Leading on Bolts
The Three Main Rules
- No back-clipping. The rope is correctly clipped into a quickdraw if the rope comes up from the belayer, enters the carabiner from the back side that's laying against the rock, and comes out of the carabiner on the side that's out towards your harness. Anything else is backclipping, and that's bad.
- No Z-clipping. The correct thing to do when going for a clip is to grab the section of rope that's closest to your harness. Make sure you don't grab a section of rope that is lower than one of your previous clips, doing so would be Z-clipping.
- No foot-trapping. Don't let your leg or ankle get between the rope and the wall. Doing so could cause your ankle to catch on the rope if you fell, flipping you upside down during the fall, which increases the potential to get a head injury.
Videos with Good Advice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPCAa6Xj0lo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbgRIGhtezU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G3DbGFpPa0
Homework: Practice one-handed clipping
Before you attend a class or practice night about leading on bolts, practice one-handed clipping at home, it's trickier than it sounds and you'll need time & repetition to develop the muscle-memory. First, watch the videos above to see how one-handed clipping is done. To practice clipping one-handed, you'll need a practice rope (that 10ft Mountaineers practice rope they gave you in Basic works well,) a wire-gate carabiner, and a short loop of webbing. Hang the webbing from a door handle and clip the carabiner to it so it hangs at the bottom and is flat against the door. Tie-in to one end of your practice rope as if you were climbing, then practice clipping one-handed. Practice all four combinations: using your right-hand or left-hand, and with the biner's gate facing right or left. Keep the carabiner laying flat against the door (real quickdraws hold the carabiner like that better than soft webbing,) and keep Rule #1 in mind: No back-clipping!
The Key Points to Know
- As a lead climber
- Quickdraws have a floppy end and a stiff end. Always clip the floppy one to the bolt, and the stiff one to the rope.
- Both biners on a quickdraw should face the same direction (see Ben’s scanned page from ANAM.)
- Backs (spines) of the carabiners (not the gate) should be towards the direction the route goes next.
- memorize the three rules
- (1) No back-clipping
- (2) No Z-clipping
- (3) No foot-trapping.
- Clip as close to your waist as possible to avoid pulling up lots of slack rope just before you make the clip
- Clip from the most solid position on the climbing wall. A solid stance can trump the close-to-your-waist rule.
- If your belayer can’t see you, say “Clipping!” before you go for a clip
- At the top, use two side-by-side bolts to place two quickdraws with their gates facing out, away front the middle. Clip the rope through both. The bottom carabiners will be opposite and opposed.
- At the top, build your anchor on the bolts or highest possible rung of the chains. Fewer chain links involved = fewer potential points of failure. (One exception: when you need to extend an anchor over a lip of rock.)
- As the belayer of a lead climber
- always be a little ahead of the leader with the slack, but not much
- smirk not a smile
- give them an extra big arm length of rope when they go for a clip
- stand close to the wall, just to the side of the fall line
Cleaning a Sport Anchor and Rappelling
Even more so than leading on bolts, learning to clean & rappel is best taught in person. In an attempt to put the steps in writing anyway, here's what I've got: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pfjq42akww5q1hw/11%20Teaching%20Cue%20Sheet%20-%20Clean%20a%20sport%20anchor%20and%20rappel.rtf?dl=0
Be mindful of Carabiners' Positions
As long as you clip carabiners such that the spine-side is towards the direction of travel, it's rare that carabiners end up hanging incorrectly. Still, be aware that carabiners are only strong in one very specific axis: when the load is close to the spine of the carabiner, and no other forces act on the carabiner.
Bailing off a Route
(These are advanced tips, don't bother reading this section until after you've been to a few practice nights. You don't need to know this until the first time that you go lead on bolts without a more experienced climber there to help you.) Let's say you're outside leading a bolted route, and for whatever reason, you just cannot get up it, the moves are too hard for you, and no one else in your group can finish it either. If you cannot get to the top to clean and rappel, how do you get all your gear back, or at least lose as little as possible?
As long as you clip carabiners such that the spine-side is towards the direction of travel, it's rare that carabiners end up hanging incorrectly. Still, be aware that carabiners are only strong in one very specific axis: when the load is close to the spine of the carabiner, and no other forces act on the carabiner.
- Make sure carabiners don't get loaded over an edge (i.e. sitting on a lip of rock they could get bent over,)
- Don't get triaxially loaded (i.e. pulled in three directions, like up down & sideways, instead of just plain up & down,)
- Don't get cross loaded (pulled up & down, but the load is across the carabiner in some orientation that's not parallel to the spine.) http://dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/carabiner-and-bolt-interaction-vid/
Bailing off a Route
(These are advanced tips, don't bother reading this section until after you've been to a few practice nights. You don't need to know this until the first time that you go lead on bolts without a more experienced climber there to help you.) Let's say you're outside leading a bolted route, and for whatever reason, you just cannot get up it, the moves are too hard for you, and no one else in your group can finish it either. If you cannot get to the top to clean and rappel, how do you get all your gear back, or at least lose as little as possible?
- Can you "cheat?" If it's just one impossibly hard move that you can't free-climb, can you grab a quickdraw on a bolt, using it as a handhold to pull through? (To avoid injury if you fell while doing this, only grab the fabric dogbone, do not put your fingers inside the carabiner or through the eye of the bolt.) Or, can you clip a single-runner or double-runner to a lower bolt, and slip your foot into the loop and use it as a step? These techniques are often lovingly called "French Freeing."
- Can you get above the route by other means, so that you can rappel back down to retrieve all the quickdraws left up on the wall? Sometimes there's a way to scramble around to the top of a climbing wall, and sometimes your hard route is right next to an easy one you can lead, allowing you to rappel that easy route by reach far to the side to retrieve gear from the original hard route.
- If all else fails, here's how to lower-off a bolt that's midway up: It will cost you two regular carabiners, so pick two carabiners you don't mind leaving behind. (Lockers aren't necessary but feel free to make one a locker if it makes you feel better.) If you don't have two loose carabiners on your harness, then take one of your quickdraws and take it apart, removing the two biners from the dogbone. The key rule here is NEVER trust your life to lowering off a single bolt, always have another bolt clipped as a backup, even if it is 10 feet lower. Climb up to the highest bolt you were able to lead to. Clip one leaver-biner to that bolt, and clip the rope through it. You may now remove the quickdraw you originally had there. Have your belayer lower you to the 2nd highest bolt. Same sequence there, clip the leaver-biner first and clip in the rope, and then remove the quickdraw there. Then get lowered the rest of the way to the ground, collecting any other quickdraws. This way, if any bolt fails at any time, the worst-case-scenario is that you suddenly fall twice the distance there was between those top two bolts. That's certainly not ideal, but it's definitely better than a guaranteed ground-fall if the top bolt fails. Using carabiners to bail is polite to other users of the crag, since someone else is going to have to remove them later. Using webbing or quicklinks in place of leaver-biners is not kind to the next person who has to pull that same crux move, but first has to remove your trash from the bolt.
Top picture: The route "Ride 'Em Cowboy" at Vantage, 11/28/2014