What the heck is lead climbing?

Whether you consider yourself a die-hard boulderer, top-rope lover or fall anywhere on the spectrum between the two, you may have found yourself curious about the hype around lead climbing.

If you frequent a full-service climbing gym with roped walls and boulder walls, you may have noticed hanging carabiners on some of the roped walls at various heights. These are called quick draws and are attached to the wall with a bolt and dog bone (a flat piece of tightly woven fabric often coated in a plastic sheath). Each of these quickdraws will become an anchor point for a lead climber. More on that in a minute.

Let's briefly summarize and establish the fundamental difference between lead climbing and top rope. In a climbing gym, ropes are often fixed in place and hung down from the tops of the walls for use by the climbers. These anchored systems are 'top-ropes' because the rope is on a fixed anchor at the top of the route (climb). Lead climbing consists of the climber leading the climb and establishing anchor points by clipping into each quick draw.

When you climb the top rope, assuming you have a well-trained belayer, you will never fall more than a few inches. Your anchor is always above you and limits the slack or excess rope. As described, the climber clips the rope into successive anchor points when lead climbing. But that also means they must climb between anchors, adding slack in the rope system. Thus, if they fall when the last secured clip is below their feet, they will fall below the previously attached clip, equivalent to the length of rope extended above it. Generally, these mechanics are why lead falls are more significant than top-rope falls. However, a properly trained lead belayer and properly secured gear will ensure the climber's safety even with a more considerable fall.

At this point, you may still ask why people lead instead of always top-roping. Both are easy to do in a gym setting as the gym has already set up top-rope anchors with ropes and quickdraws on walls suitable for lead climbing. However, if you are looking to take your climbing outdoors, it can be more time-consuming to set up a top rope without the ability to lead the climb. Strictly top-topping outdoors means you need to be able to find and establish a secure anchor at the cliff top before descending or repelling to the base. If you lead climb, you can go directly to the bottom of the climb and start climbing because you will have your quickdraws (aka anchors) and the rope attached to you, and you put a small anchor (one quick draw clipped into a bolt and the rope clipped into the other end) in at every bolt along the climb.

Another advantage to lead climbing is the ability to project overhung routes. Due to the fixed anchor on a top-rope climb, a fall on the top rope will pull you away from the wall when it's overhung as the anchor extends out from the rest of the route. This makes swinging back onto the wall to try the moves again tiring. It also does not allow you to rest fully because once you reach the wall, you must hold on to it, or you will swing out again. On lead, even if you fall far, you can use a technique called 'boinking' to reach your last fixed anchor point (the last quickdraw you clipped into). Once close enough to that draw, you can clip directly into that anchor via a backup quickdraw and your harness' belay loop. This position is called 'going indirect' and means you are indirectly secured to the wall and are no longer weighting the rope. You can rest here as long as needed, and your belayer can go off-belay until you are ready to resume climbing. Resting between moves on challenging climbs is beneficial to projecting a route and pushing grades.

At the end of the day, lead climbing is another form of roped climbing. Some may refer to it as advanced top roping, and while it does require a different skill set than top-roping, it isn't the only means to climb more complex routes. Many gyms have challenging routes set on top-rope stations, and any vertical or slab climb outdoors has the potential to top-rope if there's a solid, fixed anchor point. As always, climbing is a sport built on challenge by choice, so feel free to explore the world of lead climbing if it piques your curiosity or keeps crushing top-rope climbing and bouldering.

Let us know if you have any outstanding questions about lead climbing! We'd love to hear from you!