It's kind of odd for me to compare, because I only bouldered for the first three years of my climbing. So that skews my perspective a lot.
Tried top-roping for the first time at the very end of last year, and was kind of ambivalent about it -- I hate having the rope in my face, I hate feeling that I'm leaning on the rope or it's pulling me off balance, and falling off on a top-rope feels weird somehow; I think bouldering's conditioned me to feel that if I fall off, I should fall off. *g*
So I've dabbled a bit in it when friends want to go roped climbing, and it's fun enough, it's good to expand my range and learn new things, and it's nice for practicing some things (like foot jams) where you really wouldn't want to fall anywhere, but it hasn't hooked me.
But leading was like an instant: ooh yeah, the moment I went to the bottom of the route and felt the rope running direct from me to my belayer, not up to the anchors and back down again. I mean, I started on something very easy (not to mention slabby and bridge-y, so much so that I had to remind myself at one point that using both hands to clip probably wasn't very good practice ...). But as soon as I came down, I was all: can I have another? now? more please? more difficult?
I didn't try leading anything that there was a real risk of my falling on, so I don't know how different it'll feel when that comes into the picture. But it didn't feel scarier than bouldering. And it felt somehow like a proper and satisfactory way of tackling routes.
I haven't learned to lead belay yet, though. I have a strong suspicion that I'll find that a lot more stressful.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-05-11 05:40 pm (UTC)Tried top-roping for the first time at the very end of last year, and was kind of ambivalent about it -- I hate having the rope in my face, I hate feeling that I'm leaning on the rope or it's pulling me off balance, and falling off on a top-rope feels weird somehow; I think bouldering's conditioned me to feel that if I fall off, I should fall off. *g*
So I've dabbled a bit in it when friends want to go roped climbing, and it's fun enough, it's good to expand my range and learn new things, and it's nice for practicing some things (like foot jams) where you really wouldn't want to fall anywhere, but it hasn't hooked me.
But leading was like an instant: ooh yeah, the moment I went to the bottom of the route and felt the rope running direct from me to my belayer, not up to the anchors and back down again. I mean, I started on something very easy (not to mention slabby and bridge-y, so much so that I had to remind myself at one point that using both hands to clip probably wasn't very good practice ...). But as soon as I came down, I was all: can I have another? now? more please? more difficult?
I didn't try leading anything that there was a real risk of my falling on, so I don't know how different it'll feel when that comes into the picture. But it didn't feel scarier than bouldering. And it felt somehow like a proper and satisfactory way of tackling routes.
I haven't learned to lead belay yet, though. I have a strong suspicion that I'll find that a lot more stressful.