Big(ger) stuff around the northeast

I'm trying to get more into alpine/ big wall / and aid climbing, but don't have money for trips to places with big rock.

How can I learn and practice a lot of shes skills in the northeast area?

Cannon. 

I know New York is not officially in the North East, but it does have a lot of alpine - big wall feeling climbs.  Think Daks!

Bigwalls are just single pitches stacked on top of eachother. Any continuous crack of two pitches or more will allow you to work on your aid systems. There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times.

kevin deweese wrote: Bigwalls are just single pitches stacked on top of eachother. Any continuous crack of two pitches or more will allow you to work on your aid systems. There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times.

Yes and no. I've definitely didn't feel completely unprepared doing long multipitch in Red Rock after doing shorter multipitch in the Gunks, but there are some big differences. When everything is going smoothly they're about the same, but when stuff goes wrong on a longer multipitch your options are much different. On a 2-3 pitch route I tend to leave stuff like food/water/guidebook/med kit on the ground because if I need those things they're only a handful of raps away. Even if you treat the situation as if you can't just rap down and carry everything, the mental commitment is a lot less.

I say this from my experience with the route lengths you mentioned (six pitches and two pitches), but neither of those is a proper big wall and I don't have experience with routes much longer than that. I imagine the differences between a proper big wall and a bunch of 2-pitch routes are even larger.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

Yes and no. I've definitely didn't feel completely unprepared doing long multipitch in Red Rock after doing shorter multipitch in the Gunks, but there are some big differences. When everything is going smoothly they're about the same, but when stuff goes wrong on a longer multipitch your options are much different. On a 2-3 pitch route I tend to leave stuff like food/water/guidebook/med kit on the ground because if I need those things they're only a handful of raps away. Even if you treat the situation as if you can't just rap down and carry everything, the mental commitment is a lot less.

I say this from my experience with the route lengths you mentioned (six pitches and two pitches), but neither of those is a proper big wall and I don't have experience with routes much longer than that. I imagine the differences between a proper big wall and a bunch of 2-pitch routes are even larger.

OP is asking about practicing bigwall technique when bigwalls are not readily available. My response is within that context. But you knew that and glossed over it didn’t you? 

kevin deweese wrote: Bigwalls are just single pitches stacked on top of eachother. Any continuous crack of two pitches or more will allow you to work on your aid systems. There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times.

This. Advice like this keeps coming up when I ask experienced climbers how they prepared for big walls and alpine, "dial it in on the small ones to be ready for big ones."

Similar advice I got from an Adirondack local, who puts up lots of hard ice and backcountry stuff and has climbed that big stuff in Alaska, Yosemite, etc, told me the key to alpine climbing is to start by being able to climb 5.10 trad on demand. As for big wall climbing, he said, that its just a matter of preventing tangles and being comfy with making coffee in a portaledge while your partner is shitting in a bag three feet away from you. Just about any crag can do for practicing aid, with some creativity, but its especially helpful to have single pitch crags with top-access for rigging different setups and fixing ropes, and they ought to have some continuous 5.10-5.11 cracks for clean aid, and maybe a bolt ladder or two, at least some bolts here and there for lowering and such

The rock season around here is too short to spend it in ladders, so I've been more proactive about getting dialed on free climbing, which is a lot more rewarding and enjoyable and requires more strict conditions (versus aid).  I only get in ladders when its too hot to want to climb, on the occasional weekday, but mostly on comfier winter days while the ice settles in. Too many climbers to count have made it big practicing skills in the Adirondacks, the Gunks, on Cathedral and Cannon, etc. It just takes dedication.

Tyler, want to practice some aid this winter? Grab some puffies and do some clean aid at the Web or Moss or Pitchoff on a cloudy day? If its sunny and dry then I'm ditching the ladders, though. Whatever though, I'm stoked on alpine and big walls, have been for years but can't afford travel either - you a broke college student too? We cool, PM me

kevin deweese wrote: 

OP is asking about practicing bigwall technique when bigwalls are not readily available. My response is within that context. But you knew that and glossed over it didn’t you? 

1. OP has big(ish) walls available to them in the Northeast at Cannon/Whitehorse/Dacks.

2. Even if they didn't, it makes sense to set realistic expectations of what results they're going to get from practicing on smaller walls. There isn't a context that makes "There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times" a completely true statement.

