Share Your Improbable Aid Placement Photos

A head placement at a local practice wall

^^ Above, it looks like a well placed head, but it wouldn't hurt to grab your 1/4"-diameter flat-tipped punch and really paste the two bottom "corners" on either side of the cable. This will provide extra grip - just be careful not to ding the cable. 

Ok thanks for the advice I have a 1/8 punch that I used to place this

Was aiding out to set an anchor for a route - was stunned that this held

Committed to this blind placement on changing corners. Should’ve grabbed the offset instead. 

Seconds later it started creaking and popped halfway out. Still held though!

Drew Rwrote:

Committed to this blind placement on changing corners. Should’ve grabbed the offset instead. 

Seconds later it started creaking and popped halfway out. Still held though!

If you don’t take a pic it wasn’t that scary!  
love it!

Drew Rwrote:

Committed to this blind placement on changing corners. Should’ve grabbed the offset instead. 

Seconds later it started creaking and popped halfway out. Still held though!

That’s cool that you can see what looks like the possible evidence of a [formerly] fixed pin (ie: rust coloration on the left side).

I bet you were relieved that it held!

gunkie Xwrote:

That looks rad.  There’s some really small pro, especially considering the ground looks to be pretty close.  

Brian Rwrote:

That looks rad.  There’s some really small pro, especially considering the ground looks to be pretty close.  

Yeah, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" FA Ivan Rezucha.  His buddy Jeff Pofit took a fall, ripped his gear, and landed on his head between two boulders at the base and walked away.  I'll call it C3R.  Ivan is a hell of a climber.   I took a fall after a small wire broke on me. 

Regarding Man Who Fell to Earth: I did two hook moves in a row with one hook by clinging desperately to something while I moved the hook up.

Dick Williams in one of his more recent guides says someone else did the FA. That would have been with pins.

It’s now goes free and must be seriously R.

More info: I self-belayed this in 1975 or so. Some notes I compiled a few years ago say this:
I mistakenly thought this was an FA; renamed to Uphilll All the Way and as per Williams done by Dennis Mehmet and Bill Goldberg in 1965. FFA at 5.12a PG by Hugh Herr in 1981. I aided it with several hook moves. When Jeff Pofit tried to repeat it, he didn’t know that and tried to do it all nuts. He ripped gear and hit the ground, fortunately landing on soft earth between the rocks. Hence the name.

Since this was done in 75, no cams back then, no brass or other micro nuts. Must have done it with just Chouinard (no Black Diamond then) stoppers and the 2 or more hook moves.

Ivan—my buddy and I are prepping for our second attempt at el cap (retreated after attempting Lurking Fear in 2024). We’re based in NY, I’m 20 min from the Gunks. We’re trying to practice aid here, which is obviously less than ideal.

The Man Who Fell From Earth looks gnarly. Would you consider that good practice for the big stone or totally bonkers for anyone to do and expect any degree of safety? Or both?

Noah: I’d say no to Man Who Fell to Earth. Too dangerous and too fiddly. What you need is practice moving fast and dialing your systems including hauling (assuming a relatively easy El Cap climb). If you want to dangle in etriers (and move not so fast) how about Spinal Traction or Twilight Zone?

Trying to think of a continuous crack you could clean aid at the Gunks. Something Interesting P1? Boldville? The Spring P1? Simple Suff. Erect Direction crux pitch is good. Ant’s Line and Bonnie’s roof are good and pretty long and have continuous gear. Double Crack wall. Kligfield’s Follies.

It could be useful once the gear is placed to climb it several times as quickly as you can as if you were on a bolt ladder.

Also very important is transitioning aid to free and free to aid. Bother are scary. Once you are used to being on aid you’re afraid to go free. Once you are used to free climbing you may be afraid to commit to aiding.

Noah Weingartwrote:

Ivan—my buddy and I are prepping for our second attempt at el cap (retreated after attempting Lurking Fear in 2024). We’re based in NY, I’m 20 min from the Gunks. We’re trying to practice aid here, which is obviously less than ideal.

The Man Who Fell From Earth looks gnarly. Would you consider that good practice for the big stone or totally bonkers for anyone to do and expect any degree of safety? Or both?

I'll be back in the valley in the spring to drag one or two of my kids up the Prow on WC because they wanted to climb a wall.  They will also be carrying everything to the base and off the top down the NDG.

Lost City has a ton of cracks not named Persistent that can be aid climbed.  Also, Peterskill has plenty of cracks to aid.  Skytop has tons of very aidable cracks; too bad it's mostly off limits.  As far as aiding in the Nears or Trapps... stay away from high traffic lines and use hooks with caution.  You don't want to be the goobus (credit: Russ Walling for that gem) popping off a key hold on a difficult free climb.

Spinal Traction

Noah Weingartwrote:

Ivan—my buddy and I are prepping for our second attempt at el cap (retreated after attempting Lurking Fear in 2024). We’re based in NY, I’m 20 min from the Gunks. We’re trying to practice aid here, which is obviously less than ideal.

The Man Who Fell From Earth looks gnarly. Would you consider that good practice for the big stone or totally bonkers for anyone to do and expect any degree of safety? Or both?

Moving cams quickly up perfect C1 cracks is all you really need. Anything will do. Efficient movement with your aiders and daisies/pas/alfifi etc is really 90% of it. Once you get a rhythm down you are there.

All the rest on your first el cap route is just fiddly engineering you can figure out on the fly.

Thanks guys! I got some beta on lost city, definitely going to head there. I think on our last attempt we actually over indexed on systems and then felt like we were over our heads in C2, so we’re trying to find scary but safe stuff to jump on.

With that, I will happily redirect the thread back to sketchy aid placements. Not mine, but sketchy

gunkie Xwrote:

Spinal Traction

Drew Rwrote:

Committed to this blind placement on changing corners. Should’ve grabbed the offset instead. 

Seconds later it started creaking and popped halfway out. Still held though!

Looks to have moved quite a bit. Amazing that an FUped 4 cam place became a decent tcu placement with a 4 cam unit. I really don't see how it did that.

Christine Spangwrote:

The only thing I could figure out to get by this blown out head on Liberty Crack in WA this summer was clipping around it with a cross loaded nano 22. Would not slot in the other way. Had little more than a free rack with me as most of the route goes free at a moderate grade!

I remember that from my ascent in 2002, but one strand of the wire was still partially attached. I twisted the strand into an eye of sorts, clipped it and held my breath. The twisted cable cinched down on the carabiner and held.

Mud climbers need their heads examined lol.