Climbing communication: how would you describe "leading a pitch" to lay people, in a paper?

I'm working on a personal statement that turns on a challenging climbing trip in the Sierras and I'm having trouble conveying the story without relying on lingo, like "leading a pitch."

In the particular context in which the statement will be read, people are very unlikely to know what "leading" is—perhaps even to know what climbing consists in—so I need a good, short phrase to convey what's involved.

Any ideas?

Climbing up while placing gear into cracks in the rock (or clipping your rope to pre-placed bolts) as you go. That way if you fall, you only fall to the most recently placed piece of protection, rather than falling all the way to the beginning of the climb.

Is that too long for what you need? 

Why do you need to define pitch to begin with? Everyone knows what a Leader is. The leader goes first and navigates the dangers and secures the passage for the followers. If you need to describe a rope-length just use rope-length.

stick with calling it the sharp end and people'll get the idea

Ask yourself what do you want to reader to understand.  Like, do you want them to know the mental, risk, technical/gear aspects?  And how relevant is it for the story?

Or...  "Leading a pitch" is like free soloing (everyone generally knows what that is these days) but if you fall a rope will eventually catch you.

Advice from a former writer and editor of technical instruction manuals:

1) Write it.

2) Have a "lay person" read it.

3) Ask if it makes sense and, if not, why not.

4) Revise as indicated.

5) Repeat as needed.

Someone climbs a wall with a rope and attaches it to the top in order to hoist other people up. It was your turn to carry the rope to the top. 

Are you getting graded for the paper or us?

The leader is the fucker who goes up the fucking thing and puts those fucking things in the rock so he doesn't fucking die, then his fucking buddy just follows the fucking thing with a fucking care in the fucking world. 

Nick MB wrote:

I'm working on a personal statement that turns on a challenging climbing trip in the Sierras and I'm having trouble conveying the story without relying on lingo, like "leading a pitch."

In the particular context in which the statement will be read, people are very unlikely to know what "leading" is—perhaps even to know what climbing consists in—so I need a good, short phrase to convey what's involved.

Any ideas?

I think it will take more than a phrase, but it will be worth a few extra lines to have your readers get it. Otherwise you'll lose them. Perhaps something like "It was time to put the practice of leading and belaying into action. I set off up the steep wall trailing the rope, while..." A line like that sets you up to tell the story. My example is off the cuff, and doesn't do it, but with some effort you might find a turn of phrase that creates a taste of suspense as well. What you're try to do isn't easy, just keep at it, and read some stuff by other climbers. I don't know how much of his stuff is on-line, I think his family and publishers have tried their best to keep a lock on it, but anything you can find by the late Michael Ybarra is great. A first class adventure writer. Michael had a unique talent where he could write a story about climbing that both climbers and non-climbers could read and enjoy. Non-fiction too, which is a good study for you. Writing without reading is like trying to compose music when you don't listen to the work of others.

Ybarra was a correspondent for the WSJ, so a lot of his stuff can be found there, but you have to subscribe to read it. Probably worth it - his stories are brilliant. 

fwiw Sierra means range. It's singular. As in "we went on a trip in the Sierra." Leave it to me to nit-pick...   

Nick MB wrote:

I'm working on a personal statement that turns on a challenging climbing trip in the Sierras and I'm having trouble conveying the story without relying on lingo, like "leading a pitch."

In the particular context in which the statement will be read, people are very unlikely to know what "leading" is—perhaps even to know what climbing consists in—so I need a good, short phrase to convey what's involved.

Any ideas?

To a lay person perhaps it better to just call it an advanced climbing technique for climbing high climbs.  Keep the details on a need to know basis.

You could use Wiki's definition.  

Lead climbing is a climbing style, predominantly used in rock climbing. In a roped party one climber has to take the lead while the other climbers follow. The lead climber wears a harness attached to a climbing rope, which in turn is connected to the other climbers below the lead climber....

This is a nit picking thing, but don't write "Sierras".  It's "Sierra"

Sierra is basically a Spanish word for mountain range, so you don't need the "s" to make it plural.  Using "Sierras" is common, so a lot of people say this.  If this sounds like crazy talk, then check Wiki ;)

Gumby King wrote:

...”Leading a pitch" is like free soloing (everyone generally knows what that is these days)...

Nope. There is massive misunderstanding between free soloing and free climbing among non-climbers. 

If the answer is "leading a pitch" then the question could be "how do you get the rope up there?"

That's a common outsider question and could be the basis for what you're trying to convey.  Also, if you talk about it in terms of what it's for and why it's done you'll probably get the meaning across more clearly than if you describe it in terms of what it's not (e.g. lead fall vs other types of fall).

It will be way more than a sentence, but if you can add a blurb, then you can write something like:

I was to be the first one to climb that section of the mountain. As I climbed, I was able to secure the rope at various stages so that if I fell, I would not fall too far, but each time I secured the rope, it required time and equipment that I would not have available again until I was done with that section, and for every foot I climbed above the last section I secured, a mistake could mean a fall of two feet. Running out a section of rock 20 feet above my last placement, the potential fall was more than 40 feet.

If you really need it to be short, just go with the fall every 2 feet for 1 foot above the last protection.

Don’t try to be technical, it’s too confusing.

One way you might try to describe it:

Because of the way the rope systems work, followers climb with a safety net (stretchy climbing rope) just a few feet below them.  Lead climbers also have a safety net, but the net might be 10, 20, 30 feet or more below them; and there might be ledges between them and their safety net.