Well, it’s the weekend again, and that means, climbing!!  I’m kinda disappointed that I didn’t head down there early this morning, but I couldn’t find anyone to go with me 🙁  What made it even worse, people were going to Upper Limits today instead of heading down South.  Crazy people.  However, I’m heading down tonight with a 4 other people, so we’ll be climbing hard all tomorrow. 

Now, I’ve been hearing from some of you, Nick, that when I talk about climbing I leave some of you in the dust; especially with some of the terms I use.  Well, this next section is for you!  I’m going to go through some of the terms I’ve been using so there won’t be as much confusion.  If there’s something else you want me to explain better, feel free to shout out in the comments.

Bouldering

Bouldering is the most basic of climbing.  It is when you find a rock, slap on your shoes, and just start climbing on it.  Normally you don’t climb high, instead you traverse (climb horizontally) or do specific routes.  Bouldering is a great way to learn technique and work on endurance.  It is also the most simple form.

Sport

Sport climbing is what I do when I’m climbing vertically.  Sport climbing is based on permantent bolts on the rock or wall.  Now depending on the length of the route, there are around 8 bolts going up the route, and then at the top there are usually 2 bolts at the top of the route so you can create an anchor.  Now, there are two ways to do sport climbing, leading and top roping.

Top roping is where a rope is already on the route, and is run through an anchor at the top of the route.  When you go to a climbing gym, this is what you see.  Both ends of the rope are at the bottom of the route, and the middle of it is at the top.  On one end of the rope is the climber, on the other end is the belayer.  The belayer is the one who prevents the climber from falling by using a belay device.  As you can see from the article, there are many types of belay devices, and since rei did such a good job of going through the different types, I’m not going to 🙂  The climber then climbs to the top of the route and the the belayer takes rope in as the climber climbs higher so the fall isn’t as bad.  Then, once the climber reaches the top the belayer slowly lowers the climber down.  Very easy, and is what beginners do all the time in the gym.

However, if you go outside, there aren’t ropes just hanging on the rock (unless someone was really dumb).  If your party has some beginners in it, you want to setup some top ropes so that they can climb some routes.  Now, climbing a route so you can setup a top rope, is called leading.  With leading, both ends of the rope are again at the bottom and the climber ties into one end, but the belayer ties in right behind the climber.  Now, instead of taking rope in the belayer feeds rope out as the climber climbs.  As the climber climbs, he uses quickdraws and clips one end of the quickdraw (the non-bent gate end) onto the bolt, and the other end onto the rope.  This prevents the climber from taking huge falls by not clipping in at all.  However, falls taken while leading (sometimes called whippers) are always going to be further than if you were top roping, unless your belayer while top roping is doing something wrong.  When the climber reaches the top of the route, he can either create an anchor and setup a top rope, have the belayer lower him down and clean the route (remove the quickdraws) on the way down, or rappell down and clean the route. 

Traditional

Traditional (trad) climbing is our 3rd and final type of climbing.  Trad climbing is similar to lead climbing, however there are no permanent bolts to clip into.  Instead, you essentially put your own bolts in as you climb.  This is done by using active and passive protection.  Active protection is made up of cams, which are active, in that they move mechanically.  And passive protection is made up of nuts and other things that have no mechanical movement.  Basically what you do with active and passive protection, is you wedge and work them into gaps in the rock to create your anchor.  you then clip into the webbing connected to the protection.  I personally haven’t done any trad climbing, nor have I seen anyone do any.  However, I should this weekend, so if there’s anything I’m missing, I’ll update this area. 

I hope that clears things up for you guys, and like I said earlier, if there’s something I haven’t mentioned or talked about that you want more info about, let me know in the comments section.

Damn, talk about a great weekend to go climbing.  This weekend was the “call out” trip for uiuc’s climbing club (damn that’s a hot website).  My friend James and I headed down to Jackson Falls at 5:30AM on Saturday.  It takes around 3.5 hours to get there, so we met up with the people who left on friday or earlier around 9 at the camp site.  Needless to say, they were still eating and getting ready.  James and I were ready to climb, not sit on our asses and wait for people.  We head out in the gorge, looking for easier places to climb for the beginners.  However, since it was already after 9, all the easy routes already had people on them (good thinking there club).  So, we kept hiking until we got to a place called railroad rock.  Our warmup was a 5.10a/b (don’t remember which nor what it was called).  Already this was off to a typical outdoor climbing experience with James, warming up on something that I’d have some trouble with normally.  Plus, this was only my second time outdoors (the other time, was around a year ago and we warmed up on a 5.10a/b called Venom).

