Does the first climber do it bit by bit until those behind have a decent distance to climb? In my head they’re climbing using a rope that’s anchored 20 feet above them. If so, how does it get there?
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The 1st climber is the “leader” and they are “lead climbing”. The rope is attached to their harness, and is not anchored above.
The leader climbs up and if they fall immediately they hit the ground. If the leader is skillful enough not to fall immediately, they take some protective gear from a loop on their harness and place it into a crack in the rock. Then a quickdraw (two caribiners linked by short length of cord is attached to the protective gear, then they clip the rope into the quickdraw. Assuming the gear is securely placed, the leader is now safe.
They then continues to climb up. Of course now the leader is above his gear and a fall would send him some way down past the previously placed piece of gear (if you are 5 metres above your gear, you will fall 10 metres plus rope slack, plus rope stretch). The leader must judge how far they can go before a fall becomes dangerous (i.e. might hit the floor) and must place another piece of gear and repeat the cycle all the way to the top, or until there is no more rope.
At the top, the leader places at least two pieces of gear, but ideally 3, to create a safe anchor, and now his belayer… or “second” can follow up safely. The second retrieves the gear from the rock as they go.
As you can imagine, leading is far more stressful and far riskier than seconding. But that’s how its done.
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