3. Chill, bro. I'm not even saying that it's completely useless to do what you said--I said it worked okay for me, and there are plenty of other people who have practiced in the Northeast and gone on to great success out west. I'm just pointing out that there are still differences.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

1. OP has big(ish) walls available to them in the Northeast at Cannon/Whitehorse/Dacks

Just because it is an aid climb doesn't mean its a big wall climb

David Kerkeslager wrote:

1. OP has big(ish) walls available to them in the Northeast at Cannon/Whitehorse/Dacks.

2. Even if they didn't, it makes sense to set realistic expectations of what results they're going to get from practicing on smaller walls. There isn't a context that makes "There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times" a completely true statement.

3. Chill, bro. I'm not even saying that it's completely useless to do what you said--I said it worked okay for me, and there are plenty of other people who have practiced in the Northeast and gone on to great success out west. I'm just pointing out that there are still differences.

Since walls seem to be about a) fucking yourself at the belay and b) fucking your follower, and since the thread is about walls, even silly artificial pitches are incredibly helpful to discover gaps in your knowledge.

I did a shitton of laps on a single 60' discontinuous crack, including breaking it into 2x 30' pitches and hauling a bag of rocks -- because that's what I have. Getting the bullshit mistakes out of the way there is what prevented me from bailing when it actually mattered (lol because climbing matters.)

Nolan Huther wrote:

Just because it is an aid climb doesn't mean its a big wall climb

You literally quoted me saying "big(ish)" in your post.

People are out for blood in this thread.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

You literally quoted me saying "big(ish)" in your post.

People are out for blood in this thread.

Contradicting the advice actual big wall climber, on a thread about big wall climbing, by citing your imagination and how easy-fifth Gunks routes didn't prepare you for a Red Rocks multipitch might do that

Also, almost none of the "big(-ish)" climbs out here are longer than 6 pitches

David Kerkeslager wrote: 

1. OP has big(ish) walls available to them in the Northeast at Cannon/Whitehorse/Dacks.

2. Even if they didn't, it makes sense to set realistic expectations of what results they're going to get from practicing on smaller walls. There isn't a context that makes "There's no difference between practicing in one trip up a six pitch route and doing a two-pitch route three times" a completely true statement.

3. Chill, bro. I'm not even saying that it's completely useless to do what you said--I said it worked okay for me, and there are plenty of other people who have practiced in the Northeast and gone on to great success out west. I'm just pointing out that there are still differences.

1. Though I doubt it's comprehensive, MP's list of "big(ish) walls" are:

• Dacks: One 5 pitch route with a single pitch of aid on it, and one 125' aid pitch.
• Whitehorse: One 18 pitch girdle traverse with a single pitch of aid on it
• Cannon: One 7-pitch route of aid at A3, one 8-pitch route of clean aid and free, one 50' unfinished A3- aid route, and one 3-pitch route of A4+ aid
  • So, tossing out the A3 and above climbs, and tossing out the single pitch climbs and climbs with a single pitch of aid, we're left with a single "big(ish) wall" for OP to work with.

2. That context is practicing bigwall technique and belay management. Your false choice of climb with everything or don't is solved by simply practicing as you would on the actual bigwall climb, thus it's not a choice, you should bring your food/water/med kit/guidebook(lol) when you're practicing. The chance of things "going wrong" don't increase when you add to the length of the climb, they increase when you add to the overall number of practiced pitches. Even weather issues, which are worse the higher you are, in the CONTEXT of practicing skills, are still viable in the 2 pitch range because you'll still see all the fun that comes from dealing with bigwall watercourses and rapping on wet rope with your kit. And you would't actually want a person practicing skills to do this from 6 pitches up would you? Sounds dangerous for someone trying to practice their skills.

3. What you're pointing out is that the knowledge gleaned from developing your multipitch free climbing skills do not give you the breadth of experience to understand the practical value and application of those differences to the OP's request.

I agree with everything Nolan Huther says; it is spot-on. The ADKs (as well as areas in the Greens and Whites) are fantastic venue for building a solid technical base in both rock and ice climbing. Your attention is best spent now on becoming as good and as well-rounded a climber as you can be. The ADKs have everything you need to do this. If you can get really solid on 5.10-5.11 trad in the ADKs, you'll have a really good base climbing ability that you can apply anywhere. Similar is true on the winter/ice side of things.

