Aid climbing
Encyclopedia
Aid climbing is a style of climbing
in which standing on or pulling oneself up via devices attached to fixed or placed protection
is used to make upward progress.
The term contrasts with free climbing
in which progress is made without weighting artificial aids: a free climber ascends by only holding onto and stepping on natural features of the rock, using rope and equipment merely to catch them in case of fall and provide belay.
In general, aid techniques are reserved for pitches where free climbing is difficult to impossible, and extremely steep and long routes demanding great endurance and both physical and mental stamina. While aid climbing places less emphasis on athletic fitness and raw strength than free climbing, the physical demands of hard aid climbing should not be underestimated.
Aid climbing is sometimes errantly referred to as "Class 6" climbing, since its reliance on ascent via one's equipment rather than merely being protected by it is regarded by purists as falling outside the traditional Classes 1-5 Yosemite Decimal System
rankings that rely on making progress with one's hands and feet in direct contact with the rock alone. Aid climbing has its own ranking system, using a separate scale from A0 through A5.
Just as in free climbing, the usual aid technique involves two climbers, a leader and a belayer. The leader is connected by a rope to the belayer, who remains at one spot (the "belay station") while the leader moves up. As the leader advances, the rope is let out by the belayer, and clipped by the leader into the pieces of protection as they are placed. If the leader falls, the belayer locks off the rope and, assuming the protection doesn't pull out, catches the leader's fall on the rope. When the leader, moving up, reaches the end of the rope, or a convenient stopping point, he or she builds an anchor, hangs on it, and fixes the rope to it. This then becomes the next belay station. The belayer then ascends the fixed rope using mechanical ascenders, retrieving the protection that was placed by the leader. Meanwhile, the leader sets up a hauling system and, using another rope brought up for that purpose, hauls up a bag (the "haul bag" or "pig") containing the climbers' food, water, hammocks or "Porta-ledge", sleeping bags, and so on. Many variations on this basic technique are possible, including solo aid climbing and climbing with a team of three or more.
Until the 1940s protection was the provided by the piton
, driven into a crack in the rock with a hammer and stoppers. Today, aid climbing uses a considerably larger array of hardware than the pitons used by the first climbers although the primary technique of ascension has not much evolved. The typical gear of an aid climber includes piton
s, hooks, copperhead
s, nut
s, camming devices, ascenders, hauling pulleys, aiders, daisy chains, and wall hammers. The invention of camming devices or "friends" and other non-damaging rock gear has resulted in the practice of clean aid
, where nothing is hammered, a great bonus for popular routes which could be disfigured from continual hammering.
The hardest aid routes are poorly protected requiring the climber to make long sequences of moves using hooks or tenuous placements. On these routes, a climber may have to commit to moving up onto the most marginal of placements risking long and sometimes dangerous falls. By contrast, the vast majority of aid ascents are done on popular free climbs which are too difficult for the aid party to free, but offer excellent gear placements. Since aid climbing is extremely slow compared to free climbing, this can lead to some conflicts between aid climbers and free climbers waiting to climb a route. There is additional tension caused by the damage that aid climbing often does to routes. Hooks frequently break or otherwise damage holds that human hands and feet do not. New aid climbers also often compulsively "bounce test" pieces the reliability of which experienced leaders can often asses at a glance; removing a "bounce-tested" nut often requires hammer blows which further expand and sometimes fracture holds.
wrote, "Rock faces are no longer overcome by climbing skill, but are humbled, pitch by pitch, by methodical manual labour … Who has polluted the pure spring of mountaineering?" (from "The Murder of the Impossible").
Free climbing is now the mainstream of climbing. But aid climbers have answered the criticism of Messner and others by climbing routes where the absence of holds or features in the rock make free climbing impossible, and by eschewing purely mechanical techniques (such as repetitively drilling bolt
s).
Today, many routes which were originally done using aid are being climbed free by a new generation of climbers with immense skill, physical ability, and significantly advanced equipment including modern ropes, sticky rubber shoes, and modern camming devices. Ironically, some of the techniques used to achieve free ascents of aid routes, for example placing extra bolts for protection (retro-bolting
), are now sometimes thought to have "polluted the pure spring of mountaineering" by destroying the route as it was climbed by the first ascenionists. The solution is often a compromise in which an absolute minimum of bolts is added to allow safe protection for free climbers, while not totally destroying the challenge of the route as an aid climb. However, as with most compromises, this is not a solution that satisfies everyone.
