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caughtinside
Jun 22, 2004, 4:08 PM
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OK, so I'm sure I'll get flamed silly for this one. But I'm not an aid climber.
I was thinking about it while flipping through the Big Walls supertopo, and I didn't see anything harder than C3 (I'm not saying C3 ain't hard!)
So to get into the really hard Aid(A4-5), you've gotta pound pins, drill holes and trench heads? aka, be a heinous chipper? :lol:
Does C4 exist? And could the Hubers climb it clean? :P
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atg200
Jun 22, 2004, 4:13 PM
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it definitely exists in the desert. some of the clean aid ascents on crappy rock in monument basin are really hard, and *way* harder than nailing them is. you can get some tricky placements and awful fall potential by placing a sketch cam or nut in mud when you would otherwise slam in a much better pin.
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megableem
Jun 22, 2004, 4:24 PM
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iamthewallress
Jun 22, 2004, 4:27 PM
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ZM went at C4F (depends on fixed gear)
Taking former nailing/heading pitches and trying to make them as clean as you can usually makes things trickier and increases fall consequences. The sky's the limit, so to speak, for how hard it can get.
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brutusofwyde
Jun 22, 2004, 6:15 PM
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Seems to me that a full two pitches of hard, unenhanced hooking (including the anchors) might check in somewhere around C5 or C6.
Brutus, scared on C2
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brutusofwyde
Jun 22, 2004, 6:20 PM
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Seems to me that a full two pitches of hard, unenhanced hooking (including the anchors) might check in somewhere around C5 or C6.
Brutus, scared on C2
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lambone
Jun 22, 2004, 6:22 PM
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In reply to: So to get into the really hard Aid(A4-5), you've gotta pound pins, drill holes and trench heads? aka, be a heinous chipper? :lol: Does C4 exist? And could the Hubers climb it clean? :P
Lots of C4 routes on El Cap, megableem mentioned some, I think Dihedral wall could be added to the list. Lots of C4 routes on other walls as well.
I think many would argue that a true A4/A5 if (A5 exists) pitch could not be "heinously chipped" by definition. Adding more holes, trenching heads, chipping hook placements...etc. would bring a pitch down to the A3 grade at modern standards, and is generaly frowned upon in the Aid climbing community (especialy on existing routes).
A true A4 or harder pitch would be as au-natural as possible + some bad fall potential.
Now of course nailing may be required, but I wouldn't necesarily call that heinous chipping...and is a whole 'nuther debate...
Anyway, i have never done a C4 pitch clean, but i can imagine it'd be some scary shit...A2 for me...
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iamthewallress
Jun 22, 2004, 6:35 PM
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In reply to: Thanks for the replies, and for correcting me. I looked at the supertopo a couple months ago, and was mostly reading the FA narratives. I was also influenced by a picture posted by lars of the triple cracks on the shield, which showed big pin holes every 3 feet, leading me to believe that things only went clean once the pin scars were there to accept gear. Cheers, Dave
Dave...Do you clip bolts?
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caughtinside
Jun 22, 2004, 6:35 PM
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Thanks for the replies, and for correcting me. I looked at the supertopo a couple months ago, and was mostly reading the FA narratives.
I was also influenced by a picture posted by lars of the triple cracks on the shield, which showed big pin holes every 3 feet, leading me to believe that things only went clean once the pin scars were there to accept gear.
Cheers,
Dave
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megableem
Jun 22, 2004, 6:58 PM
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atg200
Jun 22, 2004, 7:14 PM
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the route on shark's fin in monument basin would be a good example of C4 that doesn't require much in the way of fixed gear(if any at all - fixed gear is illegal in canyonlands) - can't remember if it is the fetish arete or the wiggins route. 3 pitch of sundevil chimney on the titan is supposedly C4 with little fixed gear if done clean. i did the first pitch of sundevil clean at C3, and it required lots of wierd lowe ball placements and sketchy aliens in what would have been A1 sawed off angle scars. i think granite routes with lots of heads are more reliant on fixed gear than sandstone - stuff doesn't tend to stay fixed in the desert unless it is a bolt.
