Welcome to the second part of learning how to belay. In this part we will talk about capturing the rope through your belay device as your rock climbing partner climbs.  Remember that we are talking about belaying a top rope rock climb with a slot style device, and that you need to do all of your safety checks first.

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Basic Position

The basic position that the belayer should take is with one hand above the belay device, on the rope leading to the climber, and another on the trailing rope that has already run through the belay device. Your feet should be about a shoulder width apart, with one foot back for balance, and your knees slightly bent.

The Break Hand

The goal of belaying is to minimize the amount of time that you have your hand outside of the break position. The break position involves holding the trailing end of the rope below your belay device, introducing sharp bends in the rope which increases friction. This ensures that the weight of the climber, in the case of a fall, will be transferred into the belayer’s harness, instead of into their hands.

The default position of your hands should be to return to the break position. If you do not do this, your belay will be useless and likely result in the injury of both belayer and rock climber in the case of a climber fall.

When I am teaching how to belay, I often teach the process as a four step process.

Step 1: Pull

With your break hand you should pull rope through the belay device by pulling straight up through the device. Your top hand will guide rope down into the belay device. Make sure that you keep just a little more force pulling up than you are pulling down, otherwise you will lose tension in your belay device and it can hang loosely, preventing the rope from running through properly. Learn to time your pull with the movement of your climber, so that you keep as little slack in the rope as possible, and it is a smooth ride for both climber and belayer.

Step 2: Lock

You have pulled in the rope, and now we return to the break position. Bring your break hand, which should be above your belay device at this point, back to the break position. We want to pull it all the way down, so there is no slack in your break rope. It will take practice to learn how much rope to take in during the Pull step, because what is comfortable is different for every person. Please note, you should not take your hand out of the break position until you are ready to pull in more rope.

Step 3: Grab

The goal is to now return your hands to the position that you started in. We do not do this by just moving our hands. We need to follow a specific sequence, in order to ensure that control of the break rope is maintained at all time.

Take the hand that is holding the climber rope and place it below your break hand. This will allow your break hand to slide up to the belay device without loosing a grip on the break rope.

Step 4: Slide

You may now slide you break hand up to 4-6 inches below the belay device. We keep a little distance between our hand and the belay device, because during a fall, the rope tends to pull a small amount through the device, even in the break position. If our hand is too close, our hand can get sucked into the belay device. Believe me, this does not tickle. Once you have slid your break hand up, you can return control of the break rope to your break hand, and return your other hand to the climber side of the rope. You are now ready to continue belaying.

That just about covers how to belay a rock climber on a top rope with a slot device. Please remember, reading an online article is not a replacement for training by a skilled individual. Take some lessons from your local climbing gym before attempting this on your own. It is often very difficult to troubleshoot our ourselves if we are doing something wrong. Climb safe.

Welcome to the next installment of ‘How To Rock Climb’, today we will be talking about belaying. In part one we will talk about how to get ready for the climber to leave the ground, and in part two we will talk about the actual act of capturing rope to keep a climber safe. I understand that many of you will be anxious for part two, but without this critical step of preparation, things can go terribly wrong. Before proceeding, please read the disclaimer on the about page.

So what is belaying?

Well that is a great question. As a nautical term it literally means to tie the rope around a cleat, however this is a blog about rock climbing, not nauticals. Belaying is the act of capturing or releasing rope as your rock climbing partner climbs, so that there is as little slack in the rope as is reasonable to maintain safety of the climber. This also includes arresting a fall.

This means that belaying can look very different in the huge variety of situations out there, so in the interest of making this a post that doesn’t take you five years to read, we will be talking about belaying with a slot style device, while top roping. A slot style device is a device like an ATC, which is Black Diamond’s version of the slot device.
How it works

Belaying in any case is made possible by introducing friction into the rope, thus preventing the rope from ripping out of your hands and causing your partner to plummet. This friction can come from something as simple as having the rope wrapped around your body (as in a body belay), or from a complicated camming mechanism (as in a Gri-Gri). With a slot style device, this friction comes from putting a bend in the rope.

How to get set up

In order to get a slot style device ready to go, you need to have your harness on, a slot style device, and a locking carabiner. You will also need to make sure that your partner is tied in, which if you don’t know how that works, read about it here. You attach the rope to the slot device by taking a bight of rope (that’s the technical term for a bend in the rope where the ends don’t cross) and passing it through one of the slots on the device. Then you clip the carabiner through the rope and the wire loop that is attached to the device. After that you connect the carabiner to your belay loop on your harness, and finally lock the carabiner. You are now ready to belay.

Preparing to leave the ground

The first thing that any belayer should do is make sure that they go through their safety checks first. This means checking their own gear, checking their partner’s gear, and checking to make sure there are no problems with the rope. I have already talked about the importance of safety checks here. A simple way to do this is with some simple climbing commands, and an ABC check.

Before the climber leaves the ground they need to ask if the belayer is ready. The usual way of doing this is by asking the question, “Belay on?” At this point the belayer will do the ABC check. They will check the Anchor, looking for twists and turns in the rope, ensuring that the rope runs cleanly. They will also check the Belayer, or themselves, to ensure that their own gear is loaded properly, that all their straps are doubled back properly, and that they are in a good position to belay. Finally they will check the Climber for the same things, and that their knot is tied properly. Once they are satisfied they will answer “on belay.”

The next command is that the climber will state “climbing!” to let the belayer know that they are leaving the ground. It is important that the belayer acknowledge this with “climb on!” because for any reason, if the belayer is distracted or not ready, this is the last point that you get to say anything about it.

Now that we’ve done the safety checks prior to belaying, next post we will talk about belaying you rock climber safely up the wall and/or rock face.

Click here for part two of how to belay.