[nabs-l] Blind people rock climbing

[Jamie Principato]

Hi all!

So my fiancé and I recently took up rock climbing and have been going to a
local rock gym weekly for the past month or so. We go with friends, but we
are the only two in the group who are interested in top-roping. We're both
blind, and we take turns belaying for one another. I know a fair number of
blind people rock climb, so I was wondering if anyone has any tips or
techniques that you use when you climb, for any aspect of the climb?

How do you choose a path up the wall? There are paths marked with colored
tape, but this is useless to us, so we just wing it and feel out our own
paths, but on harder walls this can be tricky.

How did you get the hang of belaying? Did you use any special technique to
determine when and how quickly your partner is climbing, like maybe have
them wear a bell? Or were you able to tell how quickly to go just by feeling
the slack in the rope? Our guide advised us to just take up slack when we
feel slack, but I've noticed my partner sometimes doesn't feel when I get
higher, and the slack in the rope makes me nervous.

When belaying, how did you prepare to handle falls, since you wouldn't be
able to see when your partner starts to fall? This makes me most nervous,
and I've been told I keep the rope too tight at times for the climber
(especially a male climber) to move comfortably.

Right now I'm going with the advice that this will all come with practice,
but I wondered what experiences other people have.

Thanks,

-Jamie