how to get into aid?

Chuck Manburger wrote: Locker from ST and Here??? Ummm....no....Sorry Hank!

Sorry Chuck. Cool name and pic!

You could always prepare by doing the following:

-Practice sleeping while lead belaying.
-Gain some weight. If you are skinny you may have to gain a lot.
-Learn to appreciate the taste & buzz of warm OE & King Kobra.
-Start enjoying the simplicity of eating Dinty Moore & Beefaroni right out of the can.
-Lead as many r/x routes as you can to prepare your lead head for hard aid.
-Practice hauling. A lot.
-Start accepting the ethic that jugging a pitch = climbing it.
-Slowly start pooping nearer & nearer to your friends, so that you eventually can drop trou & shit mid-conversation. Bonus points for maintaining eye contact.

These practices should start you on your way. There are certainly many others. Good luck.

2 things:
C1 is easy, you can do it already. Just aid solo a few pitches. If you can't figure out a safe system, aid might not be for you.

For anything harder the best way to prepare might be as follows. Tell your roommate, friends, girlfriends, whatever to punch you in the face. But tell them to just do it randomly making it a surprise. You'll be feeling that everything is normal and fine but you know in the back of your mind eventually something is going to happen. The more people you can tell to hit you and then don't go crazy, the better chance you have of leading A5/C4.

Hahahahahahaha.

Listen to some black sabbath, then, go aid climbing.

Also, disarm a few bombs.

AId climbing is a blast. It will take you to some pretty amazing places on this earth. Spend the time to get fast and efficient and don't be discouraged by how slow or how long it takes to build up a rack. For many years I built up my aid rack by buying one cam a month, now I've got over 60 cams and I still want to an extra cam or two. Buy a good set of Yates ladders. They will last your many years..

Set up a top rope and use a couple of mini traxs as a self belay. Pick a nice thin crack that takes lots of wires and plug away. Climb this many times and work of becoming slow. Reduce any unnecessary movement. Learn to T off your aiders. Set Ron and Jeff DVD Clean Walls to learn about clean climbing. Don't buy a hammer. Lean to climb clean really well for several years before you even think about swinging a hammer and when you do, only do it as an absolutely last option.

Once you have your systems dialed, learn to self belay, or if you really lucky find another partner than wants to aid as well. Bribe theme with stories about in a couple of years you're being climbing the big walls around the world...

There is a lot of misinformation on the internet, people make it out that it is much more difficult that it actually is. Think of learning to aid just as another form of climbing. It will take time and commitment but at the end of the day it's not any better or worse than any other form of climbing, it's just different.

Keep things really simple and don't get caught up into all the hogwash. Anyone can learn to be a really good big wall climber. Follow your dreams and I'll see you in Yosemite in a couple years...

If you have any specific questions about gear or technique shoot me an email.

John

Reaing PPTP's aid info is a good idea, with the following caveate:

There's usually a better/dirtier way to get the job done that makes more sense (efficiency-wise) for most trade routes. You'll figure these things out as you go. PPTP's concepts are def more complex and tend to make more sense when on harder routes and when dealing with larger loads than an average climber would use on a normal trade route.

Consider PPTP's info as theory. It's good to know because often you'll find yourself in situations when things go wrong or are unexpected; this is where knowing alternate (aka "the better way") will help you get out of a sticky situation without having to grunt/cry/sweat your way out of it.

John McNamee wrote: Don't buy a hammer.

Johns info is pretty much right on except for the hammer. While clean aiding the follower SHOULD carry a hammer, it allows the cleaning of tiny aid trinkets much easier and less destructive on both the wires, and if your climbing on sandstone, the placements. We got stuck behind a party attempting lunar x without a hammer, and the follower couldn't clean many many pieces, they ended up bailing and we got almost a full set of HBs. Just take one hammer per party, and in the event of emergency the leader can tag it up :)

fuck it. just buy some aid climbing gear and go do it.

cascadeclimbers.com/forum/u…

here's a TR about doing a wall last year up at index. I find aid is fun to do every once and a while. you can get to some really cool spots hanging on gear. good luck to you.

Mike wrote: -Slowly start pooping nearer & nearer to your friends, so that you eventually can drop trou & shit mid-conversation. Bonus points for maintaining eye contact. .

Damn that's funny!

...back from the dead