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socalclimber
May 9, 2003, 1:48 PM
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First off, my writing abilities are nowhere near as accomplished as Pete's, so you will have to bare with me on this (much less my spelling and grammar). This technique is a bit difficult to explain, so you may need to read it again and visualize the process. I am interested in some of the other wall masters opinions on this method (I'm not implying me!).
Ok, I know PTPP and a number of others rig their daisy/aiders with a locker. Thus the whole mess is attached. I learned the same way. Until a friend of mine strolled along and changed my mind. This technique works best with adjustable daisies, although I suppose you could do it with a fifi setup. The method is as follows:
Leave your daisies clipped to your gear loops. Leave your aiders separate from your daisies. Let's start from the ground. You place your piece, clip your aiders to the piece, test, and clip your daisy to the highest possible spot. Move up your aiders, clip the rope. Now get as high as you can, and make the next placement. Put a biner with sling etc. on the new placement. Now clip your daisy to the new piece and adjust your daisy so you're tight on the piece. This method allows you to be attached two times instead of one. If the piece you are on blows, the new piece might just hold you. You have to make sure the daisy is tight on the upper piece though.
As far as the inevitable "but what if you drop your aiders?" question, I was told, with emphasis, "Robert, YOU DON'T DROP YOUR AIDERS. In 20 years, I have never dropped my aiders". You could also just put a spare pair in a stuff sack in the haul bag.
There is another big benefit to this method as long as you are not top stepping. If the piece you have just placed is sketchy, and you don’t want to bounce test it risking a fall onto the piece you are currently standing on, try the following:
As before, clip a daisy to the new piece. Now you let your top daisy all the way out. Down climb in your aiders, as you climb down, you need to let out slack in your lower daisy until you are below the piece you are standing on. Tighten up the slack in the daisy clipped to the piece you are standing on. Next clip your spare aiders into one of the lower steps of the aiders you are standing on. You are creating a ladder. Get as low as possible from the current piece. Now you can aggressively bounce test the new piece. If it blows, you won’t shock load the current placement.
I hope this is clear. I tried this on an A3 nail up here in Josh (outside the park) and the system works like a charm. It totally changed how I aid climb, and added a tremendous boost in confidence with harder aid.
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karlbaba
May 9, 2003, 2:40 PM
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This is very similar to the way I aid climb, and I'm very happy with it.
I almost always test the next piece with my daisy, just by tightening the daisy and sitting down on it vigorously. I'm way more stable if the piece fails the test than if I were using aiders to test.
If it holds, I just hang on the daisy and reach down and move both aiders from the lower piece to the higher one. It helps to have knee pads during the transition.
My other daisy is clipped to the aiders separately so I can't drop 'em. Using only two aiders keeps the system very clean and simple. I carry a spare aider or two on each pitch for traverses or to leave one on free transistions.
When I teach aid, I always teach this method and also the more traditional system. Folks who try both usually choose the Baba way!
peace
Karl
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sspssp
May 9, 2003, 4:14 PM
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In reply to: My other daisy is clipped to the aiders separately so I can't drop 'em. Using only two aiders keeps the system very clean and simple. I carry a spare aider or two on each pitch for traverses or to leave one on free transistions. Karl
Another question, when on easy aid and "climbing in your aiders/top stepping" and are trying to move fast, is it hard to then reach down and unclip your aiders and then still be able to reach back up to the piece you are hanging from?
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coyoteblues
May 12, 2003, 2:14 AM
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Karl, I've used a couple different methods and I'm pretty happy with my current system using russian aiders in a more "traditional" aid sequence, but I do like to experiment. And systems using less gear at any time always interests me. So out of curiousity:
-when clipping in your "free" daisy to a new placement, where to you clip it, to the piece (webbing, cable) or to the biner on the piece or something else?
-when bringing up your aiders, where do you clip them, to the piece, or to the biner on the piece?
-at what point in the process do you prefer to clip in your rope?
