PART II:? The Climb Few Keypoints for an all day Multi-Pitch Climb
Location: Lopburi, Thailand
The Climb ? Waltz of a lovely Wife (206m, 5c+)
Anchors Away
The Climb
Continuing on with my blog from the last post, let’s talk a bit about the climb itself.? Climbing in Thailand was an amazing spot and great adventure.? Let me discuss a bit about our multi-pitch climb in Lopburi!
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Climbing ? Single Rope or double rope?
How much rope do you need? Sounds like an easy question but at looking at the pitches our 60meter rope was ok for summiting, but for the descent (which I?ll cover in the next blog) we needed an additional rope. So how do we take the second rope up?? We carry it in the pack? We use twin rope method?? (Climbing with two ropes) The twin rope method would have been ideal, but the ropes we had were 9.5mm and 9.8mm.? The combination of both these ropes was going to cause a lot of rope drag and make climbing, an impossible mission for the lead climber.? We ended tying the second rope end into the harness of the second climber. The second person just climbed with the rope following them up the pitch. The big danger in this is stepping on the rope, and the rope getting snagged on a rock or cactus.? We were very lucky, we didn?t have any snags.
The Climb ? change up who leads and who follows
I covered this in my last blog but it is worth noting again.? Lead climbing is exhausting work. Take turns. Make sure to switch up who is the lead climber and who is the second climber. It makes a big difference to get that rest between pitches.
What we both feel is that being the second climber is more intimidating than lead climbing.? As the lead climber, you really focus on the climb. The handholds, the footholds, and to moving upward so that you don?t reach exhaustion at a very critical point.? As the second climber you are on belay, so you tend not to concentrate as much on the climb.
When I was the second climber I was more aware of the elements, the wind the sharpness of the rocks, the amount of exposure, the height I was at while climbing.? This, to me was more intimidating than leading the pitch when you only are focused on the climb.
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