience which increases his skills in people leadership, risk management and operational safety when guiding.

What do we think about Rock Climbing?

Rock climbing is an incredible sport that we love wholeheartedly, and Melbourne Climbing School was formed to share it with the world. Rock Climbing does not discriminate on the basis of age, strength, fitness level or gender (…or race, sexual orientation, disability or anything else of course). It is a sport that is open to every person no matter what, is challenging both physically and mentally and can be enjoyed at any level, from beginner to advanced.

We can guide you or teach you something new whatever your skill or experience level – beginner to advanced, we have you covered. We are all about safety here, and we love teaching as much as we love climbing. We hope to see you on our courses and experience days.

What does “intelligent rock climbing” mean?

Here at MCS, our aim is to help more people safely and confidently take up the sport of Rock Climbing. Yes, we love it so much we simply want to share it with the world. To do that, we have narrowed our mission statement down to a few guiding principles:

  • Share
    • To share the experience of this wonderful, fulfilling sport with as many people as possible
    • To remove mental barriers that stop people from getting into the sport – “I’m too weak/unfit/young/old” or “I’m the wrong gender/height/religion/race” – none of these matter, nor should they.
  • Teach
    • To teach and encourage responsible climbing safety knowledge and techniques
    • To promote a concept of “continuous learning”. Starting with ourselves we pledge to never – not after 5, 20 or 50 years – stop learning new things about this ever-evolving sport (note that Aaron has 20+ years of climbing experience and still loves learning new things).
  • Engage
    • To engage with the climbing and outdoors communities, valuing and adopting their feedback as and when we can
    • To promote environmental awareness in Victoria’s beautiful but delicate outdoor areas. This awareness that cultural values may exist in the places we climb. For this, we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we live and work and pay respect to Elders past and present.

Check out the pages in the menu above to see some of the things we can offer you right now.