Today was the first, of what will hopefully be a regular, climbing practice meet-up. We me up at Marymoore parks’s climbing wall to go over “the basics”, but we all played it by ear as to what that was going to mean.
Everyone there had some trad-clibing lead exposure – and would like to climb together in the future – so we started with anchor review. We went over how we would set up anchors, equalize them, and then reviewed belaying. It was really interesting and I learned a fair bit.
I had mostly climbed in larger slower parties when you are 3+ people running on 1-2 ropes with gear. Where as the Peterson’s, who are better climbers than I am, mostly have been focusing of fast multi-pitch swings. I’m looing forward to changing over how I set up anchors after seeing their setup. I thought I had taken pictures of the anchors – but apparently I didn’t. As part of reviewing anchors we then went over belay signals and practiced rope tug signals to make sure we were all on the same page for when we climbed together.
None us had belayed two climbers up at the same time before. So we went over that next. Then Conrad climbed up one of the walls and belayed us up onto a ledge there where there are three bolts which scream – set up an anchor on me. Cameron then built an anchor so we could review, again, the dual belay setup.
At this point it was freezing cold so we quickly reviewed rappelling techniques and bailed to go find beer and Cuban food. It was a really fun day, and I think we all have a good idea of each others skills and weaknesses.
The most embarrassing part of the day is I had not thought we would be getting very far off the ground, so I ended up having to climb the wall in running shoes with no sole edge. My feet kept paddling right off the rock, so it took forever and I was making all sorts of old man noises climbing what was at best a 5.6 climb. All the guys were nice and didn’t laugh too much.