Z-Clipping

I've been throwing myself out there to get more lead experience lately. My eagerness might be confusing a few of my single male climbing friends... But, a climbing girl's gotta do what she's gotta do. I need experience. I'll gladly fess up to my intentions if asked (and I have been). But, really -- is it so tragic that I want to spend time with you because you can lead?

The only way I'm going to excel at leading is actual lead experience. Nothing can replicate the mental state that you're in when you know that you're tied into the sharp end of the rope. It's such a mental game. I love it. I only have one female climbing friend right now who's lead certified & she's not as eager as I am to rack up the clip-ins and big falls at the gym. I'm currently at over 30 clip-ins & 3 big falls. (Yeah... total newbie to be counting my clip-ins & falls.) She really enjoys climbing outside & needs to be in the right mental state to lead - especially indoors.

This past weekend, I managed to convince her to come to the gym with me - along with a couple of our male climbing friends. She really wasn't feeling it, but guilt between climbing partners can run pretty deep. I only got 2 leads in before she left, but managed to learn first hand an invaluable lesson in lead climbing -- what Z-Clipping is.

The first time I had heard this term was right before my lead test when my tester declared that there was "No Back Clipping or Z-Clipping". I had enough experience to know what Back Clipping was, but had to ask what Z-Clipping was. He explained it & I understood it, but without first hand experience it really didn't completely register with me.

This past weekend on my second lead climb, I was climbing a 5.8- route and had just clipped in to my second quick draw when my partner yelled up to me that I was Back Clipped. I examined my situation and yelled back that I wasn't and was going to continue climbing. She insisted that I was Back Clipped and yelled over to one of our male climbing friends to come check me out. I stood still and awaited his assessment. He calmly asked me to unclip my second clip & re-clip it. I wasn't Back Clipped. However, I was indeed Z-Clipped.

Three huge lessons learned on this day... #1) what it actually looks like when you're Z-Clipped - from the climber's view, #2) always trust your belayer & #3) never doubt your belayer.

Quantity never equals quality. Although I may have only got 2 leads in this weekend, they might have been the most educational leads of my climbing "career". I thank not only my lead belayer, but my male climbing friend for identifying my mistake & calmly correcting it. Good climbing friends are hard to find. I'm grateful everyday for the friends that I have made & their genuine care for my well being. Z-Clipping... Just say no. :)

I Can Pee Like a Man

Prior to rock climbing, I'd never been as jealous of man's ability to discreetly relieve himself while enjoying nature. I think my envy really settled in last year on my first climb trip...

It was Memorial Day Weekend & I had signed up with 2 of my best climbing girlfriends for a fun weekend of instructional climbing in Acadia National Park, ME. We rented the "penthouse suite" of a bed & breakfast, so clearly we weren't planning on roughing it too much that weekend. We had comfy beds, a gourmet breakfast & a cute park-ranger-in-training chauffeuring us around and wooing us with crazy-thoughtful gifts. It was pretty much a perfect single girls weekend climb trip. Except for one small detail... how and where to discreetly pee on Otter Cliffs.

Otter Cliffs is an awesome cliff formation right at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in Maine where you can set-up a top anchor and be lowered down just above the waves to climb back up. It's an amazing feeling to hear the waves crashing and echoing off of the rocks as you climb up the cliff. Nature and sport at their extremes and in perfect harmony. I loved every minute of it. Except when I had to go to the bathroom.

Otter Cliffs is missing one critical facility - bathrooms. In order to relieve oneself, you had to walk gingerly and strategically to a part of the cliff that no one was using and quickly do the deed. Even if you thought you were shielded from the tourists and climbers, there were still a lot of boats anchored or trolling in the waters off of the coast that I imagined all had binoculars or telephoto cameras on stand-by just waiting to capture hot climbing chicks peeing. I know, I have an over-active imagination. Maybe... Maybe not?!

Well, I'm now happy to report that there definitely won't be any weird peeing pictures of this climber chick floating around on the internet. I'm now the proud owner of a device sold at REI known as a "Freshette". It's a personal urinary directional device that allows women to pee standing up. I have not given it a test run yet, but plan to bring it with me on an upcoming climb trip to West Virginia.

Essential Climb Trip Gear

Lead Certified!

Recently I've been making some significant progress in my goal to overcome my personal & climbing fears. It feels good. Really good, actually. My latest climbing feat was getting lead certified in a gym. This happened a few days ago. The original plan was to meet my climbing partner at the gym @ 10am on Sunday morning. However, with the time change & moving my apartment the day prior, I managed to get there at 10:30am with the help of 4 Advil.

We picked a gym that has good leading but that I had never been to before. My partner was up late the night before and didn't show up until 11am, but this gave me time to get my waiver completed & get a feel for the gym. Oh, and also enough time for me to fumble my iPhone 5 onto the concrete floor and smash the glass screen. Grr....

Since it was my first visit to this gym, I had to do the standard belay test first. Once that was out of the way, I wanted to go right for the lead test. No warm up, just test me. My partner was hesitant in taking the lead test that day, but she had no choice. If she was going to be my belay, she was also going to have to be tested. She's a better climber than I am, but was actually more nervous.

I climbed first. The tester picked a 5.8 route with 4-5 clips in it, about 30' high. It was a pretty juggy route, but I wasn't expecting my first lead to be a 5.8. I thought I would be able to flash a 5.6 for my certification. My confidence in passing the test was very low at that point. I was sore, hadn't climbed in a week & wasn't warmed up. But, I decided to just go for it. Oh, and there was no yelling "take!", you just had to flash it.

The first clip was pretty high off the ground - maybe 12'? It felt so good to clip into this, and I kept going clipping into #2 and then #3. After #3, my arms and legs began to shake. I thought I was toast. I really wanted to yell "take!", but fought through it and managed to clip into #4, at which point I was told to climb above the clip and then take a fall. This was my first fall. I wasn't nervous letting go & remember feeling like I was falling for what seemed like a pretty good length of time before I finally felt "caught" and bounced my feet off of the wall. It was so much fun & I was so proud of myself. I gave my belayer a big hug & then we switched places.

I started anchoring in and was told not to. My tester wanted to see me handle getting lifted off the ground. Oh boy, I wasn't expecting this as I'm so light I usually get launched in the air pretty quickly, but it was actually fun when you know to expect it. My partner quickly reviewed what "back clipping" meant before proceeding to climb. Her biggest fear was the falling part. She's lead sport climbs outside before, but had not experienced a lead fall yet. And when she fell, she grabbed the rope so tightly that she ended up ripping open a cut on her finger and was gushing blood. I had to untie her from the rope so that she could stop the bleeding and get it taped up.

It was an emotional climb for both of us & we were able to capture the awesome sense of accomplishment we both felt in a great picture. I can't wait to lead some more & get more comfortable with it before the outdoor season starts.