Interested in Aid

I'm still somewhat new to climbing and have been pretty much doing sport climbing for a little while. Aid climbing has got my attention and I'm wondering is their is any progression or something that should lead to this style, like should I become comfortable leading trad before I even think about aid? So yea, I'm basically a beginner interested in learning aid and is wondering where or when to start. What would some of you all suggest I do if wanting to learn this style of climbing?

read up, sacrifice your pride, and buy some shitty beer. and mountains of gear that you don't mind beating up. look ma, who needs partners?!

I'm going to do my first wall next week and holy shit does it require a ton of gear. I had a triples rack already, but the random shit just adds up so fast. Get a pile of money, and then turn it into a pile of aluminum gadgets.

I would say begin to lead trad so you can learn how to place gear, and start building your rack, learn more advanced rope skills, etc.

I aid climb all the time. Just grab that quickdraw! Boom, 12a becomes 5.10 A0

In all seriousness, no aid until you feel like you have trad climbing on point. That said, you can use aid techniques to get better at your trad climbing placements. Why? Because in trad climbing you rarely test your pieces whereas in aid climbing you test every piece.

To practice your aid technique and trad placements, find a crack climb that is continuous crack the whole way. This should be a climb you can either walk to the top of or get a rope gun to put up a TR for you. Once you've got the TR setup, take out your aiders (you'll have to buy these or you can make them from webbing- search make own aiders with webbing on Google to find these instructions) and start making your placements while on TR (you'll need to have your belayer get comfortable cause it's going to take a long time) attach your aiders to your placement and bounce test them. Then reach up from the highest steps you can teach in the aiders and place another piece. Rinse and repeat. Don't look directly at the piece or your eyes and face will hate you. Once you run out of pieces, lower and clean. (Nuts will need a hammer to get out most likely.)

Good luck

kevin deweese wrote:In all seriousness, no aid until you feel like you have trad climbing on point. That said, you can use aid techniques to get better at your trad climbing placements. Why? Because in trad climbing you rarely test your pieces whereas in aid climbing you test every piece. To practice your aid technique and trad placements, find a crack climb that is continuous crack the whole way. This should be a climb you can either walk to the top of or get a rope gun to put up a TR for you. Once you've got the TR setup, take out your aiders (you'll have to buy these or you can make them from webbing- search make own aiders with webbing on Google to find these instructions) and start making your placements while on TR (you'll need to have your belayer get comfortable cause it's going to take a long time) attach your aiders to your placement and bounce test them. Then reach up from the highest steps you can teach in the aiders and place another piece. Rinse and repeat. Don't look directly at the piece or your eyes and face will hate you. Once you run out of pieces, lower and clean. (Nuts will need a hammer to get out most likely.) Good luck

So basically, I would use trad gear, nuts, cams, tricams, and slinging chicken heads or nobs and instead of clipping quick draws or alpine draws to the gear for fall pro like free climbing, I would clip my aiders on the pro and climb that way? Is that essentially aid climbing in a basic sense?

Also, I think that is a great idea to practice gear placements for trad leading by doing this practice aid climb system you described while under top rope.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/aid-climbing-books/110011552

I'm working my way through aid technique now. Hardest part is finding someone to do it with you, belays can take a loooong time. Best to find someone who also wants to learn.

Supertopo's How to Big Wall Climb covers a lot of aid technique (big wall is really the primary application for involved aid climbing these days, I'd say). The youtube videos are great, but it all comes down to a ton of repetitive practice.

Step one is picking up trad climbing, no question. If you don't like that you probably won't like aid.

Start with getting decent at trad. If you aren't a major climbing widget gear head, aid is probably not for you.

Aid is a natural extension of the gear placement techniques from trad, but taken into the absurd. Anchor building similarly is a complex affair compared to sport, but will make sense once you have built trad anchors in a variety of oddball locations. Also make sure you have bad memory, good aid climbers look back and remember the fun, even if none was experienced at the time.

Take out a second mortgage, aid has the potential to be like a bad drug addiction. I have almost 100 cams at last count, about 100 nuts, 3 haul bags, 4 portaledges, 3 big wall harnesses, and 3 industrial sewing machines including a bar tacker. I have more gear than I can shake a stick at, and have just spent about $400 to buy just "a little more" for this spring's trip (another 9" cam, more nuts, more lockers, knee pads, fresh gloves, more beaks, butter knife, heads, etc).

If you find a sucker for a partner, keep them. A good wall partner is very hard to find and cultivate. You'll spend not just long belays together, but eat, crap, and sleep next to each other under sub-optimal conditions for up to a week at a shot. You need to still be decent friends after all that, and "enjoy" it enough to want to go do it again. You need to have similar enough ambitions, timetables, and have accommodating families.

Moof wrote:Start with getting decent at trad. If you aren't a major climbing widget gear head, aid is probably not for you. Aid is a natural extension of the gear placement techniques from trad, but taken into the absurd. Anchor building similarly is a complex affair compared to sport, but will make sense once you have built trad anchors in a variety of oddball locations. Also make sure you have bad memory, good aid climbers look back and remember the fun, even if none was experienced at the time. Take out a second mortgage, aid has the potential to be like a bad drug addiction. I have almost 100 cams at last count, about 100 nuts, 3 haul bags, 4 portaledges, 3 big wall harnesses, and 3 industrial sewing machines including a bar tacker. I have more gear than I can shake a stick at, and have just spent about $400 to buy just "a little more" for this spring's trip (another 9" cam, more nuts, more lockers, knee pads, fresh gloves, more beaks, butter knife, heads, etc). If you find a sucker for a partner, keep them. A good wall partner is very hard to find and cultivate. You'll spend not just long belays together, but eat, crap, and sleep next to each other under sub-optimal conditions for up to a week at a shot. You need to still be decent friends after all that, and "enjoy" it enough to want to go do it again. You need to have similar enough ambitions, timetables, and have accommodating families.

