Aid Climbing Gear Question

I'm planning to do a backcountry climb in a year or so and want to learn some aid technique incase I need it on the climb (and this is why I won't be doing the climb for a year or so). So my question is, what aid gear should I bother getting? After a year of research I have only seen two comments about anyone climbing this face, neither comment was from anyone that had actually climbed it, but from someone that knew someone that climbed it (the person that climbed it told the commenter that it was good rock all the way) or knew that people had climbed it. So I have no beta and no idea what kind of gear I will need. My main concern is should I bother getting pitons and a hammer? If I do I will practice placing them on some crappy rock that isn't worth climbing and that I don't need to climb to get to and they would be a last resort to place if I did take them. Or should I just forgo buying any aid gear and just practise using slings as aiders off of clean gear incase I need to use that for a short section?

Thanks in advance

Hammers n pins are mostly frowned upon cause of the damage caused. Tiny nuts, hooks, cam hooks and ballnuts make most nail-ups go clean. You will most certainly not want to carry a hammer and pins into the backcountry to 'maybe' use them.

There's absolutely no way to help you with your question without telling us what the climb is, where it is, and your own freeclimbing ability. Otherwise one person can give the correct answer that would apply to a backcountry climb with sick nailing, while another person can give the correct answers that would apply to getting through a hard freeclimbing section, while a third would give you the correct answer that would apply to an easy backcountry scramble with a bit of exposure.

To save time.
Scenario 1: Don't bother (don't need to buy anything)

Scenario 2: Tie normal 24" slings together, clip to piece, step up in slings, repeat until you're through the hard section (don't need to buy anything)

Scenario 3: You won't need aid for this (don't need to buy anything)

Stiles wrote:Tiny nuts, hooks, cam hooks and ballnuts make most TRADE ROUTE nail-ups go clean.

This is true, I can probably find suficient placements if I go with some smaller clean gear like micro nuts. I'll still play around with them before going, but they aren't as radically different from other stoppers like pitons are.

And again, I have searched all over the internet for a year and have yet to find any beta beyond hear-say that it's good rock. It's the SE face of Capital Peak, there's two routes on the NW face listed on here (one of those listings is where I found the second comment mentioning the SE face which was posted in 2007).

Thanks again

If your intending to aid a free climb your probably not ready yet. Don't bring more than you will use in the back country, you will regret it...

One thought about pitons - a little practice goes a long way towards damaging rock. Placing pitons is related to carpentry. If you aren't good nailing overhead on the job site, you might want to buy a couple 5# boxes of different size nails, and a 2 by 12, and practice. You'll get a lot more out of your piton & rock practice by hammering plain old nails first. Then go find an old quarry, and practice there with your pitons.

A friend of mine recently got in over his head on a climb, and I pointed out that he could just aid the thing. He made aiders on the spot from slings, and then I talked him through how to move in aid mode. Given what he said, some of the "pocket etriers" would have made a huge difference. The problem with hammer aiding is that you'd have to learn both how to move in etriers/ daisies, and learn hammering.
I think you would get the most mileage out of buying some pocket/ alpine aiders, and practicing like crazy. You don't have to take them with you but' you will have learned how to move in them, and you might suffer a little by using 'made on the spot aid gear' but you'll have a clear concept of how to do it. (It's kind of like learning to play music on a good guitar - it's a lot easier to learn how to make music because you aren't fighting the guitar. A master guitarist can play reasonably well on a junker because they already know how to make music - it comes so naturally that they can concentrate on working the junker, where it would be impossible for a beginner to do both.)

If you try the clean aid thing, and find you are still drawn to the dark art of iron, I've got a spare hammer I can sell ya'!

pocket aiders and maybe a few hooks are the way to go for small sections of aid on an otherwise free route.

They fold up real small and stay out of the way and way better than a couple slings girthhitched together.

^^i'd steer you the other way. take what you will use, not what you might use. play around on slings, you can figure out some pretty cool sorcery to help you aid something with the gear you'll have on your rack already. hard aid climbing is not my specialty....but i can ghetto aid some sketchy terrain pretty well.

worst case scenario, go climb it. if you can't make it, bail. learn. go back. there's no shame in bailing, unless you don't learn from your mistakes and come back stronger and smarter. some climbs are a process. there are probably a lot of ways to free/aid/flail your climb. i've always had more luck going light and fast than lugging a ton of gear (that i usually don't pull out of the pack).

either way, good luck dude. enjoy the process

I will practice aid movements and placing any gear I add to my rack.
The intent is to do the climb free with option to aid to hopefully prevent me from having to bail, but I will bail rather than putting myself and partner at risk.

Thank you again for the recommendations.