When rock climbing, the most common lengths of rope used is 50, 60, and 70 meters of rope. Out of those three the 60 meter is the most popular. [The 60 meters is the length of rope that I have as well.] Almost every climb can be done with a 60 meter rope unless the climb is over 100 feet and is only a 1 pitch climb. 60 meters is just shy of 200 feet. This means that you can climb a max of 100 feet. The reason why you cannot climb the whole 200 meters, if you don't have two ropes, is because you need a way down. If I were to climb a 100 feet, there would be 100 feet from the belayer up to me, and then I would need another 100 feet to go from the top back down to the ground. To understand this best let me explain the different types of climbing as well. The three that I will describe are top rope, sport, and trad.
Trad is the type of climbing that takes the most work out of the three. This type of climbing requires you to use cams, or nuts. Nuts are a piece of meddle on the end of a small cable loop. If I were to use the nut, I would find a crack that has an opening big enough for the nut to slide in. Then I would pull it down to a tapered part of the crack where the crack gets small enough that the nut cannot pull out. If I fall on the nut most likely it will not fall out, but it is not always certain. Cams are devises that you put in cracks. They push against the rock in opposite directions, and they are made so that the harder that you pull on them the harder they push against the rock. In trad climbing this is your real main protection. You don't need to try as hard with cams as you do with nuts. This is because cams don't need to find that tapered part of the crack. Learning how to place nuts can help your skill with cams, and it can decrease the chance that the cam pops out when a fall happens. Don't be fooled though because people still fall on this equipment all of the time. Sometimes they pop out, and sometimes they don't. If a cam pops out it is not that big of a deal, but it is scary. If you place gear well your next placed piece should hold you. When trad climbing not only are you on rock that is very hard to climb, but you are also caring a lot of gear with you which adds a lot of weight. One of the climbers starts the climb out by staying on the ground with a belay device. The other climber is tied into the very end of the rope. The distance from the belay device from the climber starts at a very close distance. As the climber climbs further away from the ground, the belayer gives more rope. The climber, as he gains height, continues to look and find places in the crack to set his gear. Falling is always a part of climbing. It you are not falling then you are not pushing yourself. When the climber falls the distance above the last placed gear is the distance bellow that gear that you fall to. If the climber is 8 feet above the bolt then he will fall a total of 16 feet, 8 feet below the last placed gear. At the moment of the fall the belayer needs to lock off the rope with his belay device, so the climber does not fall any further.
Sport climbing is very similar to trad climbing, but it is not as technical. With sport climbing you do not have cams or nuts. Instead climbers see what looks to be a beautiful line, and they see it in such a way as a painter sees a great piece of art. To share a beautiful line with other climbers, someone spends the money, time, and hard work to drill holds and put bolts in the rock. The rule is that you normally do not bolt a crack. Why scar the rock and puts bolts in it, if you can climb it with trad. Most lines that are bolted are those that are not able to climb with trad because a crack is not available to place gear. Sport climbing works very similar to trad, but the pro is fixed, and you know where it is. When you reach the bolt you take your quick draw, which are two carabineers with webbing between the two. You clip the one side to hanger that is bolted to the wall, and the other side you clip your rope to. Like with trad, falling is very likely if you are pushing yourself. However high you are above your bolt you fall double. The belaying works the same.
Top roping can be use in all three types of climbing. The key to top roping is that you need to get to the top of the climb up to the 100 feet. You set the rope up, and throw the two ends down. Just like trad and sport, the climber is tied into the end of the rope. Instead of the belayer letting out rope to allow the climber to get higher, the belayer takes in the slack. The rope goes from the climber already to the top of the climb, or part of the climb if it is over 100 feet. Then the rope goes back down to the belayer. In this type of climbing falling is not a part of it. I mean you still can be too tired to get to the top and slip off of the rock, but when you let go you only drop the distance that the rope stretches which is no further than 6 inches.
