The Orange Hat

Today [Yesterday] I went climbing with a group of newbie’s, which was great. It truly was a learning experience for everybody. For them, because they needed to climb more, re-learn belaying, and figure out a few knots. For me, because I realized I push new climbers too quickly and didn’t cover enough material and go over the plan sufficiently.

I truly was the “instructor” in this situation, the youngest person on the wall, I was joined by Bravesh, Samira, and Sammuel, who had all climbed once before at the [Mountain Club of Kenya] Beginner climb. I didn’t have rope, so I called Steven who is still on crutches from a previous climbing accident, and he allowed me to borrow his pro and rope.

We four headed out to Lukenya, down off the Athi River on Mombasa road. They had only climbed single pitch( 15m-20m) top ropes before, and I wanted to take them to Upper wall, like I had done the previous four times with my other climbing partners, and spend the day 30m off the deck, overlooking the mountains of Kenya and Tanzania, while climbing. The problem with the upper wall spot I was looking at climbing, was that the approach climb is about 30m, and isn’t an easy rope throw (it’s a safe ledge), and after I got one climber up, I realized that it was nigh impossible to get the rope down to the other two, and they were kinda scared of heights, at this point.

I rushed, and I learned from it. I also realized that I was in the process of teaching new climbers, which brought me to thinking about all the skills, I knew, and they didn’t and how long it had taken me to aquire them, where they had just started climbing.

I agree with the ideoglogy that you learn the most effectively while doing, but there is a degree of book work that can be done on one’s own without a climbing partner there for every step (mostly knots, but we’ll see)- so I came up (and am working on) a list of essential skills for climbing, These took me four years to learn, and some I still feel uncomfortable performing.

This list is for them, to become knowledgable about climbing as quicly as possible, but like I said: you woun’t know until you’ve done it.

Keep climbing, The path only grows.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Climbing Checklist

Essential skills:

- Knots:
o Double Figure 8
• Follow through
• Flemish bend
• On a Bite
• A bite is when you pinch the rope anywhere but the end so it looks like a “U” or an “n,” some knots cannot be tied with out the end of the rope, but the eight can be.
o Gurth hitch
o Clove hitch
o Munter
• Munter Mule
• Bely
• Rappel
o Double fishermen’s
o Water knot
o Prussic
o Climb-hist
o Alpine butterfly

- Gear Check
o Harness
• Double back
• Adjusted
o Belay device
• Possession ?
• Locked carabineer
o Gear Wear


- Belay
o Bottom
• Climbing commands
• Climbing initialization
o Climber: “On Belay?”
• Belayer checks their gear
o Belayer: “Belay on”
o Climber: “Climbing”
o Belayer “Climb on”
• Rope Commands
o Take
o Slack
o Safe
• Technique
• Slip slap and slide system
• BUS system
o Brake
o Up
o Slide
• Brake Hand
• Taking up rope
o Top
• Commands:
• Safe
o Off belay
• Ok
• That’s me
• On Belay
• Alternative positioning
• Rope management
o Hanging
• Rope Management
• Moving your legs
•

- Rope
o Flake
o Coil
• Single
• Double
o Backpack
o Care and Wear

- Rappelling
o With bolts
o Without boats
o Tree
o Webbing
o Leaving gear

- Anchoring
o Setting up a top rope anchor
• With bolts
• Without bolts
o Setting up a lead anchor

Now to format all of this so Blogger can read :\