Re-aiding to clean traversing pitches.

Wait, you're saying there's other routes on EC??? whaaaaaa?

all seriousness, This looks fine to space the gear a bit further apart but it *is* close to the limit that i'd personally want to deal with... much more horizontal and it gets to be a PITA.

My one concern with Mark's method is that it's difficult to push the upper ascender far enough past the piece so that, when the upper ascender is stood on, it doesn't "suck" the lower ascender up against the last piece, which can get fusterclucky, in my limited experience. Obviously this is where the sweet spot of angle vs gear spacing becomes more important.

Christian Heschwrote:

Isaac, are these the same pitch? 

Yeah, same pitch. You can see me chilling in my hammock in max's photo and I was laying on my back looking up when i took the pic. maybe 60-70 degree.

Christian Heschwrote:

My one concern with Mark's method is that it's difficult to push the upper ascender far enough past the piece so that, when the upper ascender is stood on, it doesn't "suck" the lower ascender up against the last piece, 

you don’t have to transfer all your weight to the upper ascender before you begin letting rope through the lower ascender.. 

(I’m out of posts- so responding to the next post here:)

I’m confused-

I was talking about how to pass the piece with the upper jumar and not slam the lower jumar in to the piece..

Seems like you’re talking about the Tech of grabbing a piece behind you, and simultaneously unweighting and pulling the piece? 

For the latter- it can be piece/placement dependent obviously.. and there is the option of placing a quick piece to hold you near the original piece if it needs fiddling 

A good first won’t leave the second in a PITA situation unless they have to.. so it’s not really that big a deal 

Fair but that's somewhat advanced, IMO - and if it's a snug totem, this can become a real PITA, as often they stick like mofos until they suddenly release - and you don't have time to wiggle them when you're pulling in hard to get 0.3s to pop the trigger bar and slide the cam out. As long as the angle is well past 60ish degrees, I can see this being simple enough, but def increases the fustercluck potential as you near 45* (and flatter) traverses, I would presume.

Christian Heschwrote:

My one concern with Mark's method is that it's difficult to push the upper ascender far enough past the piece so that, when the upper ascender is stood on, it doesn't "suck" the lower ascender up against the last piece, which can get fusterclucky, 

as Quinn said, that's the exact moment when your holding the rope under your lower ascender and feathering the cam to avoid it jamming into the last piece. 

after that, it's up to you if you can still reach or grab the rope as mark describes to get the last piece. Its fun to "run" back and try to time the trigger pull at the high point.

Yeah, you have to be careful at that point. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

You seldom need to crimp/lock/jam to ease pressure on clean pieces because one should be using the momentary weightlessness when moving through the arc of pulling yourself towards the piece and falling back (as Mark described in his later post, "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."). 

This is completely different when cleaning a nailing piece that won't just funk out but you Nose climbers wouldn't know anything about that would you? 

I would honestly pay good money to be shown how to do this quickly on the lynn hill traverse, where your "pieces" are in excess of 6ft apart (my span) and you're more or less horizontal. I know I'm a very weak climber but if there's a way to simply grab the rope (which is tensioned by about 200lbs), I'm all ears. I'm simply not strong enough to force two strands together, while my weight is on them. I suppose grabbing the biner itself to pull in towards the piece would work, and would be faster, but def looking at a further swing than my current method - using a 60cm sling through the link, pull self in, pop biner, lower self to full extension, push ascender as far as possible, release one side of sling and swing over, jug up, repeat. Of course this gets a bit trickier when we're not talking about a fixed piece.

When you typed "increases the fustercluck potential" I read that as "increases the need to know the basics of bigwall climbing so that your lack of ability doesn't get in the way of the basic systems."

The point I was trying emphasize was that, as mark said, there seems to be a fairly direct relationship with distance between pieces and angle in the x/y axis (assuming z is steepness of wall itself) of a section, and thus the onus is on the leader, to a large degree, to not create potential fusterclucks for the follower. Just because it's a basic skill does not mean things can't also be overly complicated due to other factors (within the leaders control).

Mark Hudonwrote:

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)

Grabbing the rope to release the jug and "lowering out" is something new I learned from this thread. Ironically I can only find that described/shown in that HowNot2 video.
https://youtu.be/awlgciQ-QUQ?t=925

Using a Grigri at the bottom is shown in this video (although in addition to both jugs which I assume you think is just a cluster).
https://youtu.be/i_dPEv3e_zE?t=356

I'm still curious about what you do in horizontal sections (where the leader doesn't backclean). Still some variation of lowering out from each piece?

Thanks for the explanation Mark, that makes much more sense to me. The only thing i’d personally worry about is the weighted piece popping while you’re swinging around and going for a ride, but i’ll have to try it.

The first half of that traverse is nearly horizontal. The last bit in my photo is closer to 45°. 

Austin Donisanwrote:

Using a Grigri at the bottom is shown in this video (although in addition to both jugs which I assume you think is just a cluster).
https://youtu.be/i_dPEv3e_zE?t=356

Good in some situations, but yes, a cluster in this one. 

 
I'm still curious about what you do in horizontal sections (where the leader doesn't backclean). Still some variation of lowering out from each piece?

I’m working on it!

Okay, you heard it here first FORGET EVER PUTTING A BINER THROUGH THE TOP HOLE IN THE ASCENDER!!!!!!!!! Just simply f*****g forget it! If you totally want to advertise your noob status, then go right ahead.

If I ever see any of you doing that when jugging a perfectly vertical straight up line, I'll be all over you like a loose suit. None of you can present a situation where an ascender will pop off a vertically straight up rope. Yes, that's a challenge. Go ahead and knock yourself out.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When cleaning a horizontal or near horizontal section, move the top ascender above the piece and safety it like shown here, (actually, that biner should be facing the other way) then put your weight on it. Move you bottom ascender over to below this one and then simply lean over and clean the piece. If you need to get higher in your steps, don't shorten your daisies, merely hook your Alfifi onto the handle of the ascended and tighten that. Clean the piece, pop it off, settle back down and continue.

The beauty of safety-ing the ascender with a biner like I'm showing is that it's really fast. You should have the biner facing the other way so that you can unclip it and leave it dangling right there  and ready to use when you attach the ascender past the next piece.

OKAY. SO NOW WE ARE FINALLY AT THE POINT OF MAYBE HAVING TO RE-AID.

In probably 99% of the times I've been faced with the situation where the climbing is horizontal (or near), there has been a foot hold, a hand hold of something to help me get back to the piece so that I can clean it. I've probably placed 3 re-aid pieces in all of my El Cap career.

All in all, if you're re-aiding, you are missing something and are going to be slow. 

And just one more thing that I'll put here so I don't go past my posting limit.
In our Shield pitch example, if the leader and really hosed me and had cleaned the last five pieces, and the space between the current pieces were 20 feet. I’d lower myself out, yell up to him that he's a fucker, yard myself in to the bottom piece, pop it and go for the swing.

That’s just me though. I feel comfortable doing it that way, but that doesn’t mean anyone else should do that. In all of this, there’s a lotta variance in ways to do things, but they all need to fall within your particular comfort level.