Lead Belaying
Belaying a lead climber is virtually essential to expand your climbing beyond basic top-roping. Evan more so than belaying a top-rope, lead belaying puts the climbers health and safety into your hands.
The basic goal of lead belaying is to give sufficient rope to not short rope the leader whilst avoiding excessive amounts of slack.
(1) Find the climb Using the available information (guides, verbal beta, initials) ensure you’ve located the correct climb.
Tip: If unsure check the description of the protection/features of the climb and its neighbours.
Discuss whether it’s a top-out or lower-off and precisely what is going to take place (eg. Leader redpoints, gets lowered then second cleans and raps off) before anyone starts climbing.
(2) Decide on a belay stance
Look at the area around the base of the climb and assess the best stance based on a safe stable stance with adequate room close to the cliff. It may be necessary to safety yourself to the cliff, a tree or similar.
Tip: In a fall you’ll be pulled towards the first protection, don’t stand too far away!!
(3) Rope and gear Once you’ve chosen your stance, lay out the groundsheet and flake out the rope. To do this tie one end onto the rope bag and progressively drop each loop of rope onto the piece proceeding it until you reach the other end, into which your leader will tie.
Tip: The flaking ensures the rope will feed cleanly. Tying the rope onto the rope bag ensures that you can’t lower your leader off the end of the rope.
Hopefully while you’ve been doing this your leader has sorted himself out with the gear necessary to complete the climb. Inspect your leader to ensure he/she hasn’t overlooked anything (eg. Enough draws, bolt plates, trad gear).
The leader can then tie into the end of the rope, check their tie-in and harness/helmet then measure out enough rope such that they can reach and clip the first protection with some slack to spare (perhaps 0.5m). Err on the side of extra rope as it is better to take in extra rope once they’ve clipped than to short-rope the leader.
Once you are sorted and comfortable perform a quick check (belay device, helmet) and let your leader know they can climb when ready.
(4) Climbing The leader should make a “climbing” call when they begin climbing. From then until they have clipped the first piece of pro your task is to spot. Take a good solid stance (knees bent, feet a shoulder width apart, arms up, elbows bent) and be prepared to catch the leader if they fall. Depending on the height this could be as simple as stopping their backward motion as they step back onto the ground.
Your main focus is to reduce the likelihood of head and spinal injuries. So focus on the leaders shoulders/neck/head.
Once your leader has clipped their first piece of pro and calls “clipped” you then enter belay mode, take in any excess slack and lock off and call “on belay”. From this point until your leader is secure you must stay on belay, always keeping one hand securely on the brake side of the rope.
The basic actions of lead belaying are the same as belaying for a top-roper, the most obvious difference is that you’ll spend most of your time feed-out rather than taking-in rope. You should aim to maintain adequate slack to avoid short-roping your leader whilst minimising excess slack which would extend the leaders fall.
When the leader reaches their next (and subsequent) piece of pro they should (but might not) call “clipping” and will pull up an armful of rope to clip the draw. You’ll need to rapidly feed out sufficient extra rope for this. Depending on their height relative to the pro and armspan this amount might vary from nothing to three large armfuls of rope, but around two armfuls is perhaps typical.
Keep the chain of communication with the leader open where practical, the odd call of support lets them know you are paying attention. Let them know if they need to flick the rope over an edge. Suggest extending a particular piece of pro where appropriate but be sensitive to the face that they might not be in a nice place psychologically while on lead. Let the leader know if their leg is behind they rope, again sensitively.
Depending on the climb the leader will either secure themselves at the top or clip an anchor and be lowered back to the ground as you will have discussed before starting, once you have clearly and unambiguously heard them call “SECURE” you can go off belay and call as such.