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So yesterday we dragged a rope and belay devices along to the climbing gym with the thought of getting lead certified.

The single biggest difference between toprope climbs and lead climbing in the gym is having to stop and clip all the quickdraws. The other difference is that all the lead climbs are overhung to one degree or another, as the gym doesn’t want people peeling  off and hitting hand and footholds all the way down – ouch!

Plan A – warm up, climb hard bouldering routes until too tired to continue, then “rest” for a while by taking the lead test.

We signed the death and dismemberment agreements, got roped up, did safety checks and off I went. To pass the test:

• demonstrate all safety checks
• clip all quickdraws (except the first, which can be at any height) between shoulders and knees.
• no back clipping
• after the fourth quickdraw, climb until it’s at your knees – then take a fall without letting the belayer know
• finish the climb, clip into the anchors and get lowered

There’s other stuff, but those are the big bullets.

I was leading and Carol was belaying. Since she  weighs considerably less than I do, the  quickdraws offer little friction and I was going to take a much bigger fall than I would on toprope, she  clipped into the 70 lb belay melon.

I climbed up past the fourth quickdraw, took a few deep breaths and – let go. Man, I fell forever, it seemed. Turns out that I yanked Carol and the melon clear of the ground and she swung over and hit the wall – but she held onto the belay. There’s a happy thing. I remounted and tried to finish the climb but was too tired, so we switched roles and Carol started climbing.

She made good progress, clipped everything correctly, but then was too tired to get over the biggest overhang, so she came down and, after some coaching and corrections from the instructors, we switched roles again.

This time, everything went right; I finished the climb and lowered.

I have to say letting go of the rock and taking the lead fall was the scariest thing I’ve ever done at the gym. I’ve never taken a lead fall outdoors, so those were my first. Let’s just say after those, I’m even more inclined not to take a lead fall outdoors.

We got our new cards; Carol got lead belay certified and will need to retake the lead climb when she’s fresh.

We’ll have to spend more time lead climbing at the gym, as this last month when we went outdoors, I quickly discovered I was not too efficient  at clipping, having not practiced it for several months…