Inaugurating the rope

Successfully inaugurated the new rope today, mostly doing easy stuff to practice our technique. Although there were no mishaps, there was a certain amount of roughness in the early routes which smoothed out as we started to get into the swing of things — mostly just a question of getting a feel for when the other person was going to clip.

Once we were done I realised my plan of leaving the rope in the tarp and sorting it later was dumb, so we persuaded Joe, the work experience guy who'd sat in on our course, to teach us how to coil it properly. He showed us a way that involved flipping it over his head and left us with a neatly tied bundle that slipped into the bag with room to spare for the of my bits and pieces. I'm so going to put in a good word for him when I next see the sensei...