Belaying a Rock Climber: Part 1

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Bill with Zoar Outdoor on behalf of expertvillage.com. We're here today at Chapel Ledges in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Trustees of the Reservations Property and in this series I'm going to be talking about preparing to climb. I'm going to talk about belaying with a traditional ATC type device in a sociable belay top rope situation. So, I'm at the bottom of the cliff belaying your climber who is starting at the bottom of the cliff climbing up and lowering back down. So, down here first step is I might want to have a ground anchor. This helps to make sure that if the climber is heavier than me I don't get pulled up the cliff. It also just gives me a little reassurance that I'm not going to get moved around. Then, I need my belayed device set up, the ATC device that I mentioned earlier has to bite through. Put the bite in the keeper loop into your harness carabiner clipped into your belay loop, lock that up, check it and there we go. Belay technique is one of the most important things a beginner will learn. Why? Well, it keeps the climber safe, do it right the climber is safe climbing up and coming down, everybody is happy. Do it wrong and you can have a problem. So, learn it, remember it, do it well. Here's the end of the rope going up to the anchor point, as my climber moves up this is going to come down. I want that rope to move through the belay device. Now, the belay device stops the fall when the rope is bent around it and causing a lot of friction. So here is where I want to be a lot of the time, so as I bring the rope in, I'm going to move this over into what's called break position. Then, I need to get back to the beginning. I'm going to bring this hand over here to help, back to the beginning. So the rope comes in, I split them, help out over here, bring it back to the beginning. You'll see other techniques, this is a good one to start with. Some people will belay parallel up here. This works as long as you remember not to grab here and have to jump over and you know that you need to get to here if the climber falls, so given all that distance. For beginners start out here this way you spend a lot of time in break position and your climber is safe. This hand is the break hand that never leaves the rope in this technique and that's a key feature of any belay technique. So, the break hand never leaves the rope. That's basic belaying with a traditional ATC type belay device. "