05/07/2000 Here's a quickie of this last weekend. Chad and I are planning on hitting Leaning Tower in a few weeks, and I decided I should really learn better aid techniques than yarding on gear. We were a party of three this weekend, and I didn't want to burden someone with belaying me for ages on a climb, so I aid-soloed a bit this weekend, and someone convinced me I should let everyone laugh.. er, share. :) The players: Dave, Hector, and Luke. ---- I'm a gumby again. Gack! I don't mean to be one. I don't want to be one in June on Leaning Tower. But I am one now. This morning, we were going to try to catch either Moby Grape (III, 5.8-9) or Whitney-Gillman (II, 5.6-7ish) on Cannon Mt., New Hampshire. There was a raincloud directly overhead. Bah! So we drove back to everyone's favorite sport climbing mecca, Rumney: Home of the 50-foot climbs. Oooh. But there's a little 5.8 crack in a dihedral next to Holderness Arete. And for some reason, I've got all of my aid gear with me. This could be fun after all. So, to the entertaining sounds of two of my climbing partners falling all over (okay, okay, it wasn't that bad) Holderness, I set out to solo-aid the 5.8 crack with my trusty new friend, Mr. Gri-Gri. My rack is inadequate. My brain is inadequate. I was placing pro so closely spaced that I had to lower and back-clean TWICE on this damnable route. And at the top, the only piece I could get in was a #4 Camalot used in completely passive mode, because I don't have any large hexes. A group of climbers on the route next to me wondered out loud if the next guidebook would point out the beautiful 5.11 climb next to the fixed aid-climber. The climb begins: A tall figure clanking with gear and trailing two aiders approaches the wall. "Hmm. . Oooh, okay." Slotted a #13 stopper. Stood up, leaning far too backwards, smeared sneakered foot against wall for balance. Mmmkay. Stuck an orange FCU in about 2 feet higher. Clipped one set of aiders into the FCU, forgot to bring the other set up at the same time. Didn't make much progress. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Get clue. Start moving both sets of aiders up at a time, just like the little book sez (*). (*) The chockstone big wall book is godlike, when you remember to do what it says to do. Person on the climb next to me asks if I brought my headlamp. My reply was vaguely unintelligible, compounded as it was by the sweat dumping down from beneath my helmet. Adjust grigri. Go up. Shit. Out of gear. Make good placements. Lower self down with aforementioned godlike GriGri. Clean gear. Batman back up, clipping into pieces to adjust grigri occasionally. Wipe more beads of sweat off brow, decide I was stupid to leave the ascenders at the base. More very bad aid climbing. Guy next door takes time off from insulting his belayer's mother to see if I have my portaledge. Get nice stopper placement. Move up. BIG NOISY CLANK! Urp. Instant shot of adrenaline and I'm ready to scrape down the wall... Nope. I'm not falling. Realization dawns as the adreanaline drains out: biner shift. So that's what they're talking about. Ugh. Smart-assed climber and I had met in Red Rocks two months ago. He expresses great surprise that I made it back to Boston so quickly. Lather, rinse, repeat. Out of gear again. Lower, but the crack overhangs a bit here and batmanning up sounds less than fun. Prusik up with an aider clipped into the prussik, then take weight on GriGri. Works like a *charm*. Woo! ... but back at the top, nothing will go in the placement. Mutter desire for hex. Luke notes from the ground that someone told him to forget his hexes on the crack, and he'd regretted every minute of it. Very helpful, since I'm stuck 15 feet from the anchor chains. Insert previously mentioned horrible idea of using a #4 camalot as a chockstone, then to a really sketchy #2 camalot in a shallow crack. Pray a few times. It's not hard aid (hell, it's a 5.8 crack), but the brain driving the gear isn't exactly in high gear. End of crack. No hooks. Ooooh! Little crack. Little crack takes blind stopper placement, but it holds bodyweight. Now there's really no crack. Glance around a few times, endure more comments about speed ascents, and listen to the comforting sound of Hector going "whoof" as he takes a short fall. Fuck it. Grab the obvoius holds, mantle onto ledge, clip into the anchors and call it a day. Yeee! That was *fun*! -Dave (With apologies to Hector and Luke for dragging them into this trip report. :-)