Re-aiding to clean traversing pitches.

I see this a lot, and having climbed and cleaned some of the most horizontal pitches on El Cap I’m wondering, Why?
Sure, the odd move, but never more than a couple.
I NEVER adjust my daisies when jugging. If I need to get closer for some reason, I’ll toss my Alfifi onto a jug handle, get the job done and then pop it off.

On the Shield, my partner was cleaning the pitch up to below the roof. He complained that I had back cleaned so much of it that he had to re-aid the whole thing. I had cleaned no more than every other piece and he felt he had to re-aid the pitch because he was unwilling to lower out from the far piece, pull over, pop the piece and take the swing. The pitch is very steep with nothing possible to hit on the swing. 

Sure, if the pitch is dead horizontal, you’re not gonna take that swing. But if it’s dead horizontal, and the leader has cleaned every other piece, he’s made a major mistake. The leader has to be aware of problems he may be creating.

If the leader had placed a bunch of crappy nuts, that later fell out, well, you certainly have problems and may need to re-aid the pitch.

In my whole career, I have never “re-aided” more than a move.  

Not sure what your definition of "re-aiding" is, but on very horizontal sections I don't back clean and instruct my follower to "re-aid" the pitch on the existing gear. It is faster to just clip directly into the next piece, weigh it, and clean the past piece than do lots of tiny lower-outs. The classic example of this is the second half of the Kor Roof pitch; very easy to navigate the awkward roof lip as a follower by just clipping directly into each piece and then remove the last one. 

I don't know anyone who would want to specifically re-aid part of a pitch as a follower placing additional gear (and I can't recall ever doing it/seeing it). If you are asking why people are doing this, I think it is either the leader or follower isn't doing the optimal thing for whatever reason (scared, insufficient gear, insufficient knowledge). Not everyone is as great as us, Mark. :P 

Ben Horowitzwrote:

Not sure what your definition of "re-aiding" is, but on very horizontal sections I don't back clean and instruct my follower to "re-aid" the pitch on the existing gear. It is faster to just clip directly into the next piece, weigh it, and clean the past piece than do lots of tiny lower-outs. The classic example of this is the second half of the Kor Roof pitch; very easy to navigate the awkward roof lip as a follower by just clipping directly into each piece and then remove the last one. 

I don't know anyone who would want to specifically re-aid part of a pitch as a follower placing additional gear (and I can't recall ever doing it/seeing it). If you are asking why people are doing this, I think it is either the leader or follower isn't doing the optimal thing for whatever reason (scared, insufficient gear, insufficient knowledge). Not everyone is as great as us, Mark. :P 

I agree with this, except perhaps for the last sentence ;). Forcing the follower to take swings takes more time and can potentially expose the follower to injury by swinging into obstacles. During a swing, the rope could be cut by tracking along the edge of a roof or something else. One possible exception: If the lead rope goes up above the end of a traverse, back-cleaning (or not clipping the rope to) a piece or few at the end of the traverse may reduce the swing potential for the follower. Or it may not. 

I haven’t been up on it in decades, but it would seem to me that that bit above the Kor roof, traversing over to the anchor, would be one of the spots where the second climbing the pitch on aiders would be appropriate.

What’s your definition of “lowering out”? If the leader has climbed a quite traversing section and has left every single piece in, and every piece was only a couple, maybe 3 feet from the next piece, would you define that as “lowering out”.
Although the technique is exactly the same, when I say that I lowered out, I’m talking about going out quite a distance, not piece to piece.

And BTW, I’m not talking about cleaning roofs here. 

I appreciate this discussion.  I've only followed one roof pitch and I think I was able to just use the standard method of putting my top ascender over the piece.  But I am trying to figure out how to clean more traversing pitches in case that doesn't work sometime.  I've watched this video from the How not to Highline channel and it looks pretty complicated.  I'm having a hard time following it.  I don't use adjustable daises so I am trying to figure out how best to do it.  Most of the video shows leading but the following portion starts at about 13 minutes in.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awlgciQ-QUQ&t=472s

I think Ryan’s vids where he breaks stuff are great, his “How to” vids, not so much. 