We left our only dynamic rope up on the 10a/b and moved around to another face of the rock and James jumped on an 11.  However, we only had a static rope for this climb.  Now, for those of you that don’t know the difference, a dynamic rope has a lot of “play” in it.  Therefore, when you fall, the rope stretches to reduce the instantaneous force.  Now, a static rope is what you normally use in the gym for top roping because you’re not falling as far as when you lead a route.  Now, if you fall on a static rope for any distance, it feels like smacking into pavement; a very short and abrupt stop.  Now, the real kicker is that all the force is directed to your harness which is right around your crotch.  You really don’t want to take a large, or small, whipper (fall while leading) while on a static line.  It hurts both you and your belayer like crazy.  Thankfully James didn’t have a problem with the 11 and setup the static rope for top roping (so others could use it).  I then scrambled and pulled myself up that one after him.

Feeling totally dejected after the 11 (a little bit beyond my ablility), I lead and setup a top rope on a 5.8 for some of the other people.  That definitely helps get your confidence back, eventhough it was a retarded easy climb.  I love big jugs!

Back by the 11, there was a new route that nobody knew what it was.  It had a nasty overhanging bouldering problem as the start.  Think, wedging your leg into a crevasse, hanging upside down, doing the splits and then doing pullups, and you’ve about got the first move.  James wanted to lead it.  However, he couldn’t get passed the 3rd bolt no matter what he tried.  And let me tell you, he tried about everything.  He took probably 10 whippers off that route.  Thank god for the grigri.  So, he came back down, but since he didn’t make it to the top all the gear was still on the bolts, MY brand new gear.  Another guy that we met there gave it a try, but also couldn’t get passed the same spot.  However, he setup this this sling with the rope, so that he could clean all the gear, tie the sling into the bolt, feed the rop through the sling, and then when he pulled the rope through the sling (once he was at the bottom), the sling would slide through the bolt.  I was more than impressed. 

One of the other guys (Nate) saw that there was a biner and a sling up on the anchors at the top though, so he hiked around to the top of the route then rappelled (rapped) down to grab the booty.  While he was up there James told him to setup a top rope.  While Nate was setting up the top rope, I went and lead another 5.8 further down and setup another top rope for others to climb.  When we came back, James jumped on the top rope and climbed it.  I sat around and watched the other scramble thier way up after James.  We then headed back because it was getting dark. 

Yesterday we headed to the other side of the gorge.  Before we setup the first route, one of James’ friends (Bill) showed up.  Apparantly he called James’ wife and found out we were down here.  Warmup was once again a 10 I believe (Cherio bowl).  I should’ve gotten it onsite, but I made a few stupid moves which got me off course.  Bill also wasn’t a fan of his ascent of Cherio Bowl, so we went off and did some 5.8’s by ourselves.  It was much nicer because we didn’t have to wait for anybody, and it was just the two of us.  He lead 2 and I lead 1.  We each cleaned each other’s routes (my first time actually cleaning a route).  We were just finishing up with our last route, when James came around looking for us.  Apparantly everyone else had taken off and left him.  So, we headed back to where Cherio Bowl was and climbed a “5.8,” according to James, called Captain Kangaroo.  I was REALLY pissed that I didn’t onsite that one.  One stupid move, and I had it.  I actually had the damn move, but I couldn’t hold on to it.

All in all, it was a good weekend.  9 routes, 3 leads, 3 cleans.  Hopefully the weather holds out for next weekend, because we’re heading back down!  I just can’t get enough.  It’s so much better than climbing in the gym.

I know you’re all probably sick of reading about my climbing adventures, but, well, tough.

This weekend Colleen and I were going to head down South to Jackson Falls to go climbing with our friend James.  However, for all of you that live around here, you know that our spring monsoon started this week.  Needless to say, it was supposed to rain all weekend, so we decided to cancel it.  I can only imagine how wet the rock would’ve been.  And the campsites were probably flooded by the creek that runs through everything. 

Instead we headed over to Upper Limits.  It was quite a productive day while we were there too.  We left here around 10:30, and didn’t get back till 5:30ish.  Granted it takes 45 mins to get there.  As soon as we were finished warming up, Colleen and I became lead certified.  That took no time at all, since all that’s required is running up a 5.7, and then lead belaying the other person.  After that we moved into the silo’s.  After a quick warmup we started leading.  James and I got in 4 or 5 lead routers, while Colleen got in an additional one on us (so 5 or 6).  Then it was on to a few top rope routes, just because. 

We took a snack break and then headed to the cave.  James decided to try and kill us by getting us to climb on the ceiling the whole way.  Now, I was already tired from everything else that I had done, and this was just icing on the cake.  So, we’re trying all these (impossible) problems while hanging upside down.  Talk about difficult.  Keeping my ass from falling all over is a pain.  I’m really surprised my abs aren’t complaining more today.  It is early though.