Trad climbing with hooks for pro

I've seen a few videos of people using hooks for trad climbing protection and was thinking a lot about it since I climbed a route where a hook would have been the only protection (but I didn't have a hook, and ran it out). What's the scoop on this? Any stories of falls? Tricks?

Talk to Ken Nichols if you can find him. He used to lead stuff in CT with multiple belayers with hooks duct taped to the rock. 

Ken is the authority on hooks and he is still out there climbing every week.

Marc H wrote: Talk to Ken Nichols if you can find him. He used to lead stuff in CT with multiple belayers with hooks duct taped to the rock. 

Found a bunch of old supertopo forums discussing his chopping and hooks... interesting reading. They mentioned that he never fell on the hooks, rehearsing first on TR numerous times.

I have Ken Nichols' guidebook, Hooked On Ragged, where he has an "H" next to some climbs to indicate that they can be protected with hooks. Pretty scary stuff--seems like I'd definitely not want to fall on them.

David Kerkeslager wrote: I have Ken Nichols' guidebook, Hooked On Ragged, where he has an "H" next to some climbs to indicate that they can be protected with hooks. Pretty scary stuff--seems like I'd definitely not want to fall on them.

I was messing around with bailing on hooks a while back...worked pretty slick for short, straight forward raps or lowers... rap or lower and then just flick the rope up to retrieve,

David Kerkeslager wrote: I have Ken Nichols' guidebook, Hooked On Ragged, where he has an "H" next to some climbs to indicate that they can be protected with hooks. Pretty scary stuff--seems like I'd definitely not want to fall on them.

Well, all of those routes can be top roped. 

Ivanoff's Insight: I don't believe Ken ever thought the hooks would hold a real fall. IIRC, they were tied down with lines that went to the ground and his intent was to "downclimb and rest/lower, if necessary". I don't recall duct tape, but he very well may have used that, too. 

OTOH, the hook on this route may very well hold a fall (although I haven't tested that!) mountainproject.com/route/1…

Adam J. Clark wrote:

Found a bunch of old supertopo forums discussing his chopping and hooks... interesting reading. They mentioned that he never fell on the hooks, rehearsing first on TR numerous times.

Well, as someone who witnessed one of those leads (and absconded to Oregon his protege), I can state it was an onsight attempt and the reason they never fell on hooks was because of the associated risk. So what they did instead was downclimb onto the last hook and then lower ever so gently which was still burly and scary as fuck, especially when you think about what it takes to downclimb from a crux on most climbs.

I free climb on these:

I heard of a climb at Devil's Lake where the leader placed a hook with enough paracord on it to reach the ground, and a buddy kept it under tension so it wouldn't fall off.

Not sure if this is common practice when doing such things, but it's gnarly.

Zach Parsons wrote: I heard of a climb at Devil's Lake where the leader placed a hook with enough paracord on it to reach the ground, and a buddy kept it under tension so it wouldn't fall off.

Not sure if this is common practice when doing such things, but it's gnarly.

That would be the Nichol's method except with lots of hooks thus tensioned - it made belaying a way more interesting experience.

If you're willing to lead rope solo the climb then hooks become very easy to place as pro since you'll be able to tension them against the rope going down to the bottom anchor. Still not that good of an idea since a good fall can open a hook's curve thus making it less than ideal. I've done this all the time while aid soloing but never fallen on the hooks with any real force. Ideally, if there are larger flakes on the route then a Fish hook would be a good choice considering their beefy nature. 

Adam J. Clark wrote:

I was messing around with bailing on hooks a while back...worked pretty slick for short, straight forward raps or lowers... rap or lower and then just flick the rope up to retrieve,

Awesome idea Adam.

This guy fell onto a hook and it bent open. Pretty short fall too, and you can see how well the hook is set on the rock before the fall.

Zach Parsons wrote: I heard of a climb at Devil's Lake where the leader placed a hook with enough paracord on it to reach the ground, and a buddy kept it under tension so it wouldn't fall off.

Not sure if this is common practice when doing such things, but it's gnarly.

That was Acid Rock.

The idea isn't that you can whip on it, it's that you can downclimb back to it and hang. The tension cord thing was so rope movement wouldn't flick it off.

Frankly, it's usually more trouble than it's worth and in the case of Acid Rock the assist with the cord downgraded the red point to a pink point. Pity.

Healyje wrote:I free climb on these:

For those of us not versed in hooks, can you explain what we're looking at and how you use them?

Tradiban wrote:

That was Acid Rock.

The idea isn't that you can whip on it, it's that you can downclimb back to it and hang. The tension cord thing was so rope movement wouldn't flick it off.

Frankly, it's usually more trouble than it's worth and in the case of Acid Rock the assist with the cord downgraded the red point to a pink point. Pity.

Found the story, it's worth a read:

It reads like he didn't want to fall on the hook and knew that it probably wouldn't hold, but there's no mention of downclimbing and hanging off it.

Not even gonna get into red point vs. pink point, your reputation precedes you :).

Zach Parsons wrote:

Found the story, it's worth a read:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/105875191/the-first-lead-of-acid-rock-an-essay-by-jason-huston

It reads like he didn't want to fall on the hook and knew that it probably wouldn't hold, but there's no mention of downclimbing and hanging off it.

I was speaking in generalities, but I vauguely recall Jason claiming that was the plan and I've definitely placed plenty of pro that I knew wouldn't take a fall but hoped I could backoff and hang on if I wasn't sure I would make the moves. It was an explanation to the OP.

Not even gonna get into red point vs. pink point, your reputation precedes you :).

No worries, it was an inside joke of sorts ;)

David Kerkeslager wrote:

For those of us not versed in hooks, can you explain what we're looking at?

Those are Chouinard Crack N' Ups. They are made in sizes 2-6. A few (I think two) #1s were made but they were too flimsy to be useful in any way and so never made it into general circulation. They are specifically for aid climbing and few (if any) others use them for free climbing. Most common was to saw off one side of the Crack N' Up and use it as a beak. Then the A5 beaks came along. These days Crack N' Ups have no practical value but do have collector value. They're one of the most iconic pieces of vintage gear.

ClimbingOn wrote:

 These days Crack N' Ups have no practical value...

I dunno, I personally still find them incredibly useful for free climbing, particularly on onsight multipitch FAs. Ditto ball nuts #2-4.

Healyje wrote: I dunno, I personally still find them incredibly useful for free climbing, particularly on onsight multipitch FAs. Ditto ball nuts #2-4.

A short while back I got a set of ball nuts with the hope of being able to start using them regularly next season, as I have a strange attraction to climbing above RPs and microcams, so ball nuts seemed a logical addition to the mix. That brought me to an old supertopo post you made on using ball nuts. Probably one of the best posts I've seen around, for sure, I made a copy of it. Anyway, I don't have any intention of climbing on hooks at the moment, but why do you prefer the chouinard hooks? Did YC just nail the right design and no one else has made as good a hook since?

DanH TheMan wrote: Ken is the authority on hooks and he is still out there climbing every week.Out there

Climbing rocks and chopping bolts still? last I heard KN's biggest accomplishment was taking a girl off belay mid climb by accident so she dropped 20+ feet then had to be helicoptered outta Ragged ... glad to have him around still, what a legend !!!