. Clean in this context refers to routes that be completed without a hammer and the associated pitons even if the route still uses previously installed expansion bolts.
and John Middendorf
, Big Walls, Chockstone Press, Evergreen, Colorado, 1994. ISBN 0-934641-63-3
Climbing
Climbing is the activity of using one's hands and feet to ascend a steep object. It is done both for recreation and professionally, as part of activities such as maintenance of a structure, or military operations.Climbing activities include:* Bouldering: Ascending boulders or small...
in which standing on or pulling oneself up via devices attached to fixed or placed protection
Protection (climbing)
To make climbing as safe as possible, most climbers use protection, a term used to describe the equipment used to prevent injury to themselves and others.-Types of climbing:...
is used to make upward progress.
The term contrasts with free climbing
Free climbing
Free climbing is a type of rock climbing in which the climber uses only hands, feet and other parts of the body to ascend, employing ropes and forms of climbing protection to prevent falls only....
in which progress is made without weighting artificial aids: a free climber ascends by only holding onto and stepping on natural features of the rock, using rope and equipment merely to catch them in case of fall and provide belay.
In general, aid techniques are reserved for pitches where free climbing is difficult to impossible, and extremely steep and long routes demanding great endurance and both physical and mental stamina. While aid climbing places less emphasis on athletic fitness and raw strength than free climbing, the physical demands of hard aid climbing should not be underestimated.
Aid climbing is sometimes errantly referred to as "Class 6" climbing, since its reliance on ascent via one's equipment rather than merely being protected by it is regarded by purists as falling outside the traditional Classes 1-5 Yosemite Decimal System
Yosemite Decimal System
The Yosemite Decimal System is a three-part system used for rating the difficulty of walks, hikes, and climbs. It is primarily used by mountaineers in the United States and Canada. The Class 5 portion of the Class scale is primarily a rock climbing classification system. Originally the system was...
rankings that rely on making progress with one's hands and feet in direct contact with the rock alone. Aid climbing has its own ranking system, using a separate scale from A0 through A5.
Technique
In a typical ascent with aid the climber places pieces of equipment ("protection") in cracks or other natural features of the rock, then clips an aider (a ladder-like device, also called stirrup or étrier) to the protection, stands up on the aider, and repeats the process.Just as in free climbing, the usual aid technique involves two climbers, a leader and a belayer. The leader is connected by a rope to the belayer, who remains at one spot (the "belay station") while the leader moves up. As the leader advances, the rope is let out by the belayer, and clipped by the leader into the pieces of protection as they are placed. If the leader falls, the belayer locks off the rope and, assuming the protection doesn't pull out, catches the leader's fall on the rope. When the leader, moving up, reaches the end of the rope, or a convenient stopping point, he or she builds an anchor, hangs on it, and fixes the rope to it. This then becomes the next belay station. The belayer then ascends the fixed rope using mechanical ascenders, retrieving the protection that was placed by the leader. Meanwhile, the leader sets up a hauling system and, using another rope brought up for that purpose, hauls up a bag (the "haul bag" or "pig") containing the climbers' food, water, hammocks or "Porta-ledge", sleeping bags, and so on. Many variations on this basic technique are possible, including solo aid climbing and climbing with a team of three or more.
Until the 1940s protection was the provided by the piton
Piton
In climbing, a piton is a metal spike that is driven into a crack or seam in the rock with a hammer, and which acts as an anchor to protect the climber against the consequences of a fall, or to assist progress in aid climbing...
, driven into a crack in the rock with a hammer and stoppers. Today, aid climbing uses a considerably larger array of hardware than the pitons used by the first climbers although the primary technique of ascension has not much evolved. The typical gear of an aid climber includes piton
Piton
In climbing, a piton is a metal spike that is driven into a crack or seam in the rock with a hammer, and which acts as an anchor to protect the climber against the consequences of a fall, or to assist progress in aid climbing...
s, hooks, copperhead
Copperhead (climbing)
For other uses of the word see copperheadIn rock climbing, a copperhead is a small nut made of a soft metal, originally copper or brass, later usually aluminium. Copperheads are placed in the smallest cracks and seams where their malleability means that they can conform to the rock and grip better:...
s, nut
Nut (climbing)
In rock climbing, a nut is a metal wedge threaded on a wire, used for protection by wedging it into a crack in the rock. Quickdraws are clipped to the nut wire by the ascending climber and the rope threads through the quickdraw. Nuts come in a variety of sizes and styles, and several different...
s, camming devices, ascenders, hauling pulleys, aiders, daisy chains, and wall hammers. The invention of camming devices or "friends" and other non-damaging rock gear has resulted in the practice of clean aid
Clean climbing
Clean climbing is a rock climbing term that describes techniques and equipment which climbers use in order to avoid damage to the rock. These techniques date at least in part from the 1920s and earlier in England, but the term itself may have emerged in about 1970 during the widespread and rapid...