Having led The Shield Traverse recently, my partner was able to clean it quickly by a mix of jumping ascenders, and alfifi/popping the previous piece. But i also didn’t leave massive gaps in pro.

To me, lowering out, yanking back up and popping the piece and swinging seems like a lot of work. Granted i’ve never tried it. 

Mark you should make a video on the technique. 

This post would be more helpful if it was more specific. Like clarifying exactly what you mean by traversing, lowering out, and re-aiding.

Trying to pop pieces on a dead horizontal crack with no features seems really hard. And I thought that "re-aiding" by clipping in directly to the pieces instead of the jugs was the near-universally recommended thing to do.

I can't tell if you have some superior alternate cleaning/jugging method, or if this is just a disagreement about what swings you should be willing to take when following.

Edit: The combination of "[cleaning] some of the most horizontal pitches" and "[having] never 're-aided' more than a move" is what is really throwing me off.

I am having a hard time following the steps as well.  It would be great if there was a video or at least a very detailed description of the steps people are talking about.  I am still going through the "Hooking Up" book by Pete so maybe I'll find it in there tonight.  

The “Re-Aiding” traverses thing is mind blowing to me..

I know I’m no Mark Hudon- but I’ve cleaned a bunch of pitches and plenty of traverses and besides maybe the Downward Travers on p5(?) on Tangerine Trip I dont think I’ve done it once..

I learned to do a “mini-lower-out” with my left(low) jug on the Kor Boulder in 1993 and never looked back.. 

pass the piece with the top jumar, weight it while pulling down on the rope below the low jumar with your right hand, and feather the cam with your left thumb.. lower yourself until you are directly below the next piece.. now pop your left jug on the rope right below your right jug. maybe jug up a little and then reach over and clean the piece.. 

if a few pieces were back cleaned- you might need to swimg a little, and sometimes you can employ your Alfifi to hold you in on the piece or some tat..

 it’s just so simple.. and yes I too cleaned The Shield Roof in 2023 this way.. ;) 

mark- now can we talk about people who say to switch your top jumar depending on whether the pitch trends left or right? 

Jumping your ascender aka a ‘mini lower out’ is pretty standard when the pieces are reasonably placed.

What Mark is talking about is when the pieces are spaced twice as far away. My understanding is he’s saying to literally do a lower out off the piece, then yard up on the rope, pop the piece, take the swing. 

Max Rwrote:

What Mark is talking about is when the pieces are spaced twice as far away. My understanding is he’s saying to literally do a lower out off the piece, then yard up on the rope, pop the piece, take the swing. 

Yeah- I’m saying that too.. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

That's not a "mini-lowerout". That's not "jumping your ascenders." That's literally just "passing a piece."

Do people not even know what the Duecey lowerout is? 

If you can't standardize your terms how are you going to properly communicate with partners? (Granted I realize I'm calling out my own partner here, we suck) 

When you're practiced in what is literally the first thing one should learn about cleaning a pitch it literally takes 15 seconds and minimal effort. It takes longer to think of a different way to pass a piece than it does to just pass it

Clearly nobody here knows what the “Duecey Lowerout” is. Both you and Mark are assuming everyone does. Please elaborate?

Are you essentially taking large pendulum falls on every piece, and assuming the next piece isn’t going to pull? 

Ok, thank you to everyone who contributed.  I think it's making sense now for me.  I've done lowerouts on fixed pieces before already and that makes sense.  I learned that from Chris McNamara's video on lowerouts.  I don't have much experience with severely traversing pitches yet.  It sounds like I need to practice doing the thing where the rope slides through the ascender.  It's shown in the how not to highline video that I mentioned previously.  I might start by practicing at a playground or on the big tree in my backyard.  

Max Rwrote:

Having led The Shield Traverse recently, my 

was this before or after I zippered the 3 fixed heads getting to the anchor??!!
 

Here's the opposite pic of Max. 

I think I only screamed twice when a few pieces popped unexpectedly.

