How do you not fall? I know you stick things into cracks (thats what she said) but there must not always be a place to put it. How do you know the thing is going to hold if you were to fall? How do you get down? Can you just rock climb anywhere, or are there specific places?
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The leader is attached to the end of a rope, and climbs, periodically placing pieces of protection (cams, nuts, chocks, pitons, ice screws, webbing loops around features, etc.) as he/she advances. A draw (webbing loop with a carabiner at each end) is typically clipped into the newly placed piece of protection, and then the rope is clipped into the free end of the draw. The other end of the rope leads down to the second climber, or belayer, who may or may not be anchored but if not is heavy enough to arrest a leader fall. The rope feeds through a belay device which adds friction. The idea is that if the leader falls, the length of dynamic rope leading from the belayer, through all of the placed protection up to the top piece and then down to the fallen leader, is long enough to absorb the energy of the fall by the time the belayer is able to arrest it. Typically, the leader will climb to almost the extent of the rope (a “pitch”), using up the protection on his rack as he goes. When the rope is run out, the leader will establish a secure anchor at the top of the pitch, and then will act as the belayer for the second climber, who will remove and rack each piece of protection as he climbs up to the leader’s position. At that point, the climbers can switch roles, with the second becoming the new leader. Or, if the original leader is more skilled, the second may transfer all of the gear back to the leader, anchor himself, and begin belaying the leader up the next pitch. Leading is inherently more dangerous than seconding, because to lead is to free climb at least the distance above the last piece of protection that was placed before placing another, and you will periodically have excess slack in the rope when pulling it up to clip in to a piece. Seconding, conversely, is akin to “top roping”, where the rope always leads up and a fall will never be of any significant distance.
To get down, you either place a sacrificial anchor, or a recoverable anchor, and rappel on the rope using a belay / rappel device for friction / speed control. Typically this will be done either on a double length of rope with the middle at the anchor, or on a single length with a smaller recovery line attached, so that when the last climber reaches the bottom of the rappel, the rope can be pulled through and recovered, and then set up to rappel down the next pitch.
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