General tips for aiding speed and efficiency - part 1

First off, I want to say that I am not an advocate of always speeding your way along on a hike or climb. Actually, I feel kind of the opposite; IMHO, nature should not be treated like an outdoor stairmaster, as a place to do a chest beat about how fast you did a particular route, or how many vertical feet you hiked that day. So, you set a fastest known time on some trail or route. Well, yay for you. What are you going to do next, try for the fastest time running through the Louvre museum?

Having said that, a guideline of climbing is that “speed equals safety”. This is true to a certain extent. In big wall climbing, it means not running out of water when your three day climb turns into four, avoiding strangling your partner, and not climbing by headlamp when you could be kicking back in your portaledge.
Why do I mention these tips? Because I ignored pretty much every single one of them on my first couple of walls and sometimes went pretty darn slow as a result. Sure wish I knew all these beforehand.

Added: Also, I’d like to extend big thanks to Mark Hudon. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend two different big wall instruction clinics taught by Mark. He is exceptionally generous with sharing his knowledge and techniques, and many of the ideas presented here are from him. Check his great website for lots more tips, hudonpanos.com.
 
If you’ve been at the big wall game for a while, you probably know most of these already. If you're fairly new to aid climbing, then these tips may be more helpful. These are just my experience, This is by no means a complete list.  In no order of importance, here we go.

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Don’t rush
Speed does not mean fast. Speed means smooth, controlled, well-planned, and properly executed.  The Navy SEALS have a saying: ”Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” Do the task you have in front of you at a proper pace, and do it right the first time. “Smooth” comes from practice and having your systems dialed before you get up on a real climb.
Wall ace Mark Hudon: “Most wall climbers today would gain far, far more time by simply understanding and doing the basic, big wall tasks faster.” So, what are the basic tasks? Leading, cleaning, hauling, anchor building, belay changeovers, rope / belay management, staying fed/watered and comfy during the day.

Time yourself when practicing
During your training, time yourself and your partner doing different tasks. How long did it take you to do EACH of these tasks? Lead the pitch, build the anchor, fix the rope, set up the haul, do the haul, clean the pitch, re-rack the gear, and have your partner start leading the next pitch? Repeat all these on the same training route different times maybe over different days, and notice your times hopefully start to dramatically improve.  Have fun, and make training a little competitive. Time each segment, loser buys beverages.

Don’t “learn” to aid on a real route
People stuck behind you who have the skills to climb it for real will not be happy. Practice on obscure 5.11 cracks until you get things dialed. Time yourself repeatedly on the same pitch. Haul a 100 pound bag 1:1. Haul a 200 pound bag 2:1. Experience “riding the pig” by rappelling with your fully loaded haul bag. ( Tip - do NOT hang it from your belay loop!) Set up your ledge on a real cliff and spend a night in it, not just in a backyard tree. Do “aid bouldering” close to the ground, placing all manner of tiny stoppers, marginal hooks and micro cams until you really know how far you can push them before failure. Put in your training. Practice the core skills. You, your partner, and everyone behind you on the route will have a much better time. (People who go try Monkey Face at Smith Rock Oregon who have never aid climbed before and take 2 hours to lead and clean a short bolt ladder, I’m especially looking at YOU!)

Have all the skills needed for your route
Study the topo, photos and trip reports. Is there a pendulum and a lower out? How far is it? Do you need to hook? Is there a burly off width? Do you know how to clean a traverse? What’s the hardest mandatory free climbing, and can I/we do it?
There is a bounty of route beta for just about every beginner route you would ever want to try. Study up,  know what skills you need to have, and master them before you go.

Talk over each pitch before the climb
Before you leave the ground, go over every pitch in detail with your partner. Talk over who’s going to do what, when will it happen, and how you’re going to handle any anticipated difficulties. Do we have all the gear needed for the route? What’s the farthest we need to lower our the bags, and do we need a separate lower out line? Does a pitch go around a corner so you maybe can’t hear or see each other? (Better have a clear communication plan.) Are you leading in blocks or swapping leads? Who gets what pitches? What’s our anticipated timeline, and what do we do if we’re faster or slower than we planned? Having an action plan means you don’t need to create one on the fly and make important decisions when you’re tired and stressed. Sure, you can change your plan, but it’s a starting blueprint that guides your actions, instead of pretty much winging it on every pitch.

Always be asking yourself when you have downtime: “What could I be doing right now to make this climb faster or safer?”
Especially for beginners, there’s almost always something. Always be looking around for small potential problems, and deal with them before they become larger real problems. “Hmm, looks like that haul rope is hung up on something. I better deal with that right now before the leader starts to haul…”
Andy Kirkpatrick: "Remember the number one sentence that needs to be avoided on a wall: 'Hang on a minute!'”

