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Buckaroo

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Posts posted by Buckaroo

  1. It's hard to hold aid climbers up as paragons of clean ethics when they do shit like leave pig heads hanging from belays at Index. That just ain't kosher, son.

     

    Depends if it was a fixed pig head or a removable pig head. Also points for if it was a free range pig head with no hormones or antibiotics.

     

     

  2. Have you considered the synthetics with GoreTex lining also, the tech has come a long way, they are lighter than leather and in many cases will keep drier, on the flip side though some of them don't last as long.

     

    Also your feet are smaller in the morning and get larger as the day goes by if you are on them all day. Something to consider when fitting.

  3. I don't know Bill, I could be wrong, it's just my personal experience. Just think sliders are worth a try. I've only tried the Metolius, don't know the Yates, someone else mentioned them. It was also mentioned the pros say they don't work very well on a traverse.

  4. I use camp tri cams all the time for aid and free, in Many cases they are easily C1, where other gear would be way more sketchy. They are super great for horizontal aid placements in shallow cracks where a regular cam would be bent to hell going over the edge of the crack when weighted. But from all your responses to this thread, your opinions are best. Having climbed liberty crack, I would say definitely you want some off-set nuts.

     

     

    I was agreeing with you on your previous post. And I'm putting tri-cams in the beaks hooks category because to properly place them they are tricky.

     

    And I'm talking specifically only about Liberty Crack because it was mentioned by the OP.

  5. don't see why anyone would ever carry anything OTHER than off-set nuts :)

     

    tri-cams, to my experience, are key in pin-scarred terrain, especially sandstone - try doing the relatively easy "prodigal sun" in zion w/o them to your peril :)

     

    Prodigal Sun..... 5.8 C2

     

    There's a reason I said "maybe" and "probably" because there's always someone that swears by them. But you don't need them for Liberty,

     

     

  6. Individual guide is going to be bank.

     

    No matter how good the conditions are, soloing the glaciers is somewhat sketchy.

     

    For the ascent record you are probably going to want to be acclimatized. Pretty sure anyone that holds it or has come close was climbing it right before or staying at Paradise or Muir for a couple days at least. IOW, they weren't climbing from sea level the day before.

  7. There was a gear study where someone compared all the passive auto-lockers, in particular how easy the rope pulled through when belaying the follower. Can't remember where but someone on here probably knows.

     

    I have several of these and the action on them varies in particular depending on the rope you are using. I like the original Reverso (no longer available new). But I think the BD guide ATC won out in the comparison test.

     

    The Gri-Gri 1 is heavier than the 2 but it's easier to use and not as glitchy. Like the passive devices the Gri-Gris also act differently depending on the rope. A slick (new) rope works better.

  8. Based on his initial post he would be over his head here to start talking about hooks etc. etc. He needs some basics before starting talking about beaks and hooks. ... and the few 4 or so smallest camp tri-cams). these will seam like grade V's for your first multi pitch aid. After you do those with a partner and get your shit figured out, do them solo. Then you should be pretty dialed in for easy aid. Then you can start fooling with pins, hooks, cam hooks etc and Grade V aid on popular routes like Liberty Crack.

     

     

    Maybe tri-cams are in the beaks and hooks category. I've carried them on things like the Salathe and never used them. They are def in the C2 category. Sure you could use them on C1 but if there's a placement where that's the only thing that works you are probably climbing C2.

     

    Liberty is C1, maybe you want some offset nuts but pins, beaks, hooks, camhooks, tri-cams are not necessary.

  9. secrecy is anathema to a democracy

     

    if you can w/ alacrity concede snowden's value in this debate, we can have an accord :)

     

    Then why is your libtard el presidente so pissed off about the delay?

     

    Obama is no liberal, he's a corporate fascist. He's to the right of Reagan.

     

    Then why did you vote for him, conspiratard? I mean, like, we can't all be as smart as 9/11 truth, eh?

     

    Voted for him the first time because thought that maybe like Kennedy he would go left after being elected, instead he went right. Didn't vote for him the 2nd time.

  10.  