I wouldn't worry about the fact that the climbs are shorter in the ADks than for some of your goals on larger faces. If anything, the cragging environment is a better place to build your initial base of technical ability. The ADKs have so many good 1-4 pitch crack climbs (and ice climbs) that you can really dial in those techniques. Once you go out to Yosemite you will still feel in your element on the climbing, and you'll catch on pretty quickly to the extra logistics required for longer routes. You can figure out aiders and hauling in a season pretty easily, especially if you have a good trad base, but becoming a solid 5.11 trad climber takes years.

Personal anecdote: I went to college in Vermont, and the majority of my climbing for those four years was in the ADKs, with the occasional trip to Cannon, the Gunks, or to ice climb at Smuggs. I think this gave me a really solid technical foundation as a trad climber. I wans't practicing for longer routes, directly, just getting out and trying to improve and to do as many of the great climbs in the area as I could. Once I graduated and moved out west, the skill set I built in the ADKs applied really well in all the classic areas I later got to climb at. In particular, the ADKs made me really solid at crack climbing, which is a skill set you may not get at some other east-coast trad areas.

Another consideration is what your goals are, and the timing of when you want build up to doing big walls. If you were planning to go to Yosemite this fall to try to climb Leaning Tower, then by all means put in a bunch of time this summer practicing the specific skills of aid climbing and hauling and lower-outs and all that. But if you just have a general ambition of climbing at big multi pitch areas at some unspecified future time, then your time now is better spent building a broad, general trad climbing ability (and this mostly means free climbing).

If your goal is to climb the Nose, for instance, you can spend your time now practicing aid climbing and then go aid the whole route. Or you could spend the next few years doing a bunch of really cool free climbs in the ADKs and Whites, get really solid on 5.11 cracks, and then go climb it mostly-free/french-free up to 5.11, only having to break out the aiders on a few pitches. Which sounds more fun?

Alright guys, try reading the OP and my original post, and learning what the -ish suffix on a word means, and I think you'll be able to resolve your own anger here. You're getting miffed about things I didn't say (I agreed with KD's post more than I disagreed--my post just had some nuance to it which was lost) and the OP didn't say (this thread isn't just about big walls, it's also about alpine/aid). I'm gonna unsubscribe from this thread and go climb.

JCM wroteIf your goal is to climb the Nose, for instance, you can spend your time now practicing aid climbing and then go aid the whole route. Or you could spend the next few years doing a bunch of really cool free climbs in the ADKs and Whites, get really solid on 5.11 cracks, and then go climb it mostly-free/french-free up to 5.11, only having to break out the aiders on a few pitches. Which sounds more fun?

Actually, the first one sounds like more fun to me, but I find myself to be an exception to the rule. 

But, because contrarianism is in my blood (aka my father was an a$$hole) bigwall freeclimbing is a different ballgame than multipitch free climbing (unless you're doing the route in a day) Many people get to the Valley strong with their freeclimbing but weak on their understanding of hauling and cleaning on jugs and what happens is that they use so much energy dealing with those irritating systems that their freeclimbing ability goes out the window. Another consideration is that there's a differently sized rack between freeclimbing and aid. You can bring a freeclimbing rack and pull on pieces every now and then, but if you're exhausted because you and your partner have been spending most of your time hauling and yelling at each other to clean the previous pitch faster, you're going to run out of pieces to pull on long before the belay. On the flipside, if you rack with the intention of freeclimbing but bring enough gear to aid the pitch, you're not going to be able to climb even close to your trad limit with the extra weight and cluster of the larger rack.

Don't get me wrong, spend more time working on your climbing than your systems, but don't forget the small stuff because on bigwalls, as a monkey once told me while I was walking tail tucked from bailing another route, it's never the climbing that kills you, it's the carpentry.

My method was to use a tr crag to practice the aid bit- aiding, pendulums, jugging, cleaning, hauling, lower outs, etc. Def didn't get really efficient at it, especially at switching between aid and free, but got to ptactice all the systems and understand them.  There are some old aid routes at the Delaware Water Gap if you're in that area... only 2-3 pitches though. Just pack your bags like you would for the real thing. 

I have been thinking of this a bunch myself. A few thing (and advice that was given to me):

1. Linkups could be an interesting approach. For example, try to do multiple routes to the top of Cannon in a day, admittedly the commitment factor is a bit lower since after each descent you could go back to the car and call it, but I think this would be good for dialing in efficiency (maybe more of an alpine training thing than a big wall training thing), but if you could do Moby, Lakeview and Whitney G in a day that would be a pretty good base to work off of.