I'm sitting here "theorizing" about how to use your system so I thought I might as well just ask. (Some overlap with sspssp's questions above, so maybe one reply can cover both.)
"The Baba way", there's a nice ring to that. 8)
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ryanpfleger
May 12, 2003, 5:14 AM
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Karl, I just tried aiding for the first time a couple days ago, and I intuitively started doing what you describe, testing from my daisy rather than from the aiders. I was still pretty incredibly slow, but since I was also using only 2 aiders I didn't have the tangle of gear everybody was describing when they talked about their first time on aid. So do you find that you can be pretty fast using this method? It seems like it would be faster than with 3 or 4 aider methods.
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karlbaba
May 12, 2003, 9:57 PM
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In reply to: Karl, I've used a couple different methods and I'm pretty happy with my current system using russian aiders in a more "traditional" aid sequence, but I do like to experiment. And systems using less gear at any time always interests me. So out of curiousity: -when clipping in your "free" daisy to a new placement, where to you clip it, to the piece (webbing, cable) or to the biner on the piece or something else? -when bringing up your aiders, where do you clip them, to the piece, or to the biner on the piece? -at what point in the process do you prefer to clip in your rope? I'm sitting here "theorizing" about how to use your system so I thought I might as well just ask. (Some overlap with sspssp's questions above, so maybe one reply can cover both.) "The Baba way", there's a nice ring to that. 8)
To use a little more detail. I place the piece which will have either a biner, quickdraw or biner with long sling on it, depending on whether I'm gonna backclean it or use it as pro. When in doubt, quickdraw.
Then I clip my adjustable daisy to that biner. Test. If the piece holds, it's no problem reaching down to get the last piece since I was just standing there. I never "hardwire" my daisies to the aider pair. I would suggest reaching down (or over) and clipping the daisy from the last piece to the aiders and moving them to the next placement. In practice I usually just clip the old daisy to my gear sling and move the aiders up unprotected. I never drop em and I carry spares.
If I placed the last piece high and can't reach it from hanging in my daisies, I clip the aiders to the rap ring which is on the end of my Yates adjustable daisy sling. Stepping up in my aiders drags me up in a hurry until I can clip wherever I like.
I clip the rope when it's below my waist unless I know the piece is bomber and it's efficient to clip it sooner.
This daisy testing technique would probably work good with the Russian Aiders which I will try myself when poverty quits nagging me.
Some exceptions: Some pieces I treat differently. I might clip my daisy to the loop of an alien to gain height rather than the sling.
I find the system to be very fast and particularly free of tangles
Peace
karl
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brutusofwyde
May 12, 2003, 10:37 PM
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Using the Russian Aiders, I generally waist bounce test rather than rather than aider bounce test, with the lower daisy adjusted to minimize fall. But Funk when things get really fragile.
One oval locker connects 2 aid trees and the adjustable daisy, stays unlocked except when things get really helter-skelter. Had to get Yates to modify his early-design adjustable aiders so the barrel of the oval lockers could fit through easily, flip the carabiner as needed to orient the gate, Yates adopted the looser loop in his next generation.
My sequence is this: Place piece rope ready if not backcleaning, clip daisy , adjust, bounce, clip rope through last piece, rocket to the top rings, place, lather, rinse, repeat. goes about as fast as it sounds, except when the test fails, repeatedly. On easy aid I'll backclean. Tough aid, sometimes I'll funk of courseness.
Visualize whirled peas.
Brutus
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copperhead
May 14, 2003, 5:53 AM
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I mean no disrespect but I have to disagree with some of what has been said above.
Why would you clip a free-biner to the piece that you just placed? If you clip your aider/daisy-biner onto the free-biner then you have lost four inches of reach. Clipping the lead line into the piece that you are hanging from simply increases the amount of slack in the rope and is unnecessary. If the piece that you are hanging from pops, it doesn’t matter whether you are clipped to it with your daisy or the lead line. I clip the lead line to a piece just after I climb onto the piece above. If possible, clip a free-biner/draw onto the lower piece and then to the rope before you un-clip the daisy from the piece. Sometimes the loops on heads will not allow two biners and so a quick swap is required. Only the worst of luck will cause you to whip during this quick exchange. Be aware of the position of your feet with respect to the lead line while testing – if you whipper, you don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the rope and be flipped upside-down.