    Libtard mystery quote:

     

    "(I)t occurs to some of us that perhaps ever-continuing industrial and population growth is not the true road to human happiness, that simple gross quantitative increase of this kind creates only more pain, dislocation, confusion and misery. In which case it might be wise for us as American citizens to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-generically impoverished people. At least until we have brought our own affairs into order. Especially when these uninvited millions bring with them an alien mode of life which—let us be honest about this—is not appealing to the majority of Americans. Why not? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful—yes, beautiful!—society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty, and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see."

     

    Is this another one that Snopes will say is false?

  11. secrecy is anathema to a democracy

     

    if you can w/ alacrity concede snowden's value in this debate, we can have an accord :)

     

    Then why is your libtard el presidente so pissed off about the delay?

     

    Obama is no liberal, he's a corporate fascist. He's to the right of Reagan. You really need to stop falling for that Faux News shtick.

  12. Disclaimer: This is not a page for aid haters, if you'd rather free climb get off your lazy butt and go do it.

     

    I have been alpine and free climbing for a few years now but would really like to get some experience aid climbing and either do Liberty Crack or some other grade V this year. I have tried aiding a 5.9 crack with a friend's aid setup once. I have done plenty of french-free and random stand on a sling BS, just screwing around at the crag and in the alpine. Really I want this experience just so that I can have another tool to push my alpine climbing.

     

    Questions I have for those who might know...

     

    1. I know I need etriers and theoretically two daisies... is there any other MANDATORY gear I should get for C1? I have plenty of gear for trad climbing, lockers, etc.

     

    2. Smith is my local crag so I have done plenty of A0 and avoided the A4 shit shows that seem to be everything else. If I was going to go do an intro multi-pitch aid climb, where should I go? Index? Anywhere closer to Central Oregon?

     

    3. Anyone want to do a little mentoring in late June or July weekends?

     

    Thanks in advance...

     

    You could get ready for Liberty Crack by climbing single aid pitches. If you can do a couple moves of 5.11a french free (the rest of the pitch is 10a) the first pitch of Liberty goes that way, then you have 2 pitches of easy C1 after that. The roof (Lithuanian Lip) is C1 but you have to practice aiding and cleaning a roof beforehand, it's a little tricky until you learn.

     

    Aid gear (team) for Liberty crack would be one set of aiders (2 single ladders if using step aiders), 1 set jumars. The follower jumars with regular slings that are used conventionally on the rest of the climb. Then when you get past the aid each climber carries one jumar and one aider. There's really no other aid specific gear on Liberty.

     

    On the typical C1 pitch try to get your time under 1 hour, that's led and cleaned (followed), either solo or a team. That's the time you need to hit to get Liberty done in a day. The biggest piece of beta on Liberty is take only one 60M rope. You can rappel with that from anywhere on the route, the fixed belays are all <30M apart.

     

    1. Other than aiders and jumars the only mandatory gear for C1 would probably be a 2nd set of nuts. And on a pitch like City Park you want triples of the smaller nuts. If you have a bunch of worn gear that you replaced with new, that's the best for aid, because aiding is really hard on gear. Typically if possible you usually want to carry and use more nuts than cams, an aid rack is heavy because you are placing gear every body length and nuts are lighter than cams.

     

    You may find yourself bounce testing placements and getting nuts jammed. You may want to carry a small hammer, like a little tack hammer to hammer on your cleaning tool. With experience you will be able to trust a good nut without bounce testing. You may find also that different brands of nuts stick differently when aiding. I have some that always clean easy and some that usually stick.

     

    2. At Index, after City Park there's Stern Farmer and Narrow Arrow Direct. A really fun multi-pitch is Town Crier on the upper wall, it has a couple C2 moves. Then to get ready for something like the Nose or Salathe (if you climb 10b to 11a) you could do Green DragOn, lots of C2.

     

    Rope solo with a clove hitch or GriGri is good for C1. The typical motion is, after stepping high on your existing piece, with the piece at waist or lower, rope taut, place next piece as high as possible. Before stepping higher extend rope and clip upper piece. Step up to upper piece, now the rope will have enough slack to get to the next piece above that and then again the rope will be taut. So placing and stepping up two pieces for every time you fiddle with extending the rope.

     

    A really fast way to clean nuts is to jug right through them, ripping them upward to clean them. you can jug through about 5 nut placements then stop and re-rack them all at once. This is pretty hard on the cables, you will have to straighten them at the end of the day, but it's really fast.

