Crag X will have lead climbing again once we move into our new facility. It's something we were sad to have to discontinue when John Street got too busy. Lead Climbing is back and we're providing the GRIGRI and the rope free of charge when you climb with us. You provide the solid skills. We know you have questions about how it's going to work that we will be answering here on our blog as we get closer to opening.
The Lead Test
Our lead test is $10. We don't charge members or climbers who took a lead lesson with us. We are expecting climbers to be highly proficient in the skills of lead climbing and belaying. Our test will be taken on a 5.10a route.
To lead climb at Crag X you must be able to:
Give out and take in slack with a GRIGRI
Confidently clip left and right handed.
Recognize and avoid Z-Clips and Back Clips (Skipping a bolt is an automatic fail)
Know how to fall, and maintain a good position to fall
As a belayer, understand the importance of body position, fall forces and preparing for and catching a fall
Unlike our top-rope belay test, where we will help you adapt your hand-sequence to the Gri-Gri, for the lead test we expect you to be proficient with the Gri-Gri before challenging the test. So, start having your partner down climb routes to get used to letting out slack correctly. We can even lend you a Gri-Gri to practice (without a climber) yarding out rope quickly. Of course, you can also learn with us and take a lead course and learn the ins and outs of Gri-Gri use in the gym. It's not hard, it just takes some practice. See our post Belaying with a GRIGRI earlier this month for more info on the mechanics of belaying.
We will be pre-booking the lead tests, [*2017 UPDATE: Turns out this didn’t work well, we now do them without pre-booking - ask at he desk and we will test you] and you'll have to find a partner to take the test with you. For all our long-time friends and members, we will be running some mega-test sessions to get as many of you up and running as possible during our opening months.