Jugging vs Re-aiding Angled Cracks?
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New to aid climbing and fresh off my first wall (SF of Washington Column). It went well with the exception of the clusterf*** on the pitch and a half after the Kor Roof. |
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Evan Urton wrote:New to aid climbing and fresh off my first wall (SF of Washington Column). It went well with the exception of the clusterf*** on the pitch and a half after the Kor Roof. I jugged the rope while cleaning that slanted crack and had a hell of a time cleaning. Every time I passed the top ascender and weighted the next piece the bottom ascender was pulled hard into the last piece and could not be passed. Much cursing and shenanigans ultimately prevailed, but it wasn't pretty. My leader did not backclean. Is there a technique I'm missing, or is that pitch just best re-aided? Thanks for any help!Yes, there is a technique you are missing. I recall when I went up Skull Queens we waited on the ledge for about four hours while the party above us tried to clean the Kor Roof.... While that pitch is probably easier to lead than to follow, it's still quicker to jug than to follow on aid if you have your technique down. The reason why your bottom jug is being sucked into the piece is because you are not extending the rope between the piece and your bottom jug. Basically, when you transfer your top jug over the piece, you need to grab the rope below the piece and hold it with your hand so you dont suck the bottom jug into the piece. Then push the bottom jug down the rope so there is more distance between your bottom jug and the piece. Weight the top jug fully and then unclip the rope from the piece. As long as the bottom jug is touching the piece you wont be able to unclip the rope, so just push the bottom jug further down the rope so you have more rope to work with. |
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That...makes a lot of sense. Thank you! |
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FWIW, I'm not much of a wall climber. I made it up to the pitch after kor before we bailed (partner had to leave the valley). That was my only wall experience. |
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+above. Use one jug up top and a grigri. Pass the piece with the jug and use the grigri to mini lower off each piece onto the aider above. Then reach over and clean the piece and pull up grigri slack. Switch back to two jugs when it gets vertical. PTPP has a good detail on this technique |
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Using the one jug+gri-gri method has the added bonus that you can't come completely unclipped from the rope, which is a definite concern on traversing/angling lines using two jugs. |
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Thank you for the tips, I'll try out all those methods and see what feel right. |
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>"Does weighting the Gri-gri make it difficult to open the ascenders? I was under the impression that the rope couldn't be taut while opening." |
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Agree with the one jug, one gri-gri lowerout for following traversing, roofy aid pitches. |
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On a side note, you should always have your GriGri attached to the rope while jugging! Do not rely on your ascenders alone. There are times where you are disconnecting your top ascender to pass a piece, and during that time you are in essence only clipped to the rope via one ascender and your end knot. Some people tie in short as they go, which works, but using the GriGri as a backup is the best option for a number of reasons. |
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20 kN wrote:On a side note, you should always have your GriGri attached to the rope while jugging! Do not rely on your ascenders alone. There are times where you are disconnecting your top ascender to pass a piece, and during that time you are in essence only clipped to the rope via one ascender and your end knot. Some people tie in short as they go, which works, but using the GriGri as a backup is the best option for a number of reasons.I think this is a good approach for leaning pitches where the ascenders will be weighted awkwardly or where you will be lowering out, but on a straight pitches it is faster and easier to throw a backup knot in every 15 feet than to haul that line through the gri-gri constantly. Also on plumb pitches the ascender is less likely to be popped off the rope and you can often remove the piece without even passing. Definitely always tie knots in either case - though when the gri-gri is on it is more for rope management |
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Marnix wrote: , but on a straight pitches it is faster and easier to throw a backup knot in every 15 feet than to haul that line through the gri-gri constantly.I find it is significantly faster to use the GriGri. It takes seconds to put on and you dont really need to feed anything through the GriGri once you got some rope hanging down. After the first 30' or so, there is usually enough rope hanging down for the GriGri to feed automatically. As far as the first 30' goes, I can get that through the GriGri in about 10 - 15 seconds, which is far faster than tying several knots over the course of the pitch. The other bonus is you have the GriGri ready for use at any time, and it's useful quite often. I dont know how many times the bag got stuck on a flake and I had to quickly rap down and over to fix it. If I was using knots I would have to untie them all, put the GriGri on, swing over, then take the GriGri back off and retie the knots. But that's what works for me. Aid is a sport in which there are many ways to do the same thing, and everyone has something different, which is fine. |
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I agree. A Grigri is a great device for ascending. I generally don't belay with a grigri, but god damn they can make ascending safe and easy. (A little, shameless self promotion) mountainproject.com/v/passp… |
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Holy crap...I just did Leaning Tower this weekend and it was hot, I can't imagine how warm it was on WC! |
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It was somewhere between miserable and very miserable. Psyched to do it again next weekend! |
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Go do LT. Start real early. It is in the shade until about 2:00. Hang out on Ahwahnee ledge under a strung out bedsheet or umbrella until about 5:00 pm and then fix the next couple pitches. Then fire the rest in the shade of the next day! Worked for us. |
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With a little practice you should be able to easily switch between 2-ascender jugging with gr-gri for backup to 1 jug with gri-gri for the angled sections of pitches. |
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"Every time I passed the top ascender and weighted the next piece the bottom ascender was pulled hard into the last piece and could not be passed. Much cursing and shenanigans ultimately prevailed, but it wasn't pretty. My leader did not backclean.
Is there a technique I'm missing," Hell, yeah - right here on this very forum: mountainproject.com/v/the-b… This post talks about using your Grigri as an ascender, which easily solves the problem you describe above. The Grigri works great when you are cleaning steep/overhanging/slanting/zig-zagging pitches. If you find your feet dangling in space, add a DMM Revolver onto your upper jug to make up a 2:1 body hoist setup. It's all explained in the link above. Someone bump it, please. You can clean faster on jugs if the pitch is fairly plumb, which can often be the case on easy routes like The Nose or The Prow. But aid pitches by their very nature are steep and slanting, so it's often the Better Way to use a Grigri. Cheers, eh? Pete aka "Dr. Piton" |
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Evan, just to add to 20kN's first reply. |