The picture on page 80 of issue #125 of R&I is a perfect example of how extra biners in the system can diminish your reach. There is an extra free-biner (wiregate) clipped to the rivet hanger. His harness seems a little loose and he uses a biner on the harness belay-loop to clip in short; this biner is clipped to the gate-side of the wiregate on the piece, thus creating potential for un-clippage against the gate. This aider/daisy system is quite inefficient and as you can see, the rivets aren’t very far apart, even considering the steep angle of the rock.
The adjustable fifi system shown by Hans on this site will reduce any extra length in your clip-in-short system.
Using transient biners to clip a daisy to an aider-biner or vise versa presents the problem of pinching webbing between biners. A piece of webbing of any sort (daisy or aider or sling…) will be quickly destroyed if pinched between weighted biners. Be nice to your gear and it will be nice to you.
Clipping multiple biners to the same biner causes biner shifts…CHUNK!!! …spooky on dicey terrain and unnecessary.
I used to use ovals for my aider/daisy-biner but now use BD Light Ds. Why? …because an oval will exert weird torque on certain pins, due to the curve in the oval shape. D-biners are more “happy” when clipped to such pins and the spine of the biner is loaded directly. One case where ovals work better is when clipping old-style flat bolt hangers or the new Pika wall hangers/keyhole hangers (an extinct design that should have been buried in the Pleistocene…). Use RP keyhole hangers.
As far as lockers go, I only use them on my daisies if I am not tied into the rope – no need for a locker on lead or on your jugs while cleaning. I will use a locker on my jugs if I am not tied into the rope.
My system:
I use 4 aiders – custom A5 five-step and six-step (standard is 4-step and 5-step). The extra sixth step allows me to down-climb to test, or test super-reachy placements. I clip a daisy (extra-long, looped 11/16” super tape) and both aiders to a Light D. My spare set of aiders and second daisy are clipped to a gear loop on my harness or left to dangle below. The end loops of my daisies are designed so that once girth-hitched around my harness (Yates Big Wall - not to the belay loop), there is barely enough room to clip a Petzl Spirit in the end loop between the harness and the first set of bar-tacks in the daisy. This is as close as you can get a biner to your harness without clipping the harness itself (no freedom of movement in the biner). As I climb up in my aiders, I clip the Spirit to the appropriate daisy loop above, always leaving the Spirit clipped to the end loop at my harness. Sometimes if it is easier, I will clip the grab loop on my aiders, instead of a daisy loop. When I am in the third steps, I clip the fourth loop down from the aider end of the daisy (just happens to be the right length); when I’m in the second steps, I’ll clip the biner on the piece or the first loop of the daisy (the one with 6 bar-tacks that connects the two ends of the webbing in the daisy). When I climb up to the top steps, I clip the fourth daisy loop again and as I stand up, the daisy slides up the spine of the biner (Light D) and pulls upward. I always keep the daisy on the spine side of the biner when I clip pieces; this prevents un-clippage of the daisy.
Sequence:
- place piece
- clip aider/daisy-biner directly to piece
- keep lower daisy clipped tight to lower piece in case the tested piece fails (as Brutus mentioned)
- test piece – either aider or daisy test
- climb onto tested piece
- clip lower piece to lead line with appropriate free-biner/draw/sling
- un-clip lower aider/daisy-biner from lower piece
- repeat until you are thirsty
- drink beer
- repeat aiding sequence until you reach the belay
- drink beer
- haul the bags
- etc…
Visualize Armageddon – an unfinished project of mine in the Valley…
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karlbaba
May 14, 2003, 9:11 PM
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Hi Copperhead
I don't have time to fully reply to your post. It's hard to visualize aid systems from written descriptions and I can see that you may have misunderstood my system. There is never webbing being pinched in my method. Also, I simplified my description so it would be clearer. I modify my strategy when I need reach or when it gets to be harder aid.
