aid 101

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January 25, 2015

There is no A5. If you get killed on your next, sickest, hardest route, maybe we will call it A5

                                 – Top Valley Psycho Aid-men to Jim Beyer (from Desert Rock Guidebook)

It is highly likely that the author of the following piece is somewhat deranged, and any content should not be taken seriously. Anyone wishing to actually participate in aid climbing should seek professional help, and if after that they cannot be dissuaded then personal instruction by a qualified expert is indicated.

Mystery Aid man at undisclosed desert location

Aid Climbing explained in about 38 steps:

1. 1. Climbers for some bizarre reason decide that aid climbing is actually a cool, bitchin’, and totally righteous activity.
   2. Climbers buy, build, borrow or ‘borrow’ a small fortune in exotic gear. Including but not limited to the following sundry or arcane items:
      • Aliens
      • Angles
      • Ball-nuts
      • Bashies
      • Bat-hooks
      • Big-Bro’s
      • Biners (lots and lots)
      • Bird Beaks
      • Bolts
      • Bongs
      • Bongs (the other kind)
      • Bugaboos
      • Butt-bags
      • Cams
      • Cam-hooks
      • Chicken Slings
      • Chisels
      • Circle-heads (not jerks)
      • Copper heads
      • Crack-n-ups
      • Drill Bits
      • Drill holders
      • Duct Tape
      • Etriers
      • Fifi-Hooks
      • Hammers
      • Hangers
      • Haul-bags
      • Jumars
      • Knee Pads
      • Knife-blades
      • Leepers
      • Lost Arrows
      • Peckers
      • Poop-Tubes
      • Porta-ledges
      • Pulleys
      • Rivets
      • Rope
      • Rurps
      • RP’s
      • Screamers
      • Soloist
      • Stoppers
      • Tag Line
      • Talons
      • Tie-offs
   3. Climbers find some remote, chossy, or otherwise undesirable climb. (see item 4. below)
   4. Climbers risk derision and ridicule from the general mainstream climbing community. Aid climbing, for some reason, is looked down upon by many of today’s generation of climbers.
   5. Climbers load the small fortune of gear into very heavy packs of an uncomfortable variety known as a haul bag.
   6. Climbers grunt, sweat and swear a great deal en route to the base of said ‘climb’.
   7. Climbers play rock-paper-scissors… best out of 3… no…5
   8. The loser of this skillful game gets to lead.
   9. The belayer sets up a solid belay if possible (but highly unlikely)
   10. The belayer gets out a good book to read; something like the Bhagavad Gita or Finnegan’s Wake comes to mind.
   11. The belayer pretends to have the leader on belay. Dark sunglasses help here.
   12. The leader then adorns themselves with the aforementioned small fortune in gear.
   13. The leader staggers under the load as they make his or her way to the start of the climb.
   14. The leader contemplates faking an illness or injury to avoid having to climb. (conveniently losing a shoe can help in this situation)
   15. The leader if upon finding no other recourse must actually start up the 1st pitch.
   16. The leader reaches as high as possible and places a very marginal piece of gear.
   17. The leader gingerly weights said piece.
   18. The leader clips both etriers into said piece.
   19. The leader ‘walks’ up etriers as high as they dare. (Usually 1 step…)
   20. The leader clips lead rope to the piece…not the tag line….
   21. The leader reaches as high as they can and places an even more marginal piece, after fumbling for 10 minutes to get the right piece and only dropping 1 piece of gear in the process, or maybe 2.
   22. Sweating like a whore in church and shaking like a leaf on a fuzzy tree the leader even more gingerly weights this piece.
   23. The leader reaches down and unclips one etrier and moves it to the higher piece.
   24. The leader reaches down and unclips the other etrier and moves it to the higher piece.
   25. The leader pulls up rope and clips the higher piece.
   26. The leader makes a decision whether to reach down and pull the lower piece and take it with them. (known in common circles as leap-frogging) NOTE: This is a really swell way to conserve gear whilst all the time increasing fall consequences.
   27. The process basically repeats ad-infinitum with variations and increasing levels of nausea, convulsions, St. Vitus’s, cataleptics, delirium, and/or possible hallucinations until;
       • The maximum amount of fun has been reached.
       • The ‘summit’ has been reached, or the end of the pitch, or the gear runs out which sometimes indicates the end of the pitch
       • The leader bails because of fear, exhaustion, dehydration, etc.
       • The leader and the second get in a heated argument
       • The leader falls and gets seriously injured or dead
       • Too much gear has been dropped
       • A transcendental, almost ZEN-like state has been reached
       • All of the above
       • None of the above
   28. The second drifts off to stupor or sleep (see note above)
   29. The leader upon reaching the ‘top’ (pitch, summit, etc.) sets up a shaky and highly suspect anchor using what meager gear they have left. If the belay will only support bodyweight (more or less) then it is what is quaintly known as a ‘psychological belay’. Make sure all of your affairs are in order prior to actually utilising psychological belays
   30. The leader affixes the lead rope to the aforementioned anchor made up of the insubstantial and sub-par gear.
   31. The second upon awakening must now jumar the pitch using their finely honed jumaring skills. Note: If the anchor is indeed truly bodyweight only it is probably in the best interests of all involved if the second does not jumar the pitch but actually climbs it somehow, if possible.
   32. The second removes all gear left in the wall that has not already fallen out, and takes it with them. (dropping only some in the process) Note: some gear unbelievably and inexplicably actually gets stuck and cannot be removed. Becoming known as ‘Fixed Gear’. When coming across fixed gear it should be treated with suspicion. Broken off drill bits should not normally be considered as gear.
   33. The second is usually not belayed as a matter of course.  As they jumar they may optionally tie a ‘safety’ loop periodically and clip that to their belay loop. This of course only has merit if the belay anchor is bombproof.
   34. The leader hauls gear (if required) on the tag line and organizes the belay, and re-hydrates, and rolls a smoke. Hauling gear usually involves advanced jiggery and engineering skills that are outside the scope of this article.
   35. Both climbers swear off climbing and are planning to attend Sunday service.
   36. Some bits of this description are missing but I can’t recall what they are.
   37. Now the actual dangerous portion begins: Rappelling (This will be covered in another article)
   38. Climbers eventually find themselves in a beer parlour (and not church) at some point after the climb and begin to plan another even more outrageous aid climb for the near future.

