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General Climbing Discussion

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Proficiency of beginners 22-Sep-2003 At 4:14:33 PM dodgy

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Yep, and it was probably worse...
We were climbing at Snow Canyon in Utah which is an old sport climbing area near Zion (Really nice BTW). Leading this 5.9ish thing (no guide book but looked and was pretty nice, manky old carrots and pins though). Looked across to see a guy leading this slabby face route on the same sort of pro. When I got down I told my partner I was going over to have a look. Introduced myself to the belayer who was holding the uphill side of the rope with his right hand, leaving his left hand free to not hold anything. So I sort of suggested that he should really hold the tail of the rope. Then he looked a bit lost, so I got the leader to clip into some pro while I taught the belayer to belay; then I checked to find out he was right handed so started again. Then I asked how much climbing they had done (there was also a friend/girlfriend with them). The belayer had gone climbing for the first time the day before at the local gym. The girlfriend never. Then I noticed they were wearing gym shoes (same type with sizes marked on them). The leader had been a few times...
And then there was the rope, you know the sort, about 30 metres long white with a black flec, STATIC... Yep, the guy in the gym lent them the lot, shoes, draws, rope.
Any sort of fall (if the belayer held it) would have blown the pro I suspect. And there was no way out as the rope was too short (it was two pitches). The plan was for the leader to climb to the belay, and if the seconds couldn't follow he would just pull them up, then lead the second pitch...
The guy did OK too... I didn't find any bodies the next day...