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.
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