When I'm in Bend, I don't really know very many people here, but I still like to practice my climbing.  There's a pretty good climbing gym in Bend, fortunately, called Bend Rock Gym, and even more fortuitously, they have a pretty significant investment in Auto-Belay systems.  As I've mentioned before, there are a few basic styles of climbing.  The style I do the most is called top roping, and it requires a partner to "belay" you up the wall - they manage the rope and make sure you're safe and lower you gently back down.  Although many aspects of climbing are very tricky, it turns out that top roping, in a gym environment, is simple enough that you could imagine a machine doing it - and someone has created that machine, called an auto-belay.  At its simplest, an auto belay is just a wound up length of a ribbon rope along with a winching mechanism that ensures that the rope can never travel through the winch at more than a very slow speed.  That means that, as you crawl up the wall, the rope is retracting, and when you start to fall, it catches you and slowly lowers you.  It's similar to one of those retractable phone charging cables.  If that sounds vaguely terrifying, I can assure you that it is.  :)  The first time I had to leap off of the wall was a definite leap of faith.  The upside though is that today I was at the gym for only about an hour and I on-sighted about 10 different routes, ranging 5.6-5.9.  Of course, I vastly prefer regular old top roping when I can; it's way more fun to be social.  But when you're alone, auto belays are huge for getting in some climbing practice.