I jumped off a 40 foot wall last night. I legitimately thought I was going to die for about 1.5 seconds. Obviously I didn’t, I am talking to you, but 100% thought I was going to. Just to clarify, I was taking a lead climbing class at the rec so I was safe the whole time and I was on a rope but still. I’ll back up a hot second for those of you that don’t know what lead climbing is.
So when you top rope, see image below of me top roping, you are on a rope and typically you have someone below you who is pulling the rope down as you go up the wall. This is called belaying. In the image below, I am climbing with a machine that automatically pulls the rope up and lets you down easily called an auto-belay. We don’t have any other photos because we were trying not to be weird by having someone else take our photo.
Anyways, when you lead climb, you bring the rope up with you as you climb and put the rope in carabiners that are anchored into the wall. This means that between carabiners, if you fall, you are falling to the carabiner beneath you. When you take a class at UA, they make you fall from roughly 38 feet up the 40 foot wall. You fall like 5-8 feet and are caught by the rope but let me just tell you, as a recovering control freak, I was not a fan. But the adrenaline rush is a ton of fun.
So that is what my roommate and I did yesterday evening. And then we went home and watched Aquaman. I am a fan of superhero movies so we were excited to watch it! And it didn’t disappoint. Anyways, I am going to get back to my day now! Y’all have a great Friday!