Addendum: While the above referenced climbers (plural) as in the typical Leader/Belayer scenario; often times aid climbing is partaken as a solo activity. With so much fun to be had it seems a shame not to share it, but there you have it. Much of the previous description applies, although solo technique is a bit different and usually requires the climber to cover the ground three times in order to retrieve the gear. i.e. Climb, rappel, jumar

Grades

Somewhere along the way aid climbing grades got converted to the ‘New Wave’ system. Must be some badass thing I wasn’t consulted on… In addition to the various ‘A’ grades listed below, there are corresponding ‘C’ grades, which signify ‘clean’ or hammerless aid climbing. They are not necessarily a one to one comparison however. All joking aside, if a climb can be done clean, it is the way to go. Pitons, bolts, rivets, and the like, permanently alter the rock no matter how you look at it. As an interesting side effect, excessive use of pitons causing ‘pin scars’ is one of the reasons contributing to why some big wall aid climbs are now able to be free climbed. The pin scars often make most excellent handholds. As with all talk of grades it can be very polarizing at times. Folks will argue the toss over whether A5 even exists. It’s only numbers in the end. Talk to the people that are actually doing hard aid today and see what they have to say about it… Don’t consult with me…I am still having to deal with the fact that a bunch of the cool aid climbs I had done in the past now go free.

A0 – Solid fixed gear like a bolt ladder or….. pulling on protection to make a move. Known in common circles as ‘French Free’*

A1 – Easy aid. The gear placements are plentiful and simple, and may include some fixed gear. Pretty unlikely that any gear will pull out. Falls are short and safe. Although I have heard it jokingly said that it’s all A1 until you fall…

A2 – Moderate aid. Some gear placements may be tricky to find and place but generally there will be some good protection limiting the length of potential falls. Like Prodigal Sun in Zion; C2

A2+ – There may be an interspersing of A3 moves here and there. This is where route-finding may start to enter into the picture. Bigger fall potential, but little chance of hitting anything.

A3 – Hard Aid. This is where you really start getting into it. This is where the doors of perception open just a crack. Multiple tenuous and marginal placements, although there may be several solid pieces in a pitch that actually would catch a fall. Expect to spend multiple hours on suspect rock. Think big fall potential. Uncle Bens in Squamish is rated a C3, but old school.

A3+ – Harder than A3. Getting into the realm of serious and dangerous falls if anything goes amiss. It will probably take over 3 hours to lead a pitch.

A4 – Serious Aid. This will include complicated and run-out climbing. Often multiple bodyweight only placements in a row. Big and dangerous falls can occur. Skull Fuck in Squamish comes to mind.

A4+ – As you might expect; somewhere between A4 and A5. There will most likely be a lot of hook moves in succession. Possibly some A5 moves, but not so many that would require rating the pitch as such.  This is where they start calling it ‘Psycho Aid’.

A5 – Pretty much the extreme limit of aid climbing. (If you buy into this grade at all that is)This is definitely buying the farm potential. There will typically be no gear that could catch a fall for the entire length of the pitch. So… no bolts here pal. This also pretty much means you simply can’t fall. And if you do they are for sure gonna be whoppers… maybe 30 metres or more with a good chance of hitting some things on the way down. Expect jingus rock and single pitches that could take well over 5 hours or even much longer to lead. Possibly Worlds End or Intifada at Fishers Towers, or Jolly Roger in Yosemite

A6 – A purely speculative grade that in theory would have an entire pitch comprised of A5 placements, as well as having belays comprised of A5 placements that will only support bodyweight and not a fall. I don’t know if any exist. I think I recall that Intifada was originally graded this, but now is thought of as A5. Beats me.

* A funny little story… I was in Camp 4 bouldering one day with some Japanese climbers. They didn’t speak a lick of English, and my Japanese was even worse. They were doing this boulder problem French Free style. They had a small wired stopper that they were using in a little pocket to make the move. So I ambled over and after much bowing back and forth ask if I might work in with them. I politely as possible removed the stopper and used the pocket for a two finger hold, and after a couple of tries I am on top. One of the Japanese lads quickly repeats my move; but then they put the stopper back in the pocket and keep trying it that way.