Share Your Improbable Aid Placement Photos

Ryan7crew wrote:

Previously there was two rurps equalized here.  I fell on it, one blew, and the cable snapped on the second.  I didn’t have anything to tie it off, but I did have this random tiny river hanger that fit through the eye.

Nice Ryan. Looks like pitch 2 of Brain Dead 

First beak tip placement blew out the placement on testing exposing another beak tip placement. This little one was quite good actually, providing the rock held which it did.

it was all i had on an aid pitch at Pinnacles NP. I could hear the rock flexing and crumbling as i pulled past it. sweaty.

Kevin Dixson wrote:

it was all i had on an aid pitch at Pinnacles NP. I could hear the rock flexing and crumbling as i pulled past it. sweaty.

Which route?

Gettin weird on Wright Wall whiteside mountain NC. It held and looked better when weighted.

Blind placement, physically maxed out, sky stepping (much higher than high stepping while space stepping is when your soul reaches an actual enlightened state of psychedelia and floats above the ladder) the spreader bar on Mace & Chain suck creek Tennessee 

Doctor Drake wrote:

Has anyone ever effectively used a shoelace to aid? As in using the shoe lace on a placement and clipping into it.

Back in 76, I had plans to go up on the New Dawn. We tested shoelace (real live wire rivet hangers hadn’t been invented yet). We bounced on them and they didn’t break. We weren’t exactly psyched. We bailed and never got to any of the rivet ladders. We would have been petrified! 

Mark Hudon wrote:

Back in 76, I had plans to go up on the New Dawn. We tested shoelace rivet hanger (real live wire rivet hangers hadn’t been invented yet). We bounced on them and they didn’t break. We weren’t exactly psyched. We bailed and never got to any of the rivet ladders. We would have been petrified! 

Steve Bosque tells me stories about the Porcelain Wall fa where they used plumbers tape as rivet hangers. 

The metal stuff? Yeah, I’m sure! Dang!

Back then, wired stoppers had the wire running through them and back down to a swage. The standard thing was to slip the nut down the wire and loop it over the rivet. 

Mark Hudon wrote:

Back in 76, I had plans to go up on the New Dawn. We tested shoelace (real live wire rivet hangers hadn’t been invented yet). We bounced on them and they didn’t break. We weren’t exactly psyched. We bailed and never got to any of the rivet ladders. We would have been petrified! 

This is the story I was hoping for! That’s pretty cool, but I totally understand why you wouldn’t want to go through with it, spooky stuff.

My question was inspired by Ryan’s badass thread of the rurp. Seems like a shoelace could be a potential last ditch option if you don’t have a better option like he did. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

Steve Bosque tells me stories about the Porcelain Wall fa where they used plumbers tape as rivet hangers. 

I've clipped plumbers tape bolt hangers in the Pinnacles. Probably the same clowns (Harding et al lol).

Doctor Drake wrote:

Has anyone ever effectively used a shoelace to aid? As in using the shoe lace on a placement and clipping into it.

Not actual shoelace - albeit a bit stronger, one would assume: I haven't been able to find the reference - possibly in Downward Bound which I don't possess - but I'm sure I recall that Harding and Caldwell tried using 1/4" webbing, presumably tubular, as tie-off sling material for part-driven pins on WoEML; after one particular lead fall it was noticed that a few tie-offs had broken, leaving the pins themselves still in place. Of course, if the pins were knifeblades in a vertical crack/seam it's easy to imagine that they would affect the integrity of the webbing in the manner that their name suggests.

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Not actual shoelace - albeit a bit stronger, one would assume: I haven't been able to find the reference - possibly in Downward Bound which I don't possess - but I'm sure I recall that Harding and Caldwell tried using 1/4" webbing, presumably tubular, as tie-off sling material for part-driven pins on WoEML; after one particular lead fall it was noticed that a few tie-offs had broken, leaving the pins themselves still in place. Of course, if the pins were knifeblades in a vertical crack/seam it's easy to imagine that they would affect the integrity of the webbing in the manner that their name suggests.

This is standard and still done today by aid climbers. You'll find reference to this in every bigwall instruction regarding pitoncraft. Generally thin webbing (sometimes called supertape) similar to what's used to sling hooks and cam hooks. 

15 foot ice axe throw off of #1 Peckers.

Throw axe until it somehow sticks on something overhead (after 30 or so tries).

Gently jug rope and try to place backup gear if possible as you slither up.

Try not to think of the thing ripping and flying down at your head while you rip the #1 Peckers and whip onto the belay.

Turns out the axe was laying flat with the pick on a 1/8 inch crimper...the only thing that kept it in place was the friction of the rope on the rock.

Good times in retrospect.

J

I really need to start bringing my ice axe on my FAs

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

I really need to start bringing my ice axe on my FAs

If you haven't dry tooled hummocks in Yose then its an experience I recommend.

John Tuttle wrote:

If you haven't dry tooled hummocks in Yose then its an experience I recommend.

Lol, I'm trying to come home in one piece at the end of the qweekend. 

not mine but I came across it...

Skot Richards wrote:

As an aid climber who learned in North Carolina, that thing is textbook! Only would have been better if they squeezed a second one right next to it and the cables overlapped perfectly for instant equalization!