Friday glee bows to the masters

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: Lynn Hill and Ron Kauk bouldering in Camp 4

Comments

[rydra_wong]

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.

[astridv]

I hate having the rope in my face,

Ah yeah, I remember that the rope used to be in my way when I started out. Somehow I've become so used to it that it's kind of like a fifth limb - there's almost a body-awareness where it is.

Belaying seems to me the real challenge, too! I mean, doing it properly and safely.

I hope to learn it this year. Still need a partner who's more my size but I got a few people interested...

[rydra_wong]

Still need a partner who's more my size

Why so?

[astridv]

My current main climbing partner is a guy who's at least 25 kilos heavier than me. I can belay him without a problem on the top stop system we have, but I already notice the weight when he's hanging on the rope for a while trying to figure out the next move. The thought of belaying him without top stop seems kind of unsafe?

I mean, I heard there are vests you can wear to match your weight but the thought of weighing myself down with 20 kilos doesn't sound very appealing, either.

[rydra_wong]

What's a top stop system? Not familiar with that.

FWIW, I've belayed people who are heavier enough than me that I get pulled up into the air if they fall; it's quite fun.

I don't know if there's a national difference here, but as I understand it, the usual solution if you're worried about it being a problem is to attach the belayer to a ground anchor so they can't be pulled too far. Lots of climbing walls have ground anchors set into the floor for that reason.

[astridv]

Top stop is a version of toproping where the rope runs through a few... um, rolls (dunno with correct word). Looks like this. It works like a brake, you lift only 10% of your partner's actual weight. So you don't need a belaying device on your belt either, you can also just belay hand-over-hand. (However, if the belayer let go the climber's fall wouldn't be slowed; the brake works only when there's pull on both ends.)

FWIW, I've belayed people who are heavier enough than me that I get pulled up into the air if they fall; it's quite fun.

Thing is that the other day I witnessed something at the climbing wall that makes me extra cautious - The belayer was lighter than his partner and also standing away far from the wall. When his partner fell from way up at the top, belayer got pulled not just up but also smack against the wall, and let go of the rope. He caught it again when his partner was just 2 metres above the ground. Scary shit, man. He got rope burn on one hand but... that could've ended really nasty.

He said he was standing quite far away from the wall. And he was possibly just not paying enough attention? I don't know, I've never seen anything like that happen before. I'd just been talking with someone about how some people are sloppy when they're belaying, not keeping their hands at the right height and, well, standing too far from the wall. That was an illustration of their point that'll stay in mind.

So anyway, I'd rather be on the safe side and not have the weight difference be a risk factor. We don't have anchors but they have weights, I think.

[rydra_wong]

The top stop thing is interesting -- I've never seen or heard of that over here.

I'm weirded out by the idea of belaying hand-over-hand, though, because it does mean that holding your partner in a fall is dependent on your grip strength versus their weight, even if it's only 10% of their weight. Whereas with a belay device, it's not significantly harder to keep the rope locked off with a heavier person than a light one.

And eeesh, yeah, that incident's really scary. But AFAIK, that's more to do with standing too far from the wall than with the weight disparity.