sawyl | A new climbing partner (Reply)

Successfully got A signed off as safe to climb and belay today. I was reasonably sure she was safe and that everything I'd taught her was OK, but it was still a little nerve-wracking. Fortunately, although Chef Paul caught suggested a couple of tweaks, she passed with flying colours. It made me realise just how good the instructors are and how, as Paul says, it's the little details that make the difference and you can often tell, especially with lead climbing, the people who've been taught by a pro and the people who've learnt from their mates.

With us both able to climb, we warmed up on some of the easy routes and I got to storm a whole load of the harder, newer top rope routes I hadn't yet had the opportunity to try. Towards the end, A crushed her nemesis route on the auto-belay and I repeated a 6c+ on the autos which featured a particularly fun set of slopers. It wasn't nearly as hard as it'd seemed the first time — maybe I'm getting better or maybe it's just that I remembered to stay low on the very slippery crux move that marks the transition from technical to big and burly.