There is also a difference between systems that go for speed, go for reach, or go for ease. I found an incredible difference in ease when I switched to adjustable daisies a couple years ago. It's great to be able to instantly get the distance you require, not the distance estimated by which loop you are attempting to clip. The ability to lengthen the daisy while it is weighted is hard to underestimate, particularly at portaledge bivies.
You make a great point about being mindful of the rope location so you don't flip upside down when you fall. I have tried to sell climbing magazine on a tech tip for this a few times but they never buy it. I'll post it here sometime. Many aid climbers just aren't aware of the problem. When it comes to clipping the rope, I just do it when it's fastest and most convenient which, as you mentioned, is often when you are already on the next piece.
I find the 4 aider system to be a tangle and find that most beginning aid climbers get extra tangled in it. You may be optimizing for a harder level. To each his own.
It's hard enough to top step without having your aiders clipped directly to the piece. I tend to rack my main alien.cam supply on their own biners so that's one reason there is a free biner there. I put them in the rock and back on my rack with no fiddling. I'm a fiend for backcleaning. You like harder routes so I'm sure you're not as fond of it as I.
I'm fat and old, my system is optimized to go as fast as possible while hanging on my daisy whenever possible. Biner shifts happen if I'm not mindful, but using a keylock helium on the adjustable daisy present a thin profile.
Peace
Karl
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brutusofwyde
May 16, 2003, 3:07 PM
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In reply to: Why would you clip a free-biner to the piece that you just placed?
Only if I will be leaving the piece.
The aider/daisy clips as high as possible. We're way too far into specifics here to have a meaningful discussion on generalities. My single-stem cams are fitted with small 1/2" webbing aid loops that keep the aid carabiner within 1/2" of the bottom of the stem. The "normal" sling is about 8" long, eliminating the need for a draw and requiring only one carabiner to leave behind as pro.
In reply to: If you clip your aider/daisy-biner onto the free-biner then you have lost four inches of reach. Clipping the lead line into the piece that you are hanging from simply increases the amount of slack in the rope and is unnecessary.
I don't do that. But as I move off the piece, after making mongo reach, its a long ways back down. Nice to have the piece all set to just clip the rope and unclip the daisy, instead of frigging around way down below my feet. When possible.
In reply to: I clip the lead line to a piece just after I climb onto the piece above.
me, too.
In reply to: - place piece - clip aider/daisy-biner directly to piece - keep lower daisy clipped tight to lower piece in case the tested piece fails (as Brutus mentioned) - test piece – either aider or daisy test - climb onto tested piece - clip lower piece to lead line with appropriate free-biner/draw/sling - un-clip lower aider/daisy-biner from lower piece - repeat until you are thirsty - drink beer - repeat aiding sequence until you reach the belay - drink beer - haul the bags - etc… Visualize Armageddon – an unfinished project of mine in the Valley…
My sequence STARTS with "drink beer"
Brutus
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Deleted
May 16, 2003, 3:23 PM
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here's my sequence:
1. rack up
2. start drinking OE800
3. place first piece, test
4. clip. hang off piece and sigh
5. look up at remaining 25 pitches
6. check testes for signs of shrinkage
7. drink another OE800
8. bail
9. go to the cookie and freeclimb
10. go to deli and talk about how sick first pitch was
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glockaroo
May 16, 2003, 7:25 PM
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Great info here from Bryan.
In reply to: ...Why would you clip a free-biner to the piece that you just placed? If you clip your aider/daisy-biner onto the free-biner then you have lost four inches of reach.
