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Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic Evolution^SM

Climbing Photos

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Top-roping offers the rock climbing experience with all the rewards but minimal risks. Top-roping, or Top-rope climbing, is climbing a rock face with the rope always anchored above you. If you fall, you usually only fall about a metre (3 feet), at most (if you're doing it properly!), until the rope catches you - reducing your risk of injury.

Athena and Conrad

In this photo Athena and Conrad demonstrate how top-roping is a great way to learn the basics of climbing. With top-roping they're learning how to set up anchor, how to belay, and how to have lots of fun on the rock! Top-roping is ideal for beginners since it allows them to concentrate on techniques rather than worrying about falling. Advanced climbers use top-roping as way to work on new techniques or to just build strength and endurance. Top-roping doesn't require a lot of equipment but does need attention to safety - you can easily get hurt on a top-rope if you're not setup properly or aren't paying attention!

Bouldering is a form of practice climbing that emphasizes power, strength, and dynamics - focusing on individual moves or a short sequence of moves. Bouldering routes, usually very short in nature, are sometimes referred to as "problems" as in "problem solving."

Scott in Daniels Park

Bouldering's focus is on individual moves or short sequences of moves, unlike traditional climbing or sport climbing, which generally demand more endurance over longer stretches of rock where the difficulty of individual moves is not as great. Boulder routesare commonly referred to as problems (a British appellation) because the nature of the climb is often short, curious, and much like problem solving. Sometimes these problems are eliminates, meaning certain artificial restrictions are imposed. To reduce the risk of injury from a fall, climbers rarely go higher than 3-5 meters (10 to 16 feet) above the ground when bouldering. Anything higher than that, without the use of ropes and protective climbing equipment, is considered to be "free-soloing." For additional protection some climber place a protective athletic mat ("crash pad") beneath their route to catch them during a fall. My personal rule-of-thumb, whenever I'm bouldering, is not to go any higher than I can safely fall or jump without njuring myself.

Wind Tower

Roger A. Wendell and Jonathan V. P. Toups - July 21, 2002
"Eldo" - Eldorado Springs Canyon State Park, Boulder, Colorado

1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16

Note that in photos 4 & 8 Roger is leading different routes.
My friends Larry DeSaules and John Schaphorst often refer to
leading as being on the stupid end of the rope...

Shattered Air
(A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome)
by Bob Madgic, pp. 106-107

DESPITE THE DANGERS and discomforts, climbing is for many an all-consuming passion. They interrupt, end, or never start their careers, focusing exclusively on completing the next climb. Climber Todd Skinner said free climbing means 'going right to the edge' of your capabilities. For many climbers, this closeness to death - the risk of dying - produces an adrenaline rush that most other life experiences simply can't. It is what keeps many of them married to the sport. Probably no other sport creates such a feeling of oneness with Mother Nature. Attached to a mountainside by fingertips and toes, the climber necessarily becomes part of the rock - or else. One climber says that while scaling a granite face, she felt close to God, so intense was her relationship with the natural world.

Climbers speak of 'floating' or 'performing ballet' over the rock, each placement of foot and each reach into a crack creating unity with the mountain. The sport is one of total engagement with the here-and-now, which frees the mind from everything else. Climbers' concentration is complete and focused. Their only thought is executing the next move.

Rock climbing has been called the King of Sports, not only because of the skills, courage, and mental conditioning it demands but also because it takes place in the grandest of places. There is no stadium, court, diamond, gym, field, or track that can rival nature's arena.

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