How To Pass Your Lead Climbing Test
By: Chase Cottle
Tags: Rock Climbing, Climbing

How To Pass Your Lead Climbing Test

What to remember, understand and know… #CheatSheet

As you progress in climbing and venture outside to lead climb you’ll naturally get better and better and want to do it more often. Then the winter will come and while skiing and snowboarding is great you still have to get your fix of climbing in from time to time. As such you’ll go bouldering inside and maybe get on the ropes, but sooner than later you’ll want to practice lead climbing again even though all your favorite routes outside are covered in snow and ice.

Lucky for all of us climbing gyms are a thing and we can go basically anytime and have fun, but you always have to pass the lead climb/belay test at each new gym you go to, if only there were a national certification you could take and just be good to go anywhere.

Yet that is not the case.

Each new franchise of a gym you have to pass a new lead climb test. And for no reason other than your brain likes to torture you from time to time, you get a little bit anxious, even though you know what you are doing and how to climb well and how to mitigate risk. As such here are a few things to remember as somewhat of a study guide when you are getting tested.

Lead Climbing

These are the standard things you have to remember as you are lead climbing. Intuitively you do these things correctly when you are out climbing for fun, but when you are being tested and watched closely, it’s nice to have a reminder of what they are and how to avoid them.

#1 Back Clipping

Back-clipping is when you’re leading a climb and you incorrectly clip the rope into the bottom carabiner. Instead of your end of the rope coming out of the carabiner AWAY from the rock, your end of the rope comes out of the carabiner going TOWARD the rock.

Why is back-clipping bad? Can you tell by looking at the image above? Well, it’s bad because if you’ve back-clipped a piece and you fall, the rope could unclip itself out from the carabiner. Like this:

In the first diagram above, the lead climber has back-clipped. In the second, the climber has taken a fall. In the third, the force of the lead end of the rope changing directions forces open the gate of the carabiner. In the fourth, the rope has become completely unclipped from the carabiner.

#2 Z-Clipping

Z-clipping is when you clip the rope to your next bolt from below your last piece of pro. This is most common on routes with bolts closely spaced and when the climber grabs blindly below his/her waist for the rope to make the next clip. Instead of gaining a higher point of protection, the climber bypasses the highest clip, creating a false sense of security and giving his/herself extra slack. A fall would send you flying and potentially down to the deck. Luckily, you will know immediately if you are Z-clipped: there will be an immense increase in rope drag as soon as you start climbing, which hopefully doesn’t pull you off the route. To fix the problem, downclimb to the incorrectly clipped quickdraw and unclip it. Re-clip the quickdraw using the rope hanging from the top quickdraw closest to your belayer. Your belayer is now able to take in the slack, and you can continue your climb. Once again, it is important that your belay partner is aware of this hazard and can help you notice it before it is too late.

Also, this one is a bit more concise:

Z-clipping means to clip a quickdraw by grabbing the rope from below your previous clip/protection point, thus not appropriately securing yourself into the upper piece of protection. To avoid this mistake, place your clipping hand on your rope near your tie-in knot, then slide it outward and clip.

Easiest way to fix it, is to just unclip your bottom piece of protection, yes you’ll have one less draw affixed to the wall, but you won’t have an issue with the Z clip. It’s almost never a problem outside, mostly a problem inside when the routes are bolted close together.

#3 Toe Tuck / Leg Behind the Rope

This one is pretty simple, but they alwasy ask about it, slash you should totally be aware of this while you climb.

This happens when you place your toe, foot, or leg behind the rope while you are climbing. Especially when you have already bolted above the current location of your foot. If your foot is on hold between the rope and the wall and it’s bolted above your current location and you took a fall, it’s highly likely that your foot would get caught causing you to slam into the wall or rock face.

So in order to fix that, just step over and around the rope, not behind it, and be aware of your foot to rope relation.

#4 Basic Clipping Technique

I think this is pretty self explanatory, but you should have a good idea of what this is and how to do it depending on how the pitch changes. This is a pretty good video going over the basics:

Lead Belay

This is all the stuff that keeps your buddy safe while he/she is lead climbing. I think there are almost more things to consider and remember while doing this than even lead climbing, you the belayer are sorta the only one keeping the climber from dying, especially if they take a fall

#1 Stand Close to the Wall

Literally yesterday I watched a guy take a 35+ foot fall. There were a lot of issues going on with what they were doing but one of the big ones was the fact that the lead belayer was standing a good 10 feet away from the wall. That’s 10 extra feet of rope that are out as slack that the climber will experience when they fall.

So general rule of thumb is to be 5 feet or less away from the wall. Depending on the pitch you may stand with your back against the wall to watch the climber, or position yourself sideways.

It’s only weird for maybe 4 seconds, then it is good, plus when/if your climber falls, you are not getting rocketed into the wall and upwards, you are just going up a little bit, thus more easily able to mitigate the falling distance.

Ideally, you should be a few feet away from the wall, to the left or right of the first clip. If your climber is to the left of the first clip, stand to the right to avoid being hit by feet or rocks, and to have a better vantage point. If to the right, then stand to the left. You also want to be close to the wall so that as your climber falls, you don’t get pulled hard into the rock and get a faceful of granite. Stand so that the rope makes an angle of 45º or less with the wall when taut. Finally, you should be standing in an athletic, “ready” position, so that if your climber falls, you can either sprint backward to take slack very quickly (for a huge, cratering whipper) or jump upwards to soften the fall. Also, you can walk forward or backward to give or take slack while still locked off. Don’t sit down, lie down, or stand facing in the wrong direction. You could hurt your climber.

#2 Don’t Shortchange your Climber

If you’ve lead before you know what this means. You are precariously perched on a hold with one hand reaching down for rope to clip to protection and then you have to pull and yank on the rope from your belayer.

It’s the worst, you are already in the most dangerous spot as you are the furthest point away from protection, not to mention you are the most likely to fall while clipping when you don’t always have the most points of contact with the wall. So Don’t make it harder on your climber by making them yank on rope from you.

#3 Don’t Give TOO much Slack

Pay close attention to the amount of rope slack. Too little slack impedes progress and can pull a climber off the wall. Too much slack can set the climber up for a long and painful fall. Watch the amount of rope droop coming out of the belay device: If the rope is wire-straight out of the device, you have too little slack. If the rope droops below the device, you have too much slack. Just as you do for a top-rope belay, watch and listen closely to your climber’s progress and commands. When the climber pauses, you pause. When a climber yells “Clipping,” quickly pull rope up to provide slack. Do it faster by stepping forward as you work, but be careful not to lose your footing.

One thing to remember that is helpful, is to take a step forward when they need more slack, and once they’ve clipped you take a step back to adjust the slack.

#4 Spot for the first bolt

They aren’t on belay till they’ve clipped to the first bolt. So make sure you are spotting them as they are getting started.

#5 Don’t forget the safety check

I don’t care how many climbs you’ve done, always check the climbers figure 8 knot and always check that the belayer has the belay device through the right loops and has the carabiner locked with the rope fed through correctly. Just always check before you start climbing.

#6 Watch Your Climber Closely

I always get more nervous on a climb if I see my belayer isn’t paying attention fully. Plus you can’t always know when you are going to fall, so keep an eye on your climber so you can take slack and lessen a fall if it’s coming.

#7 Don’t let go of the slack hand

This is probably one of the most important. You are the only thing stopping a fall if the climber falls. So don’t ever let go of that slack hand. As you feed slack up to the climber or take slack while, make sure you always back up your slack hand so it never leaves the rope.