So, I unwittingly left out a key point here, eh? Yeah, this is a bouldering project, which means I'm not on belay. Bouldering is making short, difficult climbs that have technical challenges but stay low enough that it is safe to fall. "Safe," of course, means "not likely to cream you." Sprained ankles (or, I suppose, broken ones) are still a risk, just like if you jumped down from your deck or something.
At the gym, the floor is padded, and we also use "crash mats," so the bouldering line, a line on the wall that marks the highest you may climb without a rope, is about 15 feet off the ground.
Outside, you'd still use a crash mat, but you probably wouldn't--or I wouldn't--boulder quite as high even.
I just asked Flickr for photos tagged with 'bouldering,' and that gives a pretty good idea. (Man, I could look at climber photos all day...)
Makes sense as a bouldering project, then. I've never felt comfortable bouldering with my feet higher on the wall than my head would be when I'm standing on the ground. I'm six feet tall, though, so that would put my head at 12 feet up, and I could almost reach 15 feet with my hand. Is 15 feet the limit for your hands, or your feet?
On walls that are (pretty much) perpendicular to the floor, I usually climb 'till I'm eye-to-eye with the bouldering line. If it's a hard climb, I'll stop when my hands can reach that far. In the cave that Sharon's talking about climbing, your hands reach 15 feet. To make my head get that high requires strength, skill, and bravery that I (and most people, I suspect) do not have.
I'm a deeply unskilled rock climber and thus always impressed by these stories. Keep it up.
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So, I unwittingly left out a key point here, eh? Yeah, this is a bouldering project, which means I'm not on belay. Bouldering is making short, difficult climbs that have technical challenges but stay low enough that it is safe to fall. "Safe," of course, means "not likely to cream you." Sprained ankles (or, I suppose, broken ones) are still a risk, just like if you jumped down from your deck or something.
At the gym, the floor is padded, and we also use "crash mats," so the bouldering line, a line on the wall that marks the highest you may climb without a rope, is about 15 feet off the ground.
Outside, you'd still use a crash mat, but you probably wouldn't--or I wouldn't--boulder quite as high even.
I just asked Flickr for photos tagged with 'bouldering,' and that gives a pretty good idea. (Man, I could look at climber photos all day...)
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