, where nothing is hammered, a great bonus for popular routes which could be disfigured from continual hammering.
The hardest aid routes are poorly protected requiring the climber to make long sequences of moves using hooks or tenuous placements. On these routes, a climber may have to commit to moving up onto the most marginal of placements risking long and sometimes dangerous falls. By contrast, the vast majority of aid ascents are done on popular free climbs which are too difficult for the aid party to free, but offer excellent gear placements. Since aid climbing is extremely slow compared to free climbing, this can lead to some conflicts between aid climbers and free climbers waiting to climb a route. There is additional tension caused by the damage that aid climbing often does to routes. Hooks frequently break or otherwise damage holds that human hands and feet do not. New aid climbers also often compulsively "bounce test" pieces the reliability of which experienced leaders can often asses at a glance; removing a "bounce-tested" nut often requires hammer blows which further expand and sometimes fracture holds.
History
Until the 1960s or so, aid climbing was normal practice in most climbing areas. But as improvements in technique and equipment meant that many aid routes could be climbed free, some influential climbers began to criticise the use of aid as being against the spirit of mountaineering. Reinhold MessnerReinhold Messner
Reinhold Messner is an Italian mountaineer and explorer from Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol "whose astonishing feats on Everest and on peaks throughout the world have earned him the status of the greatest climber in history." He is renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without...
wrote, "Rock faces are no longer overcome by climbing skill, but are humbled, pitch by pitch, by methodical manual labour … Who has polluted the pure spring of mountaineering?" (from "The Murder of the Impossible").
Free climbing is now the mainstream of climbing. But aid climbers have answered the criticism of Messner and others by climbing routes where the absence of holds or features in the rock make free climbing impossible, and by eschewing purely mechanical techniques (such as repetitively drilling bolt
Bolt (climbing)
In rock climbing, a bolt is a permanent anchor fixed into a hole drilled in the rock as a form of protection. Most bolts are either self-anchoring expansion bolts or fixed in place with liquid resin....
s).
Today, many routes which were originally done using aid are being climbed free by a new generation of climbers with immense skill, physical ability, and significantly advanced equipment including modern ropes, sticky rubber shoes, and modern camming devices. Ironically, some of the techniques used to achieve free ascents of aid routes, for example placing extra bolts for protection (retro-bolting
Retro-bolting
Retro-bolting is a term used within the rock climbing community to refer to the addition of new bolts to an existing climb. Retro-bolting can be contrasted with re-bolting, which is the replacement of existing bolts on a climb with new bolts....
), are now sometimes thought to have "polluted the pure spring of mountaineering" by destroying the route as it was climbed by the first ascenionists. The solution is often a compromise in which an absolute minimum of bolts is added to allow safe protection for free climbers, while not totally destroying the challenge of the route as an aid climb. However, as with most compromises, this is not a solution that satisfies everyone.
Grading
The A grading scale (A for 'artificial' or 'aid') incorporates difficulty of placing protection, and the danger associated with falling. The original scale was a closed gradation scale from A0-A5, modern aid climbers have adopted "new wave" grading which compresses the scale but still uses A0-A5. A parallel scale of C0-C5 has been used to describe routes which can be climbed cleanClean climbing
Clean climbing is a rock climbing term that describes techniques and equipment which climbers use in order to avoid damage to the rock. These techniques date at least in part from the 1920s and earlier in England, but the term itself may have emerged in about 1970 during the widespread and rapid...
. Clean in this context refers to routes that be completed without a hammer and the associated pitons even if the route still uses previously installed expansion bolts.
- A0 Pulling on solid fixed gear.
- A1 Easy aid, no risk of any piece of protection pulling out. Safe falls.
- A2 Moderate aid. Short sections of tenuous placements above good protection.
- A2+ May include easier A3 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
- A3 Hard aid. Involves many tenuous placements in a row.
- A3+ May include easier A4 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
- A4 Runout, complex and time consuming. Many body weight placements.
- A4+ May include easier A5 moves but is not hard enough to be rated as such.
- A5 Serious, hard aid with huge falls and possibly lethal results. No bolts or rivets.
Literature
Long, JohnJohn Long (climber)
John Long is an acclaimed American rock climber and author whose stories, ranging from adventure yarns to literary fiction, have been translated into many languages. He has more than forty titles and two million books in print...
and John Middendorf
John Middendorf
John Middendorf is a big wall climber and inventor of climbing equipment.In the 1980s, he climbed the hardest walls of Yosemite , and in 1992 he climbed the largest rock wall in the world, Great Trango Tower- Great Trango new route :He achieved worldwide recognition in the climbing world in 1992...
, Big Walls, Chockstone Press, Evergreen, Colorado, 1994. ISBN 0-934641-63-3