100 cams! a 9" cam! Yea I already have a very addictive personality I may have to tread lightly with this style of the sport hahahaha.

Don't let this happen to you.

Seriously, how did I end up with 8 #0.75 sized pieces?
Looks like I only have 89 cams, about twenty odd that are in the retired heap. Can't bring myself to actually toss them.
Routes like Mideast Crisis and Excalibur give you an excuse to quintiple up on the mid range stuff, and triples on the big stuff.

That is the largest rack I have ever seen outside of a retail store, congratulations sir :)

Nick0001 wrote: So basically, I would use trad gear, nuts, cams, tricams, and slinging chicken heads or nobs and instead of clipping quick draws or alpine draws to the gear for fall pro like free climbing, I would clip my aiders on the pro and climb that way? Is that essentially aid climbing in a basic sense? Also, I think that is a great idea to practice gear placements for trad leading by doing this practice aid climb system you described while under top rope.

Yup. That's the gist of it. Obviously there a lot of intricacies and techniques you should research along the way, but for finding out if it's really your jam or not, it'll do.

Moof wrote: Take out a second mortgage, aid has the potential to be like a bad drug addiction. I have almost 100 cams at last count, about 100 nuts, 3 haul bags, 4 portaledges, 3 big wall harnesses, and 3 industrial sewing machines including a bar tacker. I have more gear than I can shake a stick at, and have just spent about $400 to buy just "a little more" for this spring's trip (another 9" cam, more nuts, more lockers, knee pads, fresh gloves, more beaks, butter knife, heads, etc).

This. Once you start aid climbing, and especially once you start soloing, and especially especially once you start putting up your own aid bigwall routes, you'll click on the "look at my rack" thread and just shake your head. I've got at least what Moof has if not twice as much. (Only three portaledge though 3.5 if you count the single point hammock. And no sewing machines for me, but only because my friend owns a metal working shop so he's got all the manufacturing gear you can shake a pecker at)

Moof wrote:Don't let this happen to you. Seriously, how did I end up with 8 #0.75 sized pieces? Looks like I only have 89 cams, about twenty odd that are in the retired heap. Can't bring myself to actually toss them. Routes like Mideast Crisis and Excalibur give you an excuse to quintiple up on the mid range stuff, and triples on the big stuff.

Dude you are an inspiration, and that big bro, righteous.

kevin deweese wrote: This. Once you start aid climbing, and especially once you start soloing, and especially especially once you start putting up your own aid bigwall routes, you'll click on the "look at my rack" thread and just shake your head. I've got at least what Moof has if not twice as much. (Only three portaledge though 3.5 if you count the single point hammock. And no sewing machines for me, but only because my friend owns a metal working shop so he's got all the manufacturing gear you can shake a pecker at)

Man if I had the gear and know how I don't know if I have the balls to solo a big wall. Maybe one day? Do you guys feel like mentoring lol?

I'm still getting into aid but my two cents:

I found top rope aid soloing a helpful way to learn, and a straight forward to transition to leading from.

I don't think there's much requirement for trad experience before getting into aid (just make sure you know how to join 3-4 pieces into an anchor). A big part of me getting into aid climbing was to learn how to place gear, which you learn at a hugely faster rate than by doing trad climbs.

Because of the solo aspect, you're not boring the shit out a partner while you spend an excessive amount of time bounce testing everything.

I found the supertopo videos on youtube good enough to get an idea of the sequence of things. (...blah...youtube...yer gonna die...blah...)

I have to concur with R Ms post. A medium short apprenticeship of TR solo aid followed by lead aid solo (and of course all the requisite cleaning) keeps you from being a bore to anyone. I think it also prepares you for big walls in ways that "training with buddy" can't. In my case, after my partners bailed on our first attempt on El Cap, I just soloed it. I was super pissed at those guys and probably wouldn't do it again (solo El Cap your first time up) that way for a multitude of reasons... YMMV To the OP, following RM's advice will make you a much more competent trad climber as well. Many easy trad routes you just can't "test gear" on falls without probably getting hurt... JMO</\\

How many days did it take you to solo it your first time up?

Im amazed you pulled off such a great feat. Cheers.

My 2 cents. I would personally think that practicing aid climbing first, before trad would be ideal. I'd rather be proficient in placing hundreds of pieces of gear before starting trad climbing. I'm not sure I see why people recommend things like " be proficient at leading 5.9-5.10 before aid climbing".

What Mike says comes with a caveat, which is there's a huge difference between free climbing chops and free climbing with an aid rack on.

It depends on how you're climbing, if you're soloing, the rack is super heavy and solo-tagging is more trouble than it's worth. That easy 5.8 section in free shoes and a light rack becomes 5.8 impossible with the extra weight and clutter of an aid rack catching on every flake and weighing you down.

If you're partnered climbing, you can always hang on your last piece and have your partner tag up more gear to keep the current rack light, but this can come with its own problems.

In general there's going to be a response in agreement and a response in opposition to every method of getting into aid. There really isn't a correct one besides, practice + experience + managing expectations.