Hi all. New user here so forgive me if I mess up on this post.

I'm living near Toronto and keen on aiding some routes other than local trad climbs - I'm certainly not an expert and I'm looking for anything C1/C2 around the Toronto crags, and also the Dacks where I tend to frequent a lot of the trad routes.

Any advice welcome.

Oh - as a side, its really hard to find an aid partner... or am I the only one who has this problem? I had an interesting experience when I decided to jug out of a single pitch climb at my local crag and haul for practice - I had an audience of climbers who were obviously wondering what I was doing (I'm sure I heard the odd 'tut'). So - where do you get your partners or do you mostly solo? I'm interested in any entertaining stories that will give me more motivation to carry on with this enjoyable facet of climbing and not feel embarrassed when I am at the local crag. And how do you stay motivated to aid in light of these kind of odd looks and comments?

Best wishes, GraemeK.

Hehe.

Unfortunately no answer on this one! HHmm... I feel like a pioneer about to discover the new world :-)

GraemeK.

Crickets chirping on your first post, that's not nice is it?

I just don't know about the aid routes in your area. But, I can comment on the soloing. Most of the aiding I've done has been solo. It is hideously boring for a belayer and unless you are doing a major wall project with an experienced aid climber, nobody wants to do it seems like. But a soloist is always busy. If you can handle the isolation and the extra work, then soloing is a great way to do aid routes.

Hi Not So Famous Old Dude,

I am probably one of the most positive people in the world (at least I try to be) so I see a lack of replies as an amazing opportunity to go out and climb lots of stuff that:

(a) people haven't climbed before.
(b) people don't climb much of.
(c) will enable me to have the crags to myself :-)

Interesting to read about solo. I actually did a course on Aid Climbing down in the Dacks a couple of years ago with a guide. Interestingly enough several people down there suggested solo climbing is my only option (including the guide, unofficially).

I have read tonnes on solo aid and figured lots of system-stuff out on my wall at home since. I never actually done any solo aid as yet.

What's interesting is that everyone I've talked to about it is extremely positive about the experience. I do see it as an interesting facet worth exploring in the near future as an exciting option that can keep me climbing stuff!!

In one interesting example - a chap down in the Dacks who put up an aid solo A2 route a while ago, suggested I do the second ascent :-) and wouldn't have any problems! That was nice to hear!

Woohoo!

The Monument at White Bluff near Lion's Head makes for a fantastic aid. That's how the first ascent was done (By "Pass the Pitons" Pete Zabrok if I'm not mistaken). It was freed at 12c by Peter Croft and then David Smart (who had been working on it but offered it to Croft since he was in town) and Russ Clune, and perhaps a handful of others.

Because it's a full-on 30ft horizontal roof crack, even though it's C1 it's still a lot of work and just about as much for the second as for the leader.

I don't know whether making an anchor for solo-aid would be possible (probably), but there's no way to clean it on rappel, so you would have to either clean it by down-aiding or re-climbing it after having made an anchor in the trees above.

Are there trees on top of The Monument now? They were only miserable little rappel-knot-eating bushes when we finished up. We sure couldn't free climb it. Yeah, that would be a good one to practise aiding. Another one up in the area, which isn't hard and probably hasn't even had a second ascent, is Bananarama up the "B-52 Hangar" roof at Lion's Head.

A couple legit aid lines on the south end of Nemo are Monty Piton's Flying Circus and another one in the area - can't remember its name right now. You would need some pins for those.

Look me up when I get back from Yosemite in July, maybe we can go out someplace. I learned how to solo El Cap by practising solo aid on single pitch routes in southern Ontario, just clean aid climbing various cracklines. I went over to the Peanut Butter Brothers and Cat's Tail area of Nemo once, and set up some devious traversing line going up and down a bunch of different routes, setting up some horrific belay in the middle somewhere. I figured if I could lead, clean, and then haul a big bag of rocks over those crazy angles, I could probably solve just about any rope trick problem on a big wall.

It worked.

On the FA of The Monument, I'm pretty sure our rap ropes got badly stuck. I remember it was getting dark. Steve DeMaio was going to name the route Breach Of Faith, because I revealed to Dave Smart that we had found a 30-foot roof crack somewhere on the Escarpment [it runs for hundreds of kilometres and there are dozens of crags] and Steve was afraid Dave would beat us to it for the FFA. Dave couldn't climb it either, and sicced Pete Croft on it, who flashed it. Brilliant, that.

Dufte is a great route for practise aiding because it has continuous crackage. It was on my practice solo circuit when I was training for Iron Hawk. That part of the crag may be closed, so climb quietly. Another one at the north end of Nemo South is that route of Dave Smart's [forgot the name] that goes up through this big pyramidal feature. You could scare yourself silly on Iguanadon....

Lots of stuff to traverse on from Peanut Butter Brothers to Cat's Tail.

At Buffalo Crag, Rainy Day Women is a great practice aid line - you'll need micros and hooks for the headwall, which is not too bad. Most any continuous crack system will do the trick, really.

Here is your Dr. Piton Big Wall Tip of the Day:

When solo aid climbing, practise hauling a bag of rocks. It is far quicker and easier to fill your pig with rocks to use as your belayer, than to try to construct a multi-directional-mostly-upside-down belay. Then you can practise hauling with your 2:1 Hauling Ratchet, giving you the confidence that you can lift enough stuff to solo a big wall, without worrying about running out of food, water and beer.