I was thinking the same thing. I've seen people insist on clipping their aiders to the sewn loop on Aliens while aiding, instead of the cable loop itself, just because "that's where the biner's supposed to go". Brutus' "aid sub-loop" is a great idea.
In reply to: Using transient biners to clip a daisy to an aider-biner or vise versa presents the problem of pinching webbing between biners. A piece of webbing of any sort (daisy or aider or sling…) will be quickly destroyed if pinched between weighted biners.
Exactly right. Picture this: you place a piece overhead, then clip it with a daisy and bouncetest it. Then you clip an aider into that same biner. If you're not careful, the clipped pocket of the daisy will be caught between the fully loaded aider biner and the daisy biner. This will destroy that pocket of the daisy in no time flat. Think of it as a hammer and anvil...
Another nice feature of adjustable daisies (or as I refer to them, "zip daisies"): they are great on overhanging terrain to quickly get your weight onto the top piece, as opposed to holding lots of your weight for a longer time with one arm while you fifi or clip in short. This is a bigger issue the more topheavy and weak-armed you are... like me. For the thinner, fitter crowd it doesn't seem to matter.
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climbingcowboy
May 16, 2003, 11:33 PM
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i've only tried the adjustable daisys once but i seemed to have hard time unweighting it to lengthen it back out, does it have to be have to be unweighted? is there a trick or did i just have a clusterfuck and thats why i couldnt do it? i ran into this both cleaning and leading. i'm sure i'm just not getting it right.
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brutusofwyde
May 17, 2003, 4:49 PM
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In reply to: i've only tried the adjustable daisys once but i seemed to have hard time unweighting it to lengthen it back out, does it have to be have to be unweighted? is there a trick or did i just have a clusterfuck and thats why i couldnt do it? i ran into this both cleaning and leading. i'm sure i'm just not getting it right.
Mine (Yates) have a ring sewn opposite the harness attachment point. Pulling on this essentially equalizes the weight through the cam, and I slide out to full length no problemo. Don't know about other brands. (shameless plug for russian aiders) I do know that the regular Yates daisys aren't long enough now that I climb with Russian aiders.
Brutus
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climbingcowboy
May 18, 2003, 2:23 AM
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i'm using the metoulius (sp?)
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copperhead
May 18, 2003, 3:35 AM
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In reply to: I do know that the regular Yates daisys aren't long enough now that I climb with Russian aiders.
I have an old Yates adjustable daisy but have never used it because it’s too short. Is anyone making longer ones these days? Yates? I would agree that using adjustable daisies on super-steep terrain is more efficient than using traditional looped daisies.
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epic_ed
May 18, 2003, 4:01 AM
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Geoff -- That's one of the down sides to using the Metolius adjustables. It's a problem when you're learning to aid (seems you are always needing to make some sort of adjustment one way or another), but when you get the hang of it, you'll realize it's much easier to just weight another link that you're attached to in order to briefly unweight the daisey so you can lengthen it. Beats fighting with them to try to unweight them. Sometime you can kind of bump up a step on your aiders to quickly flip the the daisey to extend the length. Not sure if you've figured out the easiest way to extend them, but the Metolius documentation shows it best. It's can definitely be a one-hand motion when your hand is in the strap and oriented correctly.
I've made it a habit to extend the daisey that I'm removing from my lower piece as soon as I pull it off the piece of gear (before racking the aider/daisey combo back on my harness where it awaits to be leap frogged up to the next piece). That way it's always ready to go and I don't reach up and find I've short-daisied myself. Wasted effort.
Ed
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climbingcowboy
May 18, 2003, 4:07 AM
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righton Ed I'll just have to play with it some more.
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lambone
May 18, 2003, 10:04 PM
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The worst thing that can happen with the Metolius Daisies...lets see if I can describe it....
Ok, each daisy has a large loop that is created because the slack end of the webbing is attatched to the load-bearing end with a D ring. If the daisy is shortened you have a larger sized loop. Can ya dig it?
