Don’t go too big too soon

Soon after my best friend and I started climbing we got the urge to take our talent to the great outdoors.  Before this we had done almost all of our climbing at our local gym or at our neighbor’s house who has a bouldering wall in his garage.  All in all the climbing we were doing was very safe and within our realm of expertise. But as we began to enjoy climbing more and more we decided to go outside.  This in and of itself was not necessarily a bad idea. We felt we had done the necessary research and practice and felt that we were going to be able to do just fine.  We chose a very easy route that was well within our skill level and set off. On this particular day things went off without a hitch. We climbed a very easy 5.6, and that was it.  We never felt unsafe or unprepared; it was a blast to say the least. Well this outing gave use a little too much confidence in the end. After our very successful experience of outdoor climbing we decided to take it to the next level.  We chose a far more advanced route that was high up in Rock Canyon called JawaJam. This route is very beautiful and not very many people know about it because it takes a good hour to hike to. We had been up there with some very good climbers a few weeks earlier and decided to take a crack at it.  I drew the straw to be able to lead the route and it didn’t take long before I realized this was far above my pay grade. But instead of giving up I decided to keep going. As I went up I had a hard time figuring out where the bolt was and ended up clipping some bolts that weren’t on my line creating a lot of rope drag.  This makes things very difficult and can make things dangerous as well. Thankfully I was able to make it up the climb with out any falls and make the anchor. My friend then had to top rope the climb to clean the anchor. He got up with little to no trouble, but he didn’t have much experience cleaning anchors and things got a little hairy in this department.  As he was untying the rope to then feed through the chains (after securing himself with a PAS of course) he didn’t tie it to his harness, the rope slipped out of his hands and he barely caught it with his feet. If the rope had fallen he would have been stuck up there with no way to get down, and I wouldn’t be able to climb the rope back up unless I was able to get someone to help me belay.  It would have been very bad. We learned a good lesson that day. Never try to do things before you are expert at them. Practice tying knots and feeding the rope before you’re up on cliff 115ft. Remember it’s true what they say, you only live once, don’t waste it away by not preparing.