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caughtinside
Jun 22, 2004, 7:18 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Thanks for the replies, and for correcting me. I looked at the supertopo a couple months ago, and was mostly reading the FA narratives. I was also influenced by a picture posted by lars of the triple cracks on the shield, which showed big pin holes every 3 feet, leading me to believe that things only went clean once the pin scars were there to accept gear. Cheers, Dave Dave...Do you clip bolts?
I don't just clip them. I place them. Then I clip them. 8^)
But I'm no one trick pony! I also trad climb, and boulder. Making me a 2.5 trick pony.
Show me an aid climber who hasn't 'clipped a bolt.' 8^)
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iamthewallress
Jun 22, 2004, 7:29 PM
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In reply to: Show me an aid climber who hasn't 'clipped a bolt.' 8^)
I don't know any of those...It seemed like perhaps you were taking aim at aid climbing as being uniquely destructive.
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caughtinside
Jun 22, 2004, 7:45 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Show me an aid climber who hasn't 'clipped a bolt.' 8^) I don't know any of those...It seemed like perhaps you were taking aim at aid climbing as being uniquely destructive.
Not at all. Aid climbing is destructive, so is sport. Trad and bouldering as well. We could argue about degree and style, but it's been done before and I'm not really interested in that anyway.
But lambone's comment interested me. A climb that goes at C4, he might do at A2. Isn't the long term effect of that, that the climb will no longer be C4?
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iamthewallress
Jun 22, 2004, 7:57 PM
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In reply to: But lambone's comment interested me. A climb that goes at C4, he might do at A2. Isn't the long term effect of that, that the climb will no longer be C4?
No...It could make the hammerless climbing easier, but it might just make the hammered climbing harder. That assumes that a route gets enough traffic for people's hammers and fixed gear to have an impact.
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lambone
Jun 22, 2004, 10:19 PM
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Nailing any route repeatedly is going to subsequently make that and any route easier over time, generaly...withaa few exceptions, like if the rock is brittle and just falls apart destroying the placement alltogether.
So yeah, opting for the A2 over C4 may make the clean climbing easier, but I don't really see that as a problem. I mean, yeah it is a bummer that the crack/climb is getting degraded...but it is really inevitable, unfortunately.
The Shield is a prime example. It was once rated A5, I'd say now it maybe has a few A3 spots on it, but primarily A2. It is now rated C4, yet how many people climb the route clean? Not many, eventually perhaps it will become even easier to climb it clean, and more people will...and that is a good thing.
Then again, Tommy C or somebody will free climb it eventually as well, like a overhanging Serenity Crack.
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bigwalling
Jun 22, 2004, 10:35 PM
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Lots of hooks is a way to get a hard "C" pitch. Last climb I did, the crux pitch was clean with a bunch of hook moves and some small HBs after the hooking, the pitch was like A3+ in the guide but it's no longer like that, cause it's clean. So C3+ if you want to think of it that way. Or I'll just call it Clean Fun.
I also heard about an A4+ pitch somewhere in some big alpine wall. They said that it was really C4+ cause they did the thing clean with micro nuts in loose flake and hooking, all above some bad fall. So there is your hard clean aid.
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flamer
Jun 23, 2004, 2:16 AM
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I personally did a new aid line that probably checks in around C3+?
(It's crazy short-like 50'-but fun) It's on granite and the reason it checks in at that grade is "time bomb" peice's. There is a Lowe ball move that it mandatory, and both times I've climbed it it blew just as I clipped the next lowe ball. Thing is I knew it was a time bomb but there was nothing else possible. The fall is bad as well, 8' feet onto boulders, i used a crash pad... the rest of the climb goes at solid C2+.
I have a good friend who did alot of "first clean" ascent's at Lumpy ridge...he had similar experience's on some of those routes with cams and Lowe balls.
I think Clean aid gets "hard" 2 different ways. #1 fall potential- just like hammered aid. #2 placement difficulty- ie technical difficulty. Knowing the limits of your gear(and maybe expanding them!)
josh
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coomer
Jun 25, 2004, 1:37 AM
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In reply to: So to get into the really hard Aid(A4-5), you've gotta pound pins, drill holes and trench heads? aka, be a heinous chipper? :lol:
Trenching heads is for sack-less cowards.
Plenty of routes exist without trenched heads.
Cheers
e
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