My First Lead Climb
by kgroke on Jan.08, 2010, under About Me, Interesting
My friends Telly and Heidi did a lot of climbing before they had kids, and now that I have gear and am excited to go, I’ve pushed, prodded, and begged them to take me climbing and show me the ropes, literally. Today was our second climb at the Chuckwalla trailhead, and they taught me how to lead climb.
In the past, I’ve top roped, which is climbing with a rope that runs through an anchor on the top of the climb. Lead climbing is where you attach to anchors in the rock as you ascend. If you fall while top roping you don’t really fall at all, the rope stretches a little to absorb the impact, and that’s all you move. When you lead climb you fall twice the distance of your last anchor, so if I last attached to an anchor 10 feet below me, I’ll fall 20 feet, plus whatever stretch the rope needs to compensate for the shock. The advantage of lead climbing is you don’t need an alternate route to get to the anchor on top, you just climb up to it instead of climbing around the cliff looking for a hiking route to the top.
I did it and was able to set the rope so everyone else could climb, I didn’t even fall, though I was pretty close to it at one point. I’m slowly building up my endurance, and get a little better each time. Thanks, Telly and Heidi!
