Learning to Take the Lead

The next step of my climbing evolution has begun. 

i.e. I  successfully lead a sport route today. 

What's left of the old railroad by entrance

Now, before you start judging, I have never lead climbed anything before in my life and so that, in and of itself, is an accomplishment.  We [David, Brandon, Nicky, Alex, and myself] decided to hit up Safe Harbor, which is a beautiful trail that was converted from the old railroad that runs above the Susquehanna River, outside of Conestoga, Pa. 

The day was to consist of hitting the rocks early and enjoying some climbing; they were going to lead sport and I was going to TR (top rope) it. I had mentioned that I was nervous because I had never sport climbed before and I was going to be the only girl, noobie climber, but Brandon and Dave assured me that I would be fine.  In fact, Dave was still pretty new to the whole thing too, so it actually went really well. 

I was only able to lead climb one route, it was a 5.7 I believe, but I got the chance to run up it twice. It is a funny story actually. So we get to this sport climb and we have TR a 5.9 and Dave tried leading another route before that one and we were looking to get an easy lead. We decide that I should go first and, after a quick lesson on how not to back clip myself, I'm off. 

Lead climbing is actually really easy. The worse part is getting over the mind game of the rope not being in front of you. My biggest problem with lead is that I am not used/ don't like the weight that sits right below my waist because of the rope. So I was doing amazing and it looked like I was going to on-sight (complete a route with no beta the first time) the route, but then one bolt from the finish I realized that I didn't have enough gear to get to the top. I had one quickdraw left and I would need three to finish safely. 

This was a mega bummer, but I came down and let Dave finish the route and clean it up so that I could run up again... with more gear. So I missed the on-sight opportunity, but I was able to grab a flash and also some valuable beta on lead belaying. 

Dave and Alex "racing"

For everyone learning to lead climb, be aware that it is actually easier to climb than to belay a lead. At least in my opinion. 

Favorite photo of the day :)

Sadly, because I was climbing, all the shots of my first lead are on Brandon's iPod or Dave's camera so as soon as I see them I will try to put them up. Until then you can check out my awesome shot of Nicky on a 10.b (? maybe 10.a?)

Bottom line-- don't be afraid to try lead climbs, they aren't that bad. Just shut up, nut up, and go love some rocks.