Now a multi-pitch is where the climber stays at the top and hooks into the two anchors. Anchors are normally two extra long bolts that are drilled into the rock. Anchors are always on the top of a sport route, or pitch. Some times trad will have anchors set, and other times you have to create your own anchors with your gear. To use the anchors a climber would attach from his harness a locking carbineer. From the carbineer he would attach a sling, which is a loop of skinny webbing. From the sling the climber would attach another locking carbineer. Each climber would have two of these set-ups to attach to each of the bolts. Now the climber attaches a type of locking belay device to one of the anchors, and he would back it up with another quick draw or sling to the other anchor. The climber will back his rope up now to his harness, or the anchors with a clove hitch knot. This step is important because if you lose your rope, you are either up there until your partner can run and get someone to belay him up to you, or you solo without a rope back down, and hope that you don't fall. Once the rope is backed up, the climber would until the rope from himself and run it through the belay device. Now the climber on the wall is going to belay the climber on the ground. This is where top roping comes into play with sport climbing, and in the same way for trad. The climber has the rope going from him to the top and to the belay device. Now there is not any falling possibility besides the stretch of the rope. As the second climber makes his way up, he unclips the quick draws from the wall, and clips the draws onto his harness. This is how it works with trad as well, and how you get your gear back. When the 2nd climber gets to the anchors he will clip into the anchors in the same way as the first climber. Now if this was a single pitch the climbers could put the rope through the anchors and lower the two ends to the ground. Then the climbers could repel down with their belay devices, but if this is a multi-pitch then there is more climbing to be done. The climbers at this point could keep the same man leading, or they can switch it up. I think that it is much easier to switch it up because the belayer is already set to belay, and the 2nd climber has all the gear, so he mind as well keep climbing.
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| Monty on March 18, 2010. Playing Hooky, www.mountainproject.com |
This is exactly the type of climbing that we planned on doing. We did about a 370 ft 4 pitch, sport, multi pitch. Desiree, which I did not find out until later, only had a 10% desire to really want to get up and do this climb. She informed that I pushed the rest of the 90% to get her out of the door. I did not know that I had this much influence over her. We gathered all our gear, and were on our way to Golden to meet up with Danny. Danny had some of my gear from the Devil's Head trip, and I needed as much as I could get to do this climb. The free guide online, called Mountain Project, stated that you needed about 14 quick draws for the entire climb. I only had 10, but then could make another 4 with my locking carabineers and slings. This only left us with two more slings to use to hook into the anchors, and we needed four. Danny was going to take us to a climbing store where we could buy a little more gear, but it ended up being closed. Danny had a concert he was going to so he was not going to come, but he is a crazy, laid back man. Danny just shrugged his shoulders and said lets go and climb this thing, all three of us. We threw Danny's bike into our car and we were off to the wall. We did not really know how to cross the river to get to the wall. The water was high, and we had to sit and look around a little, but found a way across if we walked back toward the bridge. There was an AKA path that did lead you to the start of the route, but it was rough. I think that all of us lost our balance at one time, and I know that I fell a few times.
There we were looking that this large piece of rock and the route "Playing Hook" in front of us. We got all set up, and Danny started off leading the first pitch. Danny had two ropes attached to him, so that he would belay both Desiree and I from the top. It was so funny because tourist would stop and watch us. They would even take pictures. Desiree started to climb next, and I started closely behind her. I was amazed at my wife. This was a 5.9 pitch, and it was one of the hardest 5.9s that I have climbed. Desiree was kicking butt even though she did pull on a draw once, and fell three times on the first pitch. The rest of the pitches she on-sited, and flashed. It was after the 2nd pitch that Desiree's mind realized that we cannot just turn around and be on the ground in no time, but that we would have to do a little bit of work to get there. Her mind started to wig out, and she was getting just a bit nervous, but continued on.
I love my wife. She is so awesome. She had to pee and she did not have much of a problem at all with squatting on the ledge 200 feet up and letting it run. We were up the second half of the third pitch, and we came to a little bit of a difficult part for Desiree. You could tell that the height was messing with her mind a bit, and she was starting to get a little sloppy in her climb. Once again she got through, and she reached the belay ledge for the last pitch. I soon reached the ledge after her.
