How to Indoor Lead Climb

I have been indoor rock climbing for a little over three years now, and lead climbing for two of those years. For the past year and a half I have been working as a professional youth climbing coach. Lead climbing is not what I teach most of my students, as it is difficult for a lot of people to pick up on and do safely, but I have taught this multiple times in the past.

I have always been a boulder specialist, and I do not really see an end to that coming soon, but I used to be a lot worse with lead climbing. For the first 6-8 months I was completely terrified, and after hard work and understanding the process more in-depth, now Lead climbing is a lot more enjoyable. If you want to get into one of the best parts of big-wall climbing, lead climbing is highly recommended.

In order to lead climb indoors in this day and age you will need a lead belay and climbing certification at the facility you are climbing in. This usually requires you to take a class, or to skip that step you can do a lead certification test, which they usually require you to either prove that you know the terminology before you take it, or you show another gyms lead certification. This opens you up to not having to take the lead class, and only the test, though this may be different at different gyms. You will also need different pieces of gear, which i will describe soon.

DISCLAIMER:

This is an incredibly dangerous activity. This Instructable is not in any way shape or form a replacement for learning with a professional lead climbing teacher, and the gyms lead certification. This learning process is a long one, and please do not read this once and think you know exactly how to not get hurt.

IF YOU DO THIS WRONG:

It is easy to get hurt. In outdoor lead climbing doing either climbing or belaying incorrectly can lead to serious injury or death. Please take this as a reason to go out and learn from a professional, not as permission to risk your life.

Belay device. This can be an ATC, but it is recommended to use an ABD (assisted braking device) such as a GriGri model or NEOX, which are safer than a standard ATC. I personally use a GriGri plus, but a basic GriGri will work as well.

Locking Carabiner. A locking carabiner is required in order to be safe while belaying. this can be either a twist to lock, or autolocking carabiner, but it must have a function that makes it so that the carabiner cannot open.

Climbing harness. I personally use a black diamond Momentum harness, and this is an incredibly safe harness. Try to avoid a rental harness you would find at any gym, as they are usually made for lower-level climbing on low-impact autobelay and top-rope climbing.

Lead climbing quality rope. Most gyms that have a lead climbing wall/area will have rental ropes that you can borrow, which are tailored to the height of the wall that gym uses. in the case that they do not, you will have to bring your own rope, which will have to be long enough to get to the top of the wall, back down to the ground, and still have some slack left on their tallest section of wall to be considered safe.

Partner. Your partner will have to be able to lead belay and lead climb. I would highly recommend building a foundation of trust with this person before even thinking about lead climbing with them. One of the reasons I was so scared of lead climbing for a while was because the person I was learning with was untrustworthy and dropped me incredibly dangerously while learning, and shook my confidence for a year and a half. This process is the longest and most difficult part of acquiring what you need in order to lead climb.

Lead Certification. As mentioned in the introduction you will need a lead certification in the rock gym, and that is a long process if you don't know how to lead climb already.

Climbing Shoes. The quality of these all depend on how difficult of climbs you want to do. if you are just looking at really easy lead climbing, the rental shoes that a gym provides would work just fine. If you are looking to do incredibly difficult and technical routes, personal shoes might be necessary. I personally use Butora Gomis at the moment, but I have also used Scarpa Instinct (women's for slimmer fit) for a long time.

Your harness is what keeps you attached to the rope, and therefore your belayer, their device, and the wall. With this in mind there should be no surprise this is one of the most important steps in order to be safe. In order to wear a harness correctly there are a couple boxes that need to be checked off. First is sizing. You want to find a harness that you can put on with minimal effort, and then sinches down well. after fully tightening everything you should have the waist strap directly above your hip bones, and the legs tightened so that they cannot move up and down freely. Your waist strap should be tight enough that you can stick your flat hand in between you and the strap, but if you turn your hand to a fist, you cannot take it back out at all. Check that the harness is double backed in all strap connections points, and you are good to go! Both the Climber and Belayer need harnesses attached this way.

With your harnesses put on correctly, it is time to attach yourself to the rope, starting with the climber. Start by taking roughly 4 feet of rope from one end, then creating a bite. Then wrap the end of the rope around the bite as shown, then stabbing through the bite away from you. This creates a figure-eight knot. Then, take the short end and put it into the two "hard-points" which are the connection that holds the belay loop to the harness. then, trace back through your knot with the end of the rope until you get a double-figure-eight knot that goes through your harness as shown. Then, to attach the belayer to the rope we need to grab the rope around eight feet from the climbers knot, and at that point we will put the rope into the belay device. Then you must attach and lock the carabiner to the belay loop, and you are set up!

The best way to do a cross check is to follow the steps of H.A.R.A.H.