Here is the problem, several times I have reached down to grab my other daisy to clip the next piece and somehow pulled it throut that large loop. Each time I have done this I havent noticed until it was too late. Then when you are going for your next piece, you can't clip it because the the loop is caught around the daisy you are now weighting....
From this point you are screwed, at least for a minute. You either have to reverse what you just did to free it, or detatch your aiders and use them without the daisy for a move until you can fix it.
Does this make sense. It may not sound like a big deal, but it's exteremly frustrating when it happens because you totaly hose yourself. Anyone else run into this problem?
I use PTPP's system (for once) with the kong adjustable fifi, for when you are above the piece (second or top steps). I find it easier to legthen the fifi then the adj. daisy when I need to. I pretty much only tighten the daisies if I am below the piece on steep terrain, or when bounce testing with my harness on high placements, at the belays and when jugging. Part of me thinks I should just go back to old school onse, cause the adj. fifi does most of what I need, and the daisies might be over kill. Time spent fucking with adjustments is time wasted...
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karlbaba
May 19, 2003, 1:33 AM
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I haven't fooled with the Metolius daisies, but the Yates are easy to release under even heavy loads. I love 'em.
They seem long enough to me but if they won't reach somewhere, I just clip em to something lower until I can reach where I want to be.
Karl
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epic_ed
May 19, 2003, 3:57 AM
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Brutha 'Bone! You're preachin to the choir, alright. Can't tell you how many times I've done the "Fischer Weave"; named after my climbing partner who had the absolute worst CF I've ever seen when aiding with them for the first time -- dude was on lead for 5 1/2 hours on an 100 ft C1 pitch. We have about 6 pictures of him in the same 20 ft stretch of rock of the course of about 4 hours and you can actually see the sun change positions faster than he was moving. Funny sh!t.
I've still get jacked up once in a while with the "weave", but like everything else it just seems I now instinctively make a mental note about where I'm moving the next aider/daisey and usually avoid getting buggered. Usually...
Ed
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climbingcowboy
May 19, 2003, 10:45 AM
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i think I may have figured out why i was having a hard time. Where do you guys actually clip the aiders to? to the biner or to the strap that your hand gos in?
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epic_ed
May 19, 2003, 12:57 PM
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AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! Not the strap your hand goes into! Holy-freakin-schmoley. That grab loop is definitely not an attachment point. And clipping your aiders there would make it very difficult to extend the length of your daisey.
My sequence goes:
- Locking oval on the end of the daisey.
- Aiders and additional biner (the one I clip into each piece with) go directly on the same locking bine as my daisey.
- Orient all that stuff around on the locker so that I have the "clipping" biner with the gate and basket up.
- Aiders and daisey are sitting in the bottom of the basket of the locking biner.
YMMV, but definitely don't use the grab loop on these things as an attachment point. (whew!)
Ed
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socalclimber
May 19, 2003, 1:37 PM
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I haven't tried the the Metolius, I use the Yates. I have heard a number of people complain that the Metolius are hard to use. Do they improve when they break in i.e. get softer?
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slabbyd
May 19, 2003, 3:44 PM
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Posts: 40
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I've used Metolious and not Yates. The Metolious get WORSE as they break in. The fuzzed up webbing is harder to lengthen. However I DO LIKE them. Loads easier than using a fifi. By girth hitching them directly into the harness I seem to avoid needing an adjustable fifi (I am no bigwall god but by definition I'm not a BWT either!) If I keep it a bit loose in the 3rd steps that seems to be the perfect length for the second steps. Getting into the top steps requires fiddling.
I've set up my aiders and daisies using the PTPP method of aiders on clipping biner and daisy attached via seperate biner to same point in aiders. Very clean, minimizes twisting and CFs, easy to leave aiders behind and bust out free moves.
One more point, Each clipping biner has 1 purple and 1 grey aider on it, set up so that I always clip with the gate facing the center and always place my left foot in the purple aider. By religously sticking to this routine I NEVER twist up the adjustable daisy. Very nice.
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