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Learning to trust pro
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You don't have to learn aid shenanigans to practice aid climbing on toprope, and it doesn't have to take a long time - you're on toprope, so just grab a piece and walk your feet up the wall until you can clip a quickdraw, which is clipped to your belay loop, into the piece and rest. Next clip (or unclip if it is on the piece right below you) an aider into the piece and walk up the aider, using your hands in the crack for balance (and you're backed up with your quickdraw so you can't really slip). Super simple. Do it even five or six times and it could build confidence. All you need - one aider, which you can probably borrow from the gym from the ladies who set the routes. Clean your pieces when you get lowered down, so you see them the way you did when you following and cleaning, which might look different than how they looked with your leader's eye. Of course following a more experience leader up many routes, over several months, closely studying their placements, asking pertinent questions, etc. is ideal, but think of all the hot dates you'll miss out on while you're doing that. Like Mash says 'keep your eye on the goal!' Woot! Erik RockclimbYosemite.com - Yosemitebigwall.com |
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I too was recommended to try top rope aiding when I started. But it is difficult to find belayers that will be patient enough with you doing that. It took me much longer to get up a route rather than climbing and placing gear. I found it much more informative and confidence building to just ground place, weight, and bounce test pieces. And I can spend as much time as I want to without someone else waiting on me. I suggest making a list of things you want to try so that you remember to try all types of placements and gear that you question. Start with the obvious good placements. Once you've got those down, try testing poor placements to see what happens. I say this because I found with passive gear, placements that I judged to be poor and marginal often still held. Not that we want to make a habit of making poor placements, but it is informative to see that sometimes they still hold. Try to keep coming up with different placement scenarios or unusual placements each time you go out to ground place to test to see what happens. I find it a fun game and builds confidence with your gear. |
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What anotherclimber said above. The problem with TR practice leading of any kind is that you aren't dealing with reality and if you aren't prepared to deal with the reality of what you're contemplating then you probably aren't ready to do it. And TR aiding is pretty ridiculous, you're aiding for christsake, if you can't figure out and manage that then you have other issues. If you're not ready to lead or aid then just get an aider or put together a couple of slings and walk around and place gear on the ground and weight it. Overall, this whole mindset and business of attempting to 'shield' people from the reality of climbing simply sets people up to be hurt and / or killed. |
Erik Sloan wrote: climbing friend, this above would be the best advice for your learning. also as you gain more experience if your heart desires, climb up 80' clean face, place a few pieces and huck your sweaty meat-sack off the cliff into the air, good belayer catching, or get on safe route you can place a lot of gear but would fall on. do not listen to the haterz, aiding is much more effective than free soloing a 5.7 choss gulley and having no real experience at all if your gear is doing anything. if you cannot find belayer to torture with your slow and terrible toprope aiding, you are simply setting up toprope solo of your ownself and aiding your heart content. |
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I started solo aiding A1. It's pretty easy to figure out. And if your going to climb harder trad it's good to be familiar with aid shenanigans. It builds competence and confidence making climbing closer to your limit on gear safer and more fun. Also get on an easily protected but difficult to climb trad route and sew it up,pull on gear and fall. If you start climbing hard gear your going to fall. A lot. Get familiar with placing bomb gear from hard stances. Placing goood gear from a bomber hand jam as opposed to a fingerlock with poor feet is an entirely different experience. It all takes Some work and is a bit scurry. But climbing on gear where you may possibly fall is serious business. Better to be over prepared. It's worth it in the end. Oh, and never make a big mistake. And have fun! |
Healyje wrote: I mostly agree, but with a little bit of common sense it is pretty safe to not test bomber C1 placements. |
apoet wrote: Again, the issue isn't so much the quality of gear so much as a) it isn't trad climbing in any sense of the word and b) you'll develop / continue your dependency for resting from sport climbing which, sooner or later, is going to bite you in the ass when either the gear blows or there's no gear to rest on. |
