Unfinished Businesses

My friend Dan, who actually knows about climbing

Problem: It doesn’t take a lot of wind/rain/corners to make your climbing partner almost completely inaudible when you’re using ropes. This is unfortunate, as it’s rather important to know what they want you to do.

Solution: Some device (it would seem to make sense to make it a watch) that allows for some pretty simple climbing commands to be sent back and forth. Both climbers wear one, and the devices communicate via some sort of short-distance radio (look, if I knew how any of this actually worked I wouldn’t be posting it here, would I). On the device are several grouped buttons to represent common instructions (“off belay”; “climb when ready”; “taking in rope”, that sort of thing) and one other button to represent “acknowledge”. The buttons can be pressed (to send the instruction) and light up (to receive it). Hey, the thing probably vibrates as well. Lead climber gets to the top of the pitch, makes the pitch safe, presses “climb when ready”. The light goes on on both watches. The seconder acknowledges the instruction by pressing “acknowledge”; the light goes off on both watches. Same sort of drill for the various other common instructions.

As you may have noticed, I don’t any more about climbing than I do about finishing business ideas. Some blanks to be filled in here.