Desiree was still tied into the rope, and Danny gave her a quick safety line by clove hitching the rope to the anchors just off of her knot about three feet. Danny had his safety lines already set up. I got carried away in the excitement of the climb and getting so high that I forgot about my responsibilities as a climber, and did not give myself a safety line. I did not know it at the time. When I looked at the anchors I saw a clove hitch with the same color rope that I was tied in to, and thought that Danny had given me one. Danny took everyone off of belay and started to set up for me to lead the last pitch. At that moment I noticed that my heals were hanging off of the ledge that we were standing on, and I thought that it was amazing. A year ago there was no way that I would have been standing over this edge even tied in. I would have been shaking out of control in fear. When I stand on a ledge and hooked into the anchors, I have been leaning back and putting wait on my slings. I started to rock back slightly, but realized that my line was not loosing slack and rising like it normally would. At that moment I stopped to double check that I was tied to the anchors. I then realized that the knot that was tied in was not for me at all, but for Danny. I said out loud, "Am I tied in right now?" When I said this Desiree's hand reached out and grabbed my pocket so I could not fall back. I then gave myself a clove hitch. At the moment I laughed it off, but it could have been a fatal fall. All that I was tied in to was a 200 foot rope, and my friend Danny was tied in on the other end. It would have most likely been a fall to the death. If I would have fallen, I would have started to tumbling down the slab. Most likely I would have hit my on a rock before I even finished falling the 200 feet, and could have died from the blow. I was not going to let my mind take over, and freak out about the situation because there was more climbing to be done ahead.
It was my turn to lead, and I was a little nervous for the climbing looked to thin out ahead. I started up the wall with much control, but I did indeed hit some thinned out parts. I had reached the bottom of the last 20 feet, and this was the most vertical part of the whole climb. At that moment it started to rain on me. It was not just a little rain either, but it was really coming down. I was trying to clip my last bolt before the anchors, and I had a possible 20 foot fall if I fell before I clipped in. It sure was wet, and I was trying to chalk up my hands as much as possible, but I still was having a hard time griping the rock. I did not feel confident with any of the holds that I grabbed, but had to pick one. I was nervous. I transferred my weight over my legs as much as I could, and I reached way right to clip the draw. I missed it the first time, and the second attempt was golden. I climbed my next 4 feet, and was at the summit. I set up my belay station, and had Danny and Desiree up the rock before long. It is just a very neat feeling when you are on top of a climb with more than yourself, and you are all looking over the beautiful view. When climbing single pitches, climbing is a single person game. When you change it to a multi pitch the game changes. The climb is no longer a one person game because you need at least two people to finish the route. It was awesome to know that we all made it to the top as a team.
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| Rich F. on Aug 15, 2010. Playing Hooky, www.mountainproject.com |
It was time to get down now, and the work was not over. Danny and I tied the two ropes together, and fed the rope through the anchors. Danny was on his way down the first 200 feet. I looked at Desiree, and she sure was looking a bit nervous. When Danny was off of the rope, I set Desiree up, but she did not want to go. She looked at me like she was asking do I really have to. She slowly started to let herself over the edge, but she caught herself and walked back to me. Desiree started to cry with anxiety. "It is okay and you have done this several times. You have this." I tried to convince her. Don't think that this is easy though. When you are 370 feet off of the ground your mind is in a different place than it normally is. It is a very different feeling. It feels like your mind can physically take over your thoughts and emotions, and you really need to fight it to tell it that the rope, gear, and my own physical ability can be safely trusted to lower me to the ground. Desiree did great. She fought her mind and slowly lowered herself to the 2nd belay station. It did not help that she did not put her hair up, and the wind was blowing it into the belay device. She had to stop and pull her hair out of the device twice on the way down, and that was not keeping her calm or relaxed.
When there was slack on the line and I heard a faint OFF BELAY being yelled, I hooked into the rope, unhooked my safety line from the anchors, and I was on the 2nd belay station in no time. We all repelled the last 200 feet, and we on the ground at last. We were all proud of ourselves, even though Danny was thinking ok there was the warm up, where is the real climb? What a good day of climbing.
That night Desiree and I were having a difficult time sleeping a little because we were thinking about the terrible situation that could have happened if I would have fallen. I think that it is good though that I did not get terrified while I was on the wall. I could just picture myself freaking out, and wanting to be on the ground right at that moment. This was not possible though because we were a whole 300 feet off of the ground. I could just picture myself making another mistake if I would have let my mind get a hold of me. Instead I kept it cool, and kept to the route. Desiree and I were talking about it and she asked if I thought it is good that we were making a big deal about it. I think it is very good. The respect for the danger and the heights needs to be there. I now am going to use this situation, and since I am letting it get to me a little it will motivate me to double check everything while I am on the wall. In my book the safety needs to be first, and the fun comes second.
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