     

    My best aid climb was a rope solo of Town Crier. Did it on the summer solstice and summited right at sundown. At the time the upper bolt ladder was the original Becky stuff. It had these homemade aluminum hangers with rusted 3/16" bolts, not kidding. It was like clip, pray, don't breathe, step up. Then the last pitch there's some mandatory free right at the top where you're most exposed. Sections of mandatory free in an aid pitch can be one of the harder mental aspects of aid climbing.

  13.  

    The proof is in the performance. When I climbed with ladder aiders it took me 20 placements to climb City Park, when I switched to sliders that went down to 18 placements. That's an 8 to 12 ft. gain in 30M. And that's with custom made ladder aiders that I built to fit my height and step distance.

     

    Any youtube link?

     

    Sure.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  14. aiding's like black magic - probably all bullshit, certainly none so true as the more obvious way of worshipping the Many Faced God :)

     

    i haven't used them - are these slide steppers as good for simple jugging? for moving between free and aid situations? for existing in multi-day big wall environments?

     

    definitely agree one of the best pieces of advice for the aspirant aid-clibmer is to learn a way to practice solo, either by tr'ing (seems kinda ghey) or lead climbing w/ a solo aid device (easy enough w/ a common gri-gri, including on smith routes like monkey west face)

     

    agree with the solo.

     

    if you ever tried sliders you wouldn't go back. Aid is somewhat tedious, anything that makes it quicker...

  15. No offense to anyone. Step aiders work okay and if that's what you know really well and you're not that worried about optimum performance then that's fine.

     

    Slider aiders.

     

    Remain secured to your foot thus are less likely to become tangled if compared to ladder aiders secured with a daisy at your waist. To secure ladder aiders to the same level you need one daisy on each. So now you have the rope, 2 daisies and a possible fifi at your tie in point. This can lead to a cluster.

     

    Are infinitely adjustable to any situation, unlike ladder aiders which have fixed step distances. This means on any particular placement you can step as high as physically possible. With ladder aiders you run into the problem of the 2nd step being too low and the top step being too high. Subsequently you don't always step as high as possible. This not only applies to the top step but to all steps. Moving up each step can be the optimum step up instead of stepping a fixed distance. An example would be, say you are at the bottom step with 4 step ladder aiders, it's 4 steps to the top. But with the right terrain and wall angle you can do it in 3 steps with slider aiders.

     

    With the cinch around your foot there's no problem when it's windy. With ladder aiders the loops are blowing off to the side and you fiddle around trying to get your foot in the step, then you have to lean down and grab the step by hand to hold it still so you can get your foot in it.

     

    Fit to different height climbers. Here again ladder aiders are fixed. If the step distance isn't optimum for your step distance you are stuck with what you have. Sliders can be fine tuned to anyone's ultimate step distance.

     

    Comfort. Slider aiders typically have a wider piece of webbing running under your foot so the force is spread over a larger area. For ladder aiders all the steps would have to be wider and this would adversely affect the weight. Also with the cinch foot strap it can be positioned for the best comfort and it will stay there, unlike ladder aiders which may be hard to always hit the optimum comfort zone.

     

    Jugging with sliders. Here again sliders are the best. There's no fiddling around to try to get the right height for the terrain. You just quickly set your optimum step distance and go. And you can fine tune the step distance mid pitch if the wall angle changes. Again with ladder aiders you are limited, if the best step for the jug is not just the right distance it's problematic to adjust. You may end up having to add a draw or sling, so then you have to take it on and off between leading and jugging, and the same if the wall angle changes mid pitch.

     

    The proof is in the performance. When I climbed with ladder aiders it took me 20 placements to climb City Park, when I switched to sliders that went down to 18 placements. That's an 8 to 12 ft. gain in 30M. And that's with custom made ladder aiders that I built to fit my height and step distance.

  16.  

    By step aides are you meaning all ladder aiders and those offset step aiders too?

     

    Sliders may be modern but they are not better. Simple ladders aiders are the best but it ia all personal choices.

     

     

    Yes, all ladder aiders are obsolete.

     

    Tell me why specifically ladder aiders are the best.

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