2. Free climb in adverse conditions, it's actively raining a bit get on the rock. Figure out how to deal with and take control of these situations, or at least learn how to mitigate risk in them, and enjoy them for the challenge

3. Practice aid by lapping routes on aid (as discussed here). Read Chris McNamaras Big Wall book and drill the techniques in it, build a basis for your systems and get comfortable with it (the crux here is probably finding a stoked partner, but even if you can't for many of the skills if you learn how to safely TR solo you could practice on your own with relatively low risk. This will get you efficient, admittedly not committed.

4. Do some of the local aid routes (in NH there is Mordor Wall, Prow, etc for example), try to move between free and aid climbing efficiently. You are only a bit off the ground, but I think the exposure will be real enough to start.

5. Save up some money, carve out some time, find a partner, and hop on out and test yourself on the real deal.

6. Having a high base fitness level, especially for alpinism is always good... So get out and get on some long hikes and just get your body up to spec. A high climbing level also helps, more juice in the tank so get yourself competent as at high a level as is reasonable for your goals to give you some margin.

DISCLAIMER: I am also trying to get ready for big(ger) stuff than what we have here. I myself am simply trying to follow a lot of these suggestions and am in no way an expert.

Christopher Woodall wrote: 3. ... Read Chris McNamara's Big Wall book and drill the techniques in it, ...

*Crosspost from another bigwall thread*

I'll say this over and over until the people in the back hear it. Chris Mcnamara's "How to BigWall Climb" book it a worthless waste of time. Horrible typos, incorrect information, crap copyediting, difficult to comprehend photos, and a focus towards the type of climber that wants to freeclimb long routes with a bit of aid rather than intensive bigwall techniques required of actual aid walls.

Bigwall texts I like in order:

1. I've got Andy Kirkpatrick's new book and it's a fantastic resource even at its massive size.
2. Ogden's bigwall book is also very good but a bit difficulty to get to the info you want if you're just starting out
3. http://multipitchclimbing.com/ though not specifically about bigwalls is an impressive resource for a lot of the techniques shared between free climbing multipitch and bigwalling
4. Long/Middendorf's BigWalls book is old but has good info in a very short amount of pages
5. Strassman's Climbing Bigwalls book is also old but has some things in there that you won't find anywhere else (such as setting up a waterproof bivy fly when you don't have an actual fly)
6. http://www.vdiffclimbing.com/bigwall/ is a bit simplistic but it's online and free
7. Then consult any drunk monkey at the el cap bridge
8. Then consult any drunk monkey at a zoo
9. Then consult any drunk
10. Then take Macnamara's bigwall book and use it to start a fire to scare away all those monkeys and drunks (the drunk monkeys from the bridge won't be scared off until the beer runs out)

kevin deweese wrote: *Crosspost from another bigwall thread*

I'll say this over and over until the people in the back hear it. Chris Mcnamara's "How to BigWall Climb" book it a worthless waste of time. Horrible typos, incorrect information, crap copyediting, difficult to comprehend photos, and a focus towards the type of climber that wants to freeclimb long routes with a bit of aid rather than intensive bigwall techniques required of actual aid walls.

Bigwall texts I like in order:

1. I've got Andy Kirkpatrick's new book and it's a fantastic resource even at its massive size.
2. Ogden's bigwall book is also very good but a bit difficulty to get to the info you want if you're just starting out
3. http://multipitchclimbing.com/ though not specifically about bigwalls is an impressive resource for a lot of the techniques shared between free climbing multipitch and bigwalling
4. Long/Middendorf's BigWalls book is old but has good info in a very short amount of pages
5. Strassman's Climbing Bigwalls book is also old but has some things in there that you won't find anywhere else (such as setting up a waterproof bivy fly when you don't have an actual fly)
6. http://www.vdiffclimbing.com/bigwall/ is a bit simplistic but it's online and free
7. Then consult any drunk monkey at the el cap bridge
8. Then consult any drunk monkey at a zoo
9. Then consult any drunk
10. Then take Macnamara's bigwall book and use it to start a fire to scare away all those monkeys and drunks (the drunk monkeys from the bridge won't be scared off until the beer runs out)

Thanks for the info!