Healyje wrote: It was a conscious decision I made after evaluating the placement, backing it up, and deciding I'd rather hang than risk a fall. I had copious placements below as well. I think forming habits with climbing in general could get you into trouble. Making decisions is what I like about climbing; you control the level of comfort, or risk, on route. |
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Find a steep route you can ascend for 15-20 feet, with a safe landing area. Ascend about 8-10 feet and place 3 or 4 pieces of pro, essentially having the top piece backed up by the pieces just inches below. Climb until your harness is about a foot above the high piece, have your belayer lock off, and let go. Have a trusted belayer! Climb a few inches higher and repeat. Again. Try this with different pro, in different placements. Worked for me. With a steep clean route you can go as high as you please. This is also good training in how to fall. Good luck and be safe! |
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I would say the real question is not to learn to trust your gear but to learn how to distinguish "possible fall zone" versus "no-fall zone". It is always a decision based on both objective and subjective factors. Objective factors include (but not limited to) wall angle and rock features (e.g., falling after traversing after exiting a vertical dihedral is potentially dangerous due to solid swinging into the wall potential no matter how bomber your the last placement in the dihedral is), rope drag, communications with belayer clarity, etc. Subjective factors include (but no limited to) placements "quality", reaction speed (e.g., "Am I able to jump off the wall that fast in a case off fall so I will pass that tiny ledge below me?"), etc. It is about risk/consequences balance. To solve this complex task one has to learn and improve in all aspects, not only "trusting placements". Talking about trusting your gear the only way to learn is to start falling. First you can use the second rope threaded thru a bomber anchor above you with a huge slack (don't forget about rope elongation and keep away from hitting the deck). Then place LOT of good pieces close to each other. First hang on a piece. Than ask your belayer to lower you down about half a foot and lock the belay device. Stand up and simulate 6" fall. Repeat until feel comfortable. Lower down a bit more. Repeat. At some point start to climb a bit higher the piece to simulate a lead fall. At some point ask your belayer to start giving you "real lead belay". Step up the game slowly to keep an additional stress level low. At some point start to experiment with "somewhat shitty" placements emulation. The last but not the least. Bring a hammer when experimenting with nuts and hexes. |
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Just fall! Place 3 or 4 pieces right next to each other to back the first up. Or you could go find a bolted route with at least a short crack partway up, place gear, and clip a bolt as backup. Also, watch YouTube videos that show you what to look for in your placements. Sure, not everyone is an expert on there (some are, wild country makes some good trad gear placement videos), but you can compare the videos. You can also see lab tests that show how gear fails, and how huge the safety margins are. |
Pavel Burov wrote: Lot of goodness here. Bottom line is if you are somewhere you feel the need to place pro specifically so you can rest and avoid a fall then in all likelihood you're not ready to be there in the first place. Better to just think of such an action as simply bailing on the pitch and do just that. |
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BTW, yesterday I re-read a good writing on the topic. Dave Macleod "How to climb hard trad" - http://www.davemacleod.com/shop/howtoclimbhardtrad.html By far this is the best known (OK, the best known to me) written source on the topic. |
Pavel Burov wrote: Was there another link you used to read that book? The link you provided has it unavailable... |
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Not trusting pro is not such a bad option, either. Unwarranted trust can adversely affect longevity . . . |
Larry DeAngelo wrote: Larry, Larry, Larry, sigh. Now that I've been on several, highly retro-missions with you I have to agree - I may place a lot of rocks I picked up along the way as protection, but I only trust them about as far as I can throw them... |
Healyje wrote: Yes, but clearly your longevity in the game is an indication that your skills warranted the appropriate level of confidence. |
Larry DeAngelo wrote: Nah, it's the fact I'm with you that gives me all the confidence I need no matter how outlandish and insane the situation we should never have ended up in. |
Larry DeAngelo wrote: "A boat that never leaves the harbor is safe. But that is not what boats are for." |
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Hire a guide. I'm serious. Two days spent with a professional working on placements is worth its weight in gold. It also spares your partners that process. I'm relatively new to trad, and my partner/mentor is still checking my placements and offering feedback, but working with a guide for two days sped that up 100%. |
