YAY! I'm so glad you went and had a good time. And yes, coming down is often the most scary, because you have to trust the harness, the rope, and the belayer. Yikes!
As for weight and belayers, I used to climb with a guy who had 100lbs on me, and the most that would happen if he fell when I wasn't expecting it was that I would bounce a bit in the air, but you are correct that the friction in the system (where the rope wraps around the bit at the top) alleviates a lot of that. Outdoor climbing can be more of a problem that way, because of differences in the layout.
ETA: I once saw a guy being belayed by his 7-year-old son. The kid was anchored to the ground, though, so it was okay. And some gyms have anchors on the ground--webbing you can clip to the back of your harness so you won't' get pulled up. But at least indoors it doesn't happen very often unless there's a huge discrepancy in weight between the climber & belayer.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-06-13 04:25 pm (UTC)YAY! I'm so glad you went and had a good time. And yes, coming down is often the most scary, because you have to trust the harness, the rope, and the belayer. Yikes!
As for weight and belayers, I used to climb with a guy who had 100lbs on me, and the most that would happen if he fell when I wasn't expecting it was that I would bounce a bit in the air, but you are correct that the friction in the system (where the rope wraps around the bit at the top) alleviates a lot of that. Outdoor climbing can be more of a problem that way, because of differences in the layout.
ETA: I once saw a guy being belayed by his 7-year-old son. The kid was anchored to the ground, though, so it was okay. And some gyms have anchors on the ground--webbing you can clip to the back of your harness so you won't' get pulled up. But at least indoors it doesn't happen very often unless there's a huge discrepancy in weight between the climber & belayer.