Share Your Improbable Aid Placement Photos

I climbed ten years after on the grand wall and reestablished the pitch that fell of in 2021. The crux was a ~15 foot sealed seam. Learned how hard placing heads on lead is and placed some tipped beaks before getting to the C1 crack. Also had to drill hook holes on lead for the first time and took a 20 footer when both my hooks popped since I didn’t drill my second hole deep enough the first time. Didn’t take pics of those since I was scared…

Cameron Jwrote:

Dang, that's spooky.  So little metal surface area!

This one was entirely safe since there was a bolt a short ways below me, and probably could have been avoided with some bold free climbing, but I was still surprised it held. 

This was on a solo of Gold Bar Tower near Moab, on the crux traverse. When I first weighted the hook it held for a few moments. Then part of the fragile edge the hook was on crumbled. Somehow the hook stayed on a now smaller edge. I retreated to my last piece and found a new edge, which held. 

I did learn that I needed to buy wider hooks if I am going to be using them on soft sandstone! I did not expect to use this hook but brought it along on a whim.

I like that your hook points you in the right direction to get to France. 

Aaron Kwrote:

This one was entirely safe since there was a bolt a short ways below me, and probably could have been avoided with some bold free climbing, but I was still surprised it held. 

This was on a solo of Gold Bar Tower near Moab, on the crux traverse. When I first weighted the hook it held for a few moments. Then part of the fragile edge the hook was on crumbled. Somehow the hook stayed on a now smaller edge. I retreated to my last piece and found a new edge, which held. 

I did learn that I needed to buy wider hooks if I am going to be using them on soft sandstone! I did not expect to use this hook but brought it along on a whim.

That's a weird move! A hook was a creative solution. I used a tiny, stupidly bad cam, maybe black Alien? with really only two lobes engaged, in a horizontal, perhaps even the one in your pic. It held, just. Starting the climb, about second or third piece, I placed what I thought was a perfect C1 bomber cam but when I stood up it blew out along with a piece of one side of the crack, I hit the ground just as the rope came tight, more surprised than hurt ... 

How do you like this bad boy?

Charles Winsteadwrote:

How do you like this bad boy?

Looks fine to me!

Charles Winsteadwrote:

How do you like this bad boy?

A1 head is A1.

Ha ha, y’all so tough! Saw that head on the second pitch of Martyr’s Brigade which is rated A4+R.

not boasting- I was simply jugging a line. Saw some crazy shit out there. Kinda want to go back and try the pitch (on top rope) just to get a sense of what that grade feels like.

Anyone out there want to burn a couple of days projecting on that? I’m free until the 8th…

Improbable? Well we don't actually know considering we'd never been aid climbing, but due to currently being in remote Kyrgyzstan we can't get aid gear or pitons on short order. So.... we made a bunch of beaks, hooks and pitons in our jury-rigged forge. The sketchy part was was that the only protection under me while I was standing up on the beak were two knife blade pitons we made out of scrap metal that both were bending while I was hammering them in. And then I fell off and they caught me. Got us through a pinch but I won't be doing that again!

There was an image of Riccardo Cassin  crawling across the Royal Arches Rotten Log many years ago . It was really springy last time I did it.

Teran Adamswrote:

Improbable? Well we don't actually know considering we'd never been aid climbing, but due to currently being in remote Kyrgyzstan we can't get aid gear or pitons on short order. So.... we made a bunch of beaks, hooks and pitons in our jury-rigged forge. The sketchy part was was that the only protection under me while I was standing up on the beak were two knife blade pitons we made out of scrap metal that both were bending while I was hammering them in. And then I fell off and they caught me. Got us through a pinch but I won't be doing that again!

That's the spirit. All of American aid climbing started this way with climbers figuring out how to make the tools they needed as they went and pushed standards.

Teran Adamswrote:

…due to currently being in remote Kyrgyzstan we can't get aid gear or pitons on short order. So.... we made a bunch of beaks, hooks and pitons in our jury-rigged forge.

Those pins don’t look half bad at all.  Assuming you were able to do a decent heat treatment they ought to be fine (although the mention of the bending KBs maybe be reason for caution or maybe not as they did hold your fall).  Either way I’d say keep it up.  They are only bound to improve as you get better at the process through repetition and maybe some trial and error.

Would be interested in seeing more photos of what all you have made. 

Wish I had a picture but anyone whose done finger of fate recently may have shared the joy of aiding off of a fixed tent stake pounded directly into the fisher towers mud. 2mm cord and all.

"mandatory free" they said

Yukon Corneliuswrote:

• "mandatory free" they said

Looks like the Fisher Towers?  What route?

James Dean Andersonwrote:

Looks like the Fisher Towers?  What route?

Phantom Sprint! I'm writing a trip report (with a bunch more photos) that I'll post soon. Most of the route was fairly clean and solid, but this cam in particular looked so hilariously bad, I had to take a picture. 

I had a five that was a lot deeper, in a pod kind of hidden by the six:

I thought this looked better, but it exploded out with a good bounce. The six looked so much worse to me, but it actually held!

Good old inverted cam hook

My partner used this on a deadhead at the start of the Salathé headwall after turning the roof.