Maintaining the psyche
Mark Hudon has some self-talk he uses when things get spicy: “I may be scared, but I’m at LEAST as good as the worst climber who has ever done this route! If they got past this point, dammit, so can I!” Remind yourself of this, and maybe even laugh a little when you’re faced with a tough spot.

Use a day bag
Don’t be diving into the haul bags at each belay to get snacks, water, sunscreen, windbreaker, etc. Pretty much all the stuff you need for the day should already be in a “day bag” (aka “piglet”) or wall bucket, tied outside your haul bag (probably on a gear tether) for easy access. (Remind your partner to get their day gear all ready at the morning bivy.)

Second leaves the belay fast
Try to minimize time when both climbers are at a belay and not moving. Especially, strive for fast belay changeovers. Slow belay changeovers can be a huge time suck for beginners.
The leader should call down when they are getting close to the anchor (the 25 foot rule) so the second can start tidying things up. One good thing to do at this point for the belayer is to be sure the haul bags are properly packed away, unencumbered, the haul rope is running freely, and the bags and rope are ready for lift off. (The leader should never be “ready to haul” and have to then wait for the second to sort things out.)  
When the leader calls “rope is fixed” the second can clip their ascenders to the lead rope and fully weight it. This frees up most of the anchor, the second can get to work breaking it down, and get ready to release the bags.

Use a docking cord
Releasing the bags should be pretty much effortless if you use a docking cord. This should never be a cluster point. If you don’t use a docking cord, it very well might become one.

Clean the gear in semi-tidiness
You don’t need to be super type A and organize every piece of gear immaculately when cleaning, but you sure don’t want to throw it on your harness any which way. One cleaning system that works for a lot of people is to simply have two single runners, one over each shoulder. You clip free carabiners and slings onto one runner and gear onto the other. Generally order the gear by size, but don’t be too fussy about it at the expense of upward progress. When the cleaner gets to the top anchor, these two gear slings can be clipped to somewhere safe, and quickly added back onto the lead rack by whoever is leading the next pitch. There’s no need for one person to individually hand pieces of gear one by one to the new leader, they should rack themselves. Oh, and avoid putting gear on your harness, unless you like the feeling of your harness slowly creeping down towards your ankles. Always rack gear on a shoulder sling of some sort.

Leader places lots of cams
Cams are a lot faster to clean than stoppers. Make life easy for your second and put in a cam when possible. If you’re going to place a nut, see if you can place a cam to stand in, and then set a nut next to it without loading it with your bodyweight. This makes it much easier to clean. (Additional note from Ron Olevsky: On softer sandstone, consider placing stoppers rather then cams. Doing so can help preserve the rock from the micro-erosion caused by walking cams.)

READ MORE AT PART 2

John Godino wrote: 
Leader places lots of cams
If you’re going to place a nut, see if you can place a cam to stand in, and then set a nut next to it without loading it with your bodyweight. This makes it much easier to clean.

This is really clever

What about short fixing. the pdl has been a large component of every cap in a day I’ve done. I’ll even self belay on camping walls to free up the team to haul and clean. In a push All the leader should do is pull up a loop, slap a locker on to two of the bolts, clove the lines and back it up with a bite or butterfly on a non locker of the opposing bolt and get on leading again. If climbing with three who ever gets to the anchor first can free their rope and belay or haul or tag gear and food/water/bong to the leader. And pizza you can’t climb cap in a day with out pizza

I didn’t read the second post until after I commented but a few things should be noted. Munter mule hit hitches should be used to dock a haul bag load of any size and is a critical step in passing a knot while riding the pig.

If your camping on a steepish route flag your ledge and you’ll love life.

Make sure you bring enough pizza. Tell the guys at the deck that your taking it up el cap and they will load your pizza up.

Don’t be afraid to hammer beaks in, especially on an in a day, better off quick and secure with a tap than delicate equalized brass that took for ever. It only takes a tap for a quick A2 beak.

Use three or four ladders on hard pitches. It makes the delicate process of top stepping on precarious hooks a lot simpler.  And you can be more stable while bounce testing. It’s also less strenuous. You can also leave your spares when busting into the free climby realm.

Use light mountaineering boots if you aren’t the bust a free moves in anything less than 5.12 kind of aider. They still have the support to free a move here or there but you can have your toes pressed against the rock with most of your body weight for ever and you’ll never get toe bang. With the boots and the combination of using two ladders on each piece, you can daisy bounce test on very delicate ground. The ridged heals also tend to lock in Nicely in the steps when jumaring

Don’t be afraid to haul on an in a day. If you have three people take an extra gallon of water, the pizza, all the random shit that lightens the mood even if you arnt going to stop for a bivy. It can be a pain but I’ve never had it slow me down on a push.

