How to Lead While Rock Climbing

Video Transcript

"So Dave's got me all set up to belay here. What we're going to show you here is lead climbing. This is kind of advanced, so before you do this you're going to want to get more personal instruction -- probably. But just so you know what you're looking at when you go out to the crag and see other people doing it, that?s what this is. So when you're leading, you're going up, this is called sport climbing because there's already bolts in the rock -- you're going to clip in your carabiner, your quick drop to the bolt, and then bring your rope up and clip it into the bottom of the draw and now you're ready to go. So, pretend the rock is here, you want the rope led so that as you go up it pulls cleanly through the carabiner to you. As opposed to clipping it this way if the rock's over here now you've got it all twisted. That can be dangerous because the rope can slide down and un-clip itself. That'll be more clear when I clip it. Now I'm just going to climb up and show you what the basic process is. So, am I belayed? Belay on. Climbing? Climb away. All right, so I start out the climb. Until I get to the first bolt, there's not protection for me, so you want to make sure you don't fall before you get there. All right, now I'm at the first bolt. So I'm going to take the quick draw off of my gear loop, clip it into the bolt, and then pull up the rope. I'm going to say "clipping", Dave's going to give me some slack, and then I can lead it cleanly through the bolt so that running through the top goes to me, bottom goes to Dave. Now if I fall I'm caught on the draw, and I'm safe. Dave can just catch me like that. As I go up, I'm going to get to be above the bolt. And then I?m going to fall twice the distance of myself to the bolt, so I'm going to fall to the bolt then past it however far I was above it."