The NEWEST breakthrough in trad leading

I recently acquired a tactical (painted black) grappling hook from a friend the other day. Upon recieving this, I though to myself " Man, this is going to up my climbing level by A LOT" Just think: No more scary leads, no more sketch cams, no more jamming my body into cracks. With this new tool on my rack, I am well on my way to going from 5.7 to 5.15! Watch out Chris Sharma, here I come.

Technically, that would be aid climbing.

Yep... aid. Embrace it.

I Prefer my 3 section hiking pole with a stick-clip attached to the tip.

cheifitj wrote:Yep... aid. Embrace it.

Hey, its better than sport...

depends on how he is going to use it. as long as he doesn't weight it, it wouldn't be aid.

Ah, grappling hooks.

I heard about a friend using one to aid a steep wall in a cave once. He threw the hook with much force and managed to get it into a huge bucket hueco up on a wall covered with mud. He then attached his ascending gear to the now fixed line and went up the 30 or so feet the line afforded. Once at the lip, he was very dismayed to see that no solid rock had been snagged by the huge barbs, but rather the rope had cut a slice into a muddy bank all the way down to the muck the hook was kind of stuck into. At any point the whole sloppy mess could have simply sloughed off.

Since you can't inspect what the hook snags, dems aint werth nuthin!

sounds like A4

A friend of mine witnessed an FA (not FFA, mind you) that went like this:
Climber has a stick clip.
Climber takes stick clip, loads a piece of passive gear, draw and the rope to it.
Climber sets the piece up as high as possible.
Climber then free climbs (not jugging the rope) up under the rope to the next stance, and repeats.

How would you define this sort of an ascent?
It has elements of aid, sport, trad and toprope all bundled up with an FA.

Wyatt H wrote: Hey, its better than sport...

Is this a joke!

Sport climbing is about climbing trad climbing is about gear.

Sport>Trad

Keith H. North wrote: Is this a joke! Sport climbing is about climbing trad climbing is about gear. Sport>Trad

Aid is ALL about gear. Trad is half about gear and half about climbing. Sport is all about climbing. I hate climbing(hate = suck at). I love gear.

Sport climbing is about having muscles.
Trad climbing is about having muscles and balls.
Aid climbing is about having a big set of balls, depending on the difficulty.
Ice climbing is about having a huge set of balls, with a small set of muscles to go with it.

They're all awesome, don't hate.

But bouldering sucks :P

Mike Lane wrote:A friend of mine witnessed an FA (not FFA, mind you) that went like this: Climber has a stick clip. Climber takes stick clip, loads a piece of passive gear, draw and the rope to it. Climber sets the piece up as high as possible. Climber then free climbs (not jugging the rope) up under the rope to the next stance, and repeats. How would you define this sort of an ascent? It has elements of aid, sport, trad and toprope all bundled up with an FA.

i've actually done a handful of routes where i was too light to sketch my way up to the first available protection, and spent a while at the base throwing hexes/stoppers/whatever up into a crack, hoping that it was good.

never pass up a free toprope, no matter how much it costs ... ;)

I have to say that there is some vary heady sport climbs out there that require some vary big balls. Such as Super Pin in the black hills. But needless to say theres nothing like being above a sketchy piece of gear and getting the OH F*ck factor going.

Yes! Bouldering is lame.

As far as bouldering goes i have never liked it.... not saying its not cool its just not my flavor.

Stich wrote:Ah, grappling hooks. I heard about a friend using one to aid a steep wall in a cave once. He threw the hook with much force and managed to get it into a huge bucket hueco up on a wall covered with mud. He then attached his ascending gear to the now fixed line and went up the 30 or so feet the line afforded. Once at the lip, he was very dismayed to see that no solid rock had been snagged by the huge barbs, but rather the rope had cut a slice into a muddy bank all the way down to the muck the hook was kind of stuck into. At any point the whole sloppy mess could have simply sloughed off. Since you can't inspect what the hook snags, dems aint werth nuthin!

HA. last year i saw something similar. Em and I climbed the north chimney of castleton, behind a slower party, and ended up rapping off in the dark. The party above us rapped down about the same time, but we saw their headlights at the bottom of the cliff for a long time as we were walking down, and they didn't get back to the cars until long after we fell asleep. Next day we are woken up by.... .

BASE jumpers! three cars full of drunken 20 something's pull in blasting that goddawful noise they listen too (sheesh!) and wake up the whole camp. We hiked up right after them; slower than those young bucks, we arrived maybe a half hour after they did.

