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jrzacher
Apr 15, 2006, 4:02 PM
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Hello all, I have looked through many an aid post and nothing address my question exactly:
I live in Grand Junction and I am starting to build up my own primarily clean aid rack for sandstone for areas such as grand junction, moab, Zion ect.. Most of the reviews and posts deal a lot with aid in harder rock such as granite, and the effectiveness of nuts biting into crystals and such. As far as small nuts go for clean desert aid is a brass based metal the best? Being a softer metal it will deform more easily rather then an aluminum nut. Or is it just fine to buy Pee-nuts, astro nuts, BD micro stoppers, super-light rocks.
Thanks in Advanced,
Jesse
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atg200
Apr 15, 2006, 9:54 PM
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do everything can can to find a set or two of HB bronze offsets. almost every time you place a nut that small in the desert, it is in a pin scar and nothing works better.
in general, you won't need anything like this for 90% of the clean aid routes in the desert. the small lowe balls often work better as well.
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stymingersfink
Apr 16, 2006, 1:54 AM
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my first trip up the big stone was with a guy who had spent extensive time climbing desert aid lines.
he swore by the #3 HB Bronze offset nut for sandstone pin-scars, and he had nearly a half dozen of that size alone on his rack, so I would tend to believe him on that score.
Good luck finding 'em though. (Has DMM got 'em available for sale yet?)
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dangle
Apr 16, 2006, 4:21 AM
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When it comes to nutting thin cracks I feel that the more contact surface area the better. Soft rock tends to deform when forces are concentrated so the old wide but thin stoppers work well.
I actually prefer the old Go-Pro Rock-n-rollers over Ball Nuts as the rolling cylinder locks into the recessed horizontal striations of sedimentary rock. Good luck finding them.
Then again if you climb in the Monument the rock is too soft to trust anything that small. Perhaps Otto knew what he was doing.
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jrzacher
Apr 16, 2006, 4:47 AM
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Hah! Good Thinking, I'll get my Hole Hawg out and start drilling 2" diameter holes and shove some pipe in to that rotten rock! Good ol otto. There is some good sandstone around here though!Thanks for all the information.
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jrzacher
Apr 16, 2006, 4:50 AM
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Hah! Good Thinking, I'll get my Hole Hawg out and start drilling 2" diameter holes and shove some pipe in to that rotten rock! Good ol otto. There is some good sandstone around here though!Thanks for all the information.
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jrzacher
Apr 16, 2006, 5:05 AM
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I have been looking over some of your ( Ron Olevsky) routes in the monument/Moab area and I am thinking about attempting your Angular Motion route. Going to take a look at it from the bottom tomorrow after some good old crackin at Liberty Cap. I don't think she (Angular Motion) sees much action, only heard of a few people doing it. Do you have any comments/story about the route? You recommend it? Thanks for replying to my post, its nice to hear from someone who has put up some stuff local to me and understands the large chunks of grainy choss one has to go through on almost every route. I am pretty set on keeping to clean aid as much as I can. Yesterday I was up cragging at the lower monument slabs and saw some pretty bad rock damage on an aid attempt, big broken chunks missing where there was slots for what looked like LAs. You ever com back to these choss pile towers anymore?
Thanks in Advance,
Jesse.
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dangle
Apr 17, 2006, 2:07 PM
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I was in Fruita Canyon a couple years ago.
(Tried posting earlier but the system...)
Angular Motion is my wildest route in the Monument. It probably doesn't require as many angle pitons (how it got its name). I keep meaning to do it a third time as the second didn't end well (jail bivy lol)
Its right up there with the Kor/Carter on the Bell Tower for great position. It could use a rap descent (maybe by Fallen Rock?)
The thing that scares me is that even clean aid wears routes and like I said that stuff by you is SOFT!
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jrzacher
Apr 17, 2006, 2:50 PM
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Well if you ever in the Junction/ Fruita area and want to do that third ascent and need a partner let me know heh. I looked at it the other day (from the bottom) and it looks pretty darn fun. I might try it here when my aid partner returns. The monument is unique in the fact that there is still soo much FAs to be done. Especially on Fruita's side of the monument. And of course you have Unaweep if you like granite. Not as glorious as towers though. On trade routes, such as Independence Otto's route,the holds/holes/steps he carved will soon (realitive to years) be gone because of the traffic that thing gets and due to the softness of the rock. I guess you could say that around here if a route is too easy for you, wait a couple years, it will wear down a bit and will probably be harder!
Jesse
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