Kids on 3000' of Rock Climbing: Some Less-Discussed Things I Shared with New Multi-Pitch Climbers

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Rope Management. Transitions when swapping leads. Transitions when leading blocks. When you need a multi-directional anchor. Self-rescue techniques.

Multi-pitch climbing is a different animal. You are entering a truly vertical environment when you must have proficient technical skills to either go up or go down. There is no faking it.

And there are lots of videos and instruction on the topic. It is also a highly complex environment, and there are very few easy “always do this” answers. A lot of becoming a multi-pitch climber is about doing multi-pitch climbs with other climbers who have learned the trade. And then, as you go, you get into discussions about why this and why that… how to do this and how to do that.

I guess you better choose your mentor well; they have to know what they’re doing.

But with some new climbers - especially kids - we often are just getting them up into the vertical world so that they can experience it. We aren’t yet asking them to be true partners in the endeavor because some of the elements are too nuanced or too physically difficult. When we do that, it certainly puts a lot of pressure on the seasoned climber. That’s part of why I took the kids out separately and with two other adults as a three person team.

But with a three person rope team, other complications creep in: multiple ropes, communication challenges, and the like.

That being said, I think the benefits of taking a person up on his or her first multi-pitch climb as a team of three has some real benefits: not the least of which is to balance out the experience gap.

What I did notice as I climbed with my kids, though, was some of the stuff I forgot to tell them… some of the stuff I took for granted. So, this video is really about that. It’s about how when we become pretty experienced, it can be hard to truly put ourselves in the shoes of someone brand new. So, here are seven things that struck me after doing two climbs, each 1500 vertical feet, with two kids: it’s the stuff I had to tell them after I witnessed it, because I forgot to mention it before we headed up. It’s the stuff that doesn’t matter as much on single-pitches (where my kids had done all of their climbing up until then) because you don’t run into the circumstances as much.

I didn’t need to teach them how to build anchors, or about the subtleties of off-the-harness- versus off-the-anchor belays. I didn’t need them to put an belay plate into guide mode. What I did need them to do is take care of themselves and the ropes in front of them in a way they never had needed to do on single-pitch climbs.