Take a hammer for cleaning wires even on the trade Uber clean routes

Learn how to read lower outs and back clean between them while walking three cams. If you have a capable cleaner it will save them a lot of effort and everyone a lot of time 

Buy an alfreefi from skot Richards, best daisy system I’ve ever used, you can throw it everywhere and just pull your self up or lower your self out. Great for anchor management to. You can get yourbody weight anywhere instantly

When stuff goes wrong just eat another piece of pizza 

Very nice!

Many thanks, John.

Hayden robinson wrote: What about short fixing. the pdl has been a large component of every cap in a day I’ve done. I’ll even self belay on camping walls to free up the team to haul and clean. In a push All the leader should do is pull up a loop, slap a locker on to two of the bolts, clove the lines and back it up with a bite or butterfly on a non locker of the opposing bolt and get on leading again. If climbing with three who ever gets to the anchor first can free their rope and belay or haul or tag gear and food/water/bong to the leader. And pizza you can’t climb cap in a day with out pizza

Hi Hayden, 

Short fixing is for sure a component for speedy climbing.I did mention that is the last thing in part two of the post, because it's generally considered a more advanced technique, and what I mentioning here is a little more beginner oriented. Thanks for mentioning that.

Hayden robinson wrote: Buy an alfreefi from skot Richards, best daisy system I’ve ever used, you can throw it everywhere and just pull your self up or lower your self out. Great for anchor management to. You can get yourbody weight anywhere instantly

Hayden,

Thanks for mentioning this piece of gear, it's something I've been really curious about. I have used Yates adjustable daisies for like 15 years. Can you tell me why you think the Alfreefi Is this significant improvement over those?  What is it that you especially like about it compared to normal adjustable daisies? I think it's great that Skot has brought this bit of new kit to greater awareness, and I'd be Interested in getting one myself, but I'd like to hear from those who have used it a lot why it's significantly better. Thanks!

You can throw it around everywhere, it’s a quick and convenient tool that can hook into gear with out the commitment or space needed to fix a carabiner of a regular daisy. By no means is it’s own daisy system I use either regular chains or the connect adjust with it so I have tethers and I always have a regular Fifi but it just is really convenient. Like I said, especially for anchor management, if your anchors a cluster fuck while your trying to set up your portaledge it’s nice to be able to hook it into what ever instantly and pull your self over. My one after lots of use started slipping but that’s also happened with a bunch of different Yates buckle daisys Ive had

Hayden robinson wrote:I always have a regular Fifi but it just is really convenient. 

So you’re using both a FiFi and Alfifi? Can you elaborate?

So I don’t look at the Alfreefi as a stand alone system. There are a lot of benefits to the standard chains and fifi. The alfreefi is just an awesome thing to add on to that system. For speed walls I’ll just keep the alfreefi clipped to the side of my harness for the occasional steep move or anchor management. For steeper walls I’ll use the alfreefi on most moves depending on where it will be most useful, say if the move is steep and traversing on to a delicate piece such as a hook it will be strenuous to un hook your regular fifi from your lower piece and re hook it into the piece with the finesse needed to not blow the hook. In such a move I’ll hook into the piece I’m moving onto with my regular fifi, lower my self onto my regular fifi with my alfreefi on the piece I’m moving off of and then I’ll move the alfreefi onto the piece I’m on and I’ll gently pull my self up while moving up my two ladders in a way that doesn’t shift the hook at all. It’s not the quickest but on hard hooking pitches it’s far better to be precise with how you shift your body weight. A whip will always cost you more time 

Another thing I have to add about the Yates verse the looped chains and alfreefi is that if you didn’t retire your beloved Daisy’s and used them one last time, those things can slip under the slightest body weight. I got a lot of use on my last pair during the course of a year living in the park and on a climb of lost in America my Yates Daisy’s started slipping bad. I used just Yates that climb and had to McGivier a daisy set up. That’s not going to happen a lot but for us dirt bags, who get sentimental about gear, I would just prefer nylon bomb proof Daisy’s and an adjustable alfrifee. Other benefits is you can use it to clean lower outs very creatively if you want style points and try to avoid leaving tat like mark and don’t mind a safe swing (only in the right circumstances)

Other tricks I’ve been thinking of is I clean with a cam hook and a hook on a daisy for those especially messed up situations that you’d other wise have to leave a piece of gear because of a need to lower out or something like that which happens in steep routes quite a bit.

I went back and read this one after the sequel thread.

I would write, on soft rock, the leader should NOT place cams rather than nuts.

On the so named Touchstone Wall, the first major desert route to go clean, the second pitch was entirely nut-able.
Subsequently smaller cams came out. Suddenly people are plugging the nut placements with cams, and the mere shaking of the lead rope causes the cam nearest the surface to walk.
This small action repeated over time causes former nut placements to turn into pods requiring cams, a vicious cycle re-enforced.

Ron O wrote: I went back and read this one after the sequel thread.

I would write, on soft rock, the leader should NOT place cams rather than nuts.

Ron, Thanks for your comment on this. I edited my original post.