Isaac, are these the same pitch? Max's photo looks about a 80-85* angle (almost straight up), whereas yours looks only 15-20* off of horizontal... 

fwiw, the spacing looks very nice on that, basically wide bench press distance, so that the follower can jump the top ascender past the piece easily and still grab the last piece, even after passing it. Popping pieces from horizontal, as described in the OP is tricky, esp when you can't get anything to crimp/lock/jam on to ease pressure on the piece.

Christian Heschwrote:

Isaac, are these the same pitch? Max's photo looks about a 80-85* angle (almost straight up), whereas yours looks only 15-20* off of horizontal... 

Pretty sure they're the same pitch, I think I have a couple of similar photos. When I've talked about the pitch in the past I've described it as very roughly 45 degrees up and left, though I wouldn't argue with anyone who said anything in the 30-70 degree range, judging angles is hard.

The confusing thing to me is how people have enough gear to sew up this pitch, I remember leapfrogging blue and black totems most of the way until the vertical bit at the end. Then to clean doing 3 lowerouts, triple direct anchor -> fixed pin -> fixed pin -> under the vertical bit with the heads.

On that note - what happened after you ripped the heads Quinn? Did you have to replace them or possible without? Mainly wondering what I would have done if the same thing happened to me, I didn't have any heads with me.

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

That's not a "mini-lowerout". That's not "jumping your ascenders." That's literally just "passing a piece."

When you're practiced in what is literally the first thing one should learn about cleaning a pitch it literally takes 15 seconds and minimal effort. It takes longer to think of a different way to pass a piece than it does to just pass it

Yes. This should be second nature.

The pitch, let’s just say is diagonal to the left like the Shield pitch. Your leader has cleaned every other piece. The distance from each piece is now about 6 feet.

Your jug up and get to a piece, you take your left, top, ascender off the rope and put it back on the rope above the piece. You stand up on your lower aider, slide your top jug up as far as you can and sit down on that daisy.

Grab the rope below the lower jug, release that jug and lower yourself out a few feet until you’re directly below the next piece. (This is actually a great place to start using your grigri in place of your bottom ascender)

Now, grab the rope above and below the lower piece, pull yourself over sharply and in that moment where you are weightless, pop the piece and take a little swing.

Those of us who’ve done it a million times will be instinctively balancing ourselves on our feet while we swing and rack the piece of gear, sliding up the bottom jug and moving up to the next piece.

For me, even if the leader had cleaned two pieces, and I was eight or 9 feet away from the lower after I had moved my jugs above it, I’d still just pull over on the ropes, pop the piece and take the swing.

Now, of course, as the pitch gets closer to horizontal, that isn’t something you want do. The leader has to change his approach to back cleaning gear.

And also of course, we’re talking about the rock we are swinging over to is nice and clean with nothing to hit. 

Recently, on the Sea of Dreams, Skot had nailed a horizontal crack up to the RURP anchor. I had moved both my ascenders past a pin when the next two pins pulled. (the placements weren’t too far apart) I took a little swing down that didn’t even phase me. The crack was offset, so there was a pretty good shelf on the bottom. I grabbed the shelf and did a little bit of a hand reverse back to the pin, stood on a small edge, clipped a sling into the pin, gave it a whack with my hammer and it fell out, and I let go and took the swing again. NBD. Get it done. 

Fell Overwrote:

On that note - what happened after you ripped the heads Quinn? Did you have to replace them or possible without? Mainly wondering what I would have done if the same thing happened to me, I didn't have any heads with me.

there were 3 heads on the last 15ft or so to the anchor.. I stupidly got on the 3rd without thoroughly testing it.. It popped and the other 2 ripped.. I whipped and as usual only my belayer got hurt ;) 

Only the first head was necessary- and I was able to re-place one of the old heads with just the hammer (my chisel and heads were back at the belay) 

It was sort of odd that there were 3 heads there- I remember getting past where the other 2 were with C1 smallish cams

Christian Heschwrote:

Isaac, are these the same pitch? Max's photo looks about a 80-85* angle (almost straight up), whereas yours looks only 15-20* off of horizontal... 

Same pitch..

Christian- maybe you’re confused because it’s not the Nose?  

(@failfalling photo)