BIG CLIMBER, LITTLE CLIMBER

Climber and belayer or rat on a trapeze.

When a lighter climber belays a heavier climber, how do you manage it? Disclaimer: this is not climbing advice, seek that from a qualified professional. This is personal experience.

I’m a lighter climber (60kg), comfortable belaying much bigger climbers outdoors (80, 90kg), but we are usually careful that the climber doesn’t fall on the lower parts of the climb, or that I’m not under them if they fall. I have caught low falls and kept the climber off the ground, so it can work.

When the climber is high, it’s not uncommon for me to ascend two or three metres catching a fall, which provides a nice soft catch. I enjoy it.

Climbing indoors seems to create a greater risk of climber-belayer collision, as happened to us yesterday. My climber wasn’t that much bigger than me (75kg?), and she had five draws clipped, was quite high, but we still collided, very gently. Her butt on the back of my head.

I had seen the possible impact coming so curled right up, and probably also had my arm over my head. Thank you, ancient shorinji kempo training.

Larger falls seem to happen indoors due to indoor walls having less friction than natural rock. The wall we were on was vertical, so not much friction.

After our gentle collision we started using an Ohm on the first draw. It made a slightly harder catch for the climber, but felt a lot gentler for me as the belayer, as it takes about 20kg out of the force equation.

It was an awesome climbing day of projecting, scream-falls, hot chips, mochas and toasties. Climbing is so fun! Managing risk is a part of that fun.