Explain Aid
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I am a relatively new climber, I have never aid climbed, only free climbed. I am a little confused on why people aid climb,or what an "aid pitch" is, I was hoping somebody could explain this to me. For example, I have been wanting to do the finger of fate on the titan, it seems most the climbing is 5.9, but there are some aid pitches. |
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I'm not familiar with that route, but from my limited aiding/big wall experience, it depends. I've aided some routes that have been free climbed, but in the hard .13 to easy .14 range, which is a bit harder than I climb. Yes there were places for gear/bolts, but there was just no way I was going to free it. Some other pitches I've aided had good cracks but they were the only feature and usually the crack is smaller than finger tips. |
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Aid climbing can be done for the sake of aid climbing or to get around a section that is too hard to free climb. |
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That route is for experts only. I've never done it but I can assure you will be disappointed if you show up expecting mostly 5.9 climbing with some aid. |
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Onsight spoiler alert! |
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The Finger of Fate goes free, but most pitches are in the 5.12 and 5.13 range and the gear is not straightforward. It is nearly all aid for mortals - the 5.9 free climbing is just a small bit of the climbing. It certainly isn't for experts only, but don't expect to get up it if you aren't dialed in on aid climbing before you go. It is not a new climber friendly route. |
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Thanks for all the input. To be clear, I wasn't considering hopping on the Finger of Fate tomorrow,I had just been looking at this route (and others) which sparked my question about aid. I was mainly just trying to figure out why some routes have interspersed aid sections, and I think my question was answered. |
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Paul, I think you have good answers here, but I'll add a bit more. I think your question more stems from the way it is rated here and in a book. It gets 5.9 C2 or something. That combination, if correctly rated, represents the easiest way you could get up it. You might be able to climb it via 5.13a pitches and have zero aid, but that is a much harder rating. Sometimes you will see OBL in a rating... very common in Europe and should be more here. This means "Obligatory", or what you must be able to do. On the Finger of Fate an OBL 5.8 would be appropriate, meaning you cannot climb it without doing some 5.8 free climbing. |
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anything you ever wanted to know about Aid is here supertopo.com/climbing/foru… |
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