LO and behold, we get to the tower and find an interesting situation. One douc.. er I mean uh.. BASE jumper is almost at the top of the first pitch of the north face of castleton, yelling down to his buddies, "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING, I'M FREE SOLOING!". all of his friends start giggling, we have no idea what's going on, don't care, so we just move on over to the south side for some good ol' left sided off width fun.

Climbing, BASE jumping, douch baggery all ensues.. an interesting day on castleton it was. When we get back to the cars we get the full story: dudes in front of us on the north chimney got one of their double ropes stuck on the second rappel... and had to leave it on the wall. DUMB jumper gets to the tower the next morning, sees a "fixed" rope (8.5 mm dynamic double line.. EVERYONE uses that for fixed lines!) and hops right on. Apparently he got to the bulge, looked up at the anchor and the rope was just pinched between the chains and the rock, and right then it popped off. So he had to free solo up to the chains, clip in and wait for some french guys up top to rap down to him.

Remember kids: never jug an 8.5 mm dynamic line that's probably just a double that got stuck after a rappel in the dark..

Ted Kryzer wrote:I have to say that there is some vary heady sport climbs out there that require some vary big balls. Such as Super Pin in the black hills. But needless to say theres nothing like being above a sketchy piece of gear and getting the OH F*ck factor going. Yes! Bouldering is lame.

Super Pin is not a sport climb, it is a traditionally bolted face climb as are most all of the climbs in Custer State Park and the Needles.

Sport climbing is about safety, to achieve that bolts are placed on rappel. Bolting on rap or even the aid of hooks was for many years taboo in the Needles.

Routes like Super Pin, Hairy Pin and the like were all bolted from stances ground up. There is a huge difference between bolting on rappel vs climbing ground up. Countless hours have been wasted on this debate over the years.

Prior to the advent of sport climbing and the acceptance of bolting on rappel, bouldering was a good way to test one's skills. If you can't boulder a John Gill B1 you might not want to get on a run out 5.11. With out bouldering there was no reasonably safe way to figure out what one's limits were. Back in the day I spent many hours bouldering it's a great way to train for harder climbing. Seems like now a days most climbers work their way up the grades by falling their way up sport climbs. Nothing wrong with that it's just different then the old ways.

Ted I am not trying to be a jerk though I realize I may be coming off that way. Having personally been around the Needles during the time when sport climbing entered the area I experience first hand the debates. Trust me many hours were wasted. Lots of people wanted to see all of the old routes rebolted and made safer. Some argued against all rap bolting in favor of the older purer style.

I see lots of post and comments on here from people who obviously missed out on the great transition. Obviously once a bolt is placed latter parties have no idea how it got there, or any reason to care for that matter. But it does make a huge difference in the character of a route. Go to the Needles and then to the Mount Rushmore sport area and this difference becomes very clear.

Just for the record Super Pin was retro-bolted after it had been done without a bolt. It was done from a stance but it was still retro bolted.

Nice dude! I've always kinda wanted a grappling hook. Apparently, you can get em on ebay for like 17 bucks. lol.

1Eric Rhicard wrote:Just for the record Super Pin was retro-bolted after it had been done without a bolt. It was done from a stance but it was still retro bolted.

Yep the story of how that bolt got there is pretty interesting.

Eric, we have never met but I feel like I have known you for ever. I moved to the Black Hills in 89 and your name came up fairly often back then. I am sure you are well aware of the transition period I am referring to.

So have you noticed this as well, that newer climbers tend to lump any route that has bolts as being a sport climb?

I first noticed on here in the comments on this route mountainproject.com/v/south… the comment from someone named Tang 4 bolts and you call it trad?

Since then I have seen it a few times most recently this thread mountainproject.com/v/gener… made it obvious that the debate still rages.

Rich Schreckengost wrote: I cannot believe you said this. The best are those who can climb an 11b sport route but can't get 10 feet off the ground on a 5.8 trad route. "Oh my god! Holy shit! Where's the bolt?!?! Oh wait, let me see if this cam thingy will fit in here. Ok looks good. Wait...where am I supposed to go now? Fuck! Dirt me dude." Sport climber = a gym climber that's semi-cool.

You just proved my point... its the gear, has nothing to do with the climbing.

I do think that the first person to quote me Wyatt had a more accurate assessment than mine but still, I believe that mine is still valid.

Speaking from experience I have gotten on a 5.8 trad route... then I went up another 10 ft, and another, and another, and another, eventually I got to the top. It was boring, none of the moves on a 5.8 are really all that exciting but that's another discussion