Harness

1. Start with the belayer, always. Check the belayers harness by first looking at their waist strap, and making sure that it is tightened correctly as mentioned above. Then check the leg straps, and make sure they are tightened fully. Final step is making sure the harness straps are all double backed. As mentioned before most modern harnesses are already set correctly.

Attachment

1. Check the belay device and carabiner. Make sure the device is connected to the carabiner correctly, and the carabiner is locked and attached to the belay loop of the harness. The orientation of the rope should be the climbers end on top, and brake end on the bottom. This Instructable will not go over belaying, because that is the most important safety feature and should be taught by a professional in a controlled setting.

Rope

1. After the belayer's equipment and harness are checked, now we will trace the rope. When you set up you flake the rope, so look at the belay device, and make sure the end that is on the bottom of the belay device is going towards the ground, and should be going into a pile of rope without knots (if you coiled correctly). The other end of the rope should come out the top of the belay device and attach to the climber. The top is called the "climbers end", and the other side/end is called the "brake end" so if I refer to these now you know what they mean.

Attachment

1. After checking the belayer's harness and attachment, as well as the rope, it is time to go to the climber, starting with the attachment point. Check the double figure eight knot, making sure that it is well-dressed and tight, with little to no give in the knot. the rope should go through both hard points of the harness, which are the attachment points of the harness and belay loop. There should be 6-8 inches of tail in the rope after you tie the knot to have room for give when the climber falls. This is the equivalent to having two fist lengths of rope after the top of the knot.

Harness

1. Finally we check the climbers harness. This process is identical to checking the harness of the belayer. We first check the fit of the waist strap, then check the tightness of the leg straps. Finally, check that you are double-backed.

This is the end of the H.A.R.A.H Cross-Check, so now you need to do the commands. These differ based on which gym you are in, but the standard is the 3-2-1 callout. This has a 3-syllable phrase, followed by 2, then 1. This is for ease of communication when you can't hear the actual words, but can understand the timing.

These communications go: On-be-lay (belayer), Climb-ing (climber), Climb (belayer)

A lot of people replace Climb at the end with Climb-On, but the 3-2-1 is more consistent and understandable.

Now comes the moment you have been preparing for, and where the risk aspect starts. The first step is getting on the wall. Once you are there, you will climb up until you reach the first quick-draw. This is a device that is a simple carabiner attached to a flexible plastic length which is then attached to a bolt in the wall. These are graded to hold over a cars worth of force, and is what you are trusting your safety to. However, there is correct ways to clip these draws, and stay safe. When clipping, you need to grab the rope starting from your knot, and pulling out enough slack to get the rope into the clip. If too much slack is pulled out it can cause unnecessary risk, and short-roping from the belayer. you should be clipping while the quick-draw is leveled somewhere between your head and hips, to make the clip as smooth as possible. If you grab from below the previous clip you create what is called a Z-Clip, which is incredibly dangerous and can lead to very rough and destructive falls. After clipping the rope should be in the direction showed in one of the photos, with the end of the rope that leads to you coming out of the clip, and the end leading back to the belayer should be running close to the wall. If the rope does not end up like this, it is called a back-clip, and can lead to when you fall, your fall could unclip the quick-draw, and the safety that quickdraw provides is completely nullified. You will repeat this step as many times as you have clips along your climb. At my home gym, the Alaska Rock Gym, we usually have 6 clips until the anchor, but on the large lead wall we have anywhere from 7-9 clips, depending on the route.

At my gym our anchors are the Petzl EasytopWall Anchors, but I have climbed in gyms whose anchors are either just another clip attached to a heavier bolt, or a double0carabiner system. In any situation you will start the clipping process like a standard quick-draw, by grabbing the rope at the knot, and pulling out enough clack to clip the anchor. Using one strand of rope you will clip yourself in in whichever direction feels pest at that moment, and you are done with the climbing!

After the climber finishes a route, the next process is yet again communication. You start with the command "Take" which tells your belayer to take in all of the slack in the system and put enough tension on the rope that you ill not fall when you let go of the wall. After this is doe the belayer will usually respond with a "Got You" or "Safe" and then you will let go of the wall. Then as the climber you will say "Lower!" which tells the belayer to start feeding out slack to lower you safely and controlled to the ground.

Yet again, I am not going over proper Belay technique, so don't do this off of pure instinct, please get coaching and teaching!

Yay! You finished the route! If you didn't make it to the top, that is A-Okay, lead-climbing is a process, and takes a long time to learn and get used to, so don't be afraid to be a beginner. Start easy and progress safely. Once you are done climbing untie the climber from the rope, detach the belayer, and pull the rope off of the wall. Coil your rope, clean up anything you left near the climb, and either rest and go home, or get on your next route!

Congratulations!