Aid hammer?

[Corduroy Man]

Looking for a good aid hammer and some pitons for my climb of El Cap this spring. What is everyones favorite hammer and pitons? Thanks! Rock on!

[stever]

Interested also, would like to start practicing this summer

[JosephH]

Pitons are more a matter of what's needed and what works best for any given route or placement - the concept of 'favorite' doesn't really much enter in to it.

 

Hammers, on the other hand, are subject to personal preference. Bill Coe has hammer threads here and on ST that show the various options. The choices of what you can buy is somewhat limited at the moment, but pretty much any of the hammers available should suffice for the small amount of nailing required on Mescalito. The objective is still to reach for a hammer as little as possible and at least one [former] Beacon climber has done it entirely clean fairly recently.

 

Another Mescalito note: it will be the first open route west of the North American Wall Peregrine closure this May (primetime) and likely very busy as a result. It's also been the focus of a big free climbing push by Tommy Caldwell and that could be a problem if they're back on it. In any case, I'm guessing you'll want to start early, try to move as fast as you can, and be prepared to let other parties pass if you end up moving slow.

[JosephH]

Oh, the piton thing doesn't take a lot of practice but what does is competently cleaning and placing heads. Given how often and easily they blow and how many deadheads you could potentially encounter, it might be more worth your time getting familiar with heading in general (on a road cut or someplace similar).

[JosephH]

Just a note that the TC 'Free Mescalito' team just said they will be off of it by the 25th of this month. It's still likely to be crowded due to the NA Wall Peregrine closure, however.