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Click here to see what is currently on my El Capitan rack.
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 Chris McNamara on The Shield, El Capitan. Credit: Corey Rich |
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Leading: Placing Gear
Overview
I have some exciting news: you know all that gear you have been placing over the years on trad climbs? If you were like me, you were probably climbing within your ability and not taking lots of whippers. So you never REALLY knew how good those gear placements were. Well, today you get to find help. Today you will stand, bounce, and bounce even harder on that gear. You finally get to rely on all that stuff you have been hauling around over the years.
Skills to Learn
• Efficient gear racking and organize, organize, organize.
• Bounce test harder than you think.
• Maximize your reach.
• Try to find the worst possible cam and stopper placement that will still hold your weight.
Essential Gear You Need
• Nuts, daisy chains, fifi hook, free biners, gear sling or shoulder-length runners, draws, slings, helmet.
• New gear you have earned: cams, nuts, offset nuts.
• Optional gear: gloves, self-belay device.
Where to Practice
A 30 to 60-foot crack climb at a 80-degree angle is ideal. However, almost any climb works. My first aid climb was a 30-foot sport climb where I could place tiny stoppers in a seam but still clip bolts to make sure I didn’t hit the deck if I fell. Start on top rope so there is no fear of falling. Try as many aid placements as possible. Fiddle around with nuts and cams in as many different ways as possible. Sketchy placements that you would never dare place on a free climb can make suitable aid placements. You will be amazed at what will hold body weight.
Racking Gear
There are two ways to rack gear:
1) For mostly-free walls like The Nose or Salathé, I use a single gear sling. Each cam gets its own biner. Similar sized cams are clipped to each other; stoppers up front. I clip quickdraws in pairs to the harness. Free biners are clipped in groups of five or seven. Lightweight shoulder-length runners go over the opposite shoulder.
2) For mostly-aid routes with a bigger rack I use a double gear sling (I don’t like the multi-loop single or double gear slings). On the right side I clip all the cams with the smallest in the front. Each size cam is on one biner clipped at the plastic-coated loop (not the short sewn runner if it has one). Stoppers go to the front. All the biners and draws go on the left side. I clip the should-length runners to the left side of the harness to one biner.
Always keep the rack organized. This may seem obvious but on a big wall there is so much gear and logistics that it is easy to get sloppy and not keep things organized. Spend the extra time organizing. Every minute spent organizing saves two more more minutes on lead. It is especially important to have an organized rack when free climbing so you get the right piece fast and don’t hang out, search around, and lose strength. Also, if it’s a gear-intensive pitch where you will need to ration gear, you want to look down and instantly know what gear you still have at hand.
Reach
Efficient aid climbing is all about reach from one placement to the next. When you have a big reach you have a larger area from which to choose the next good placement. More importantly, the bigger your reach the fewer placements you need per pitch. Even when efficiently aid climbing, each placement will take one to two minutes to deal with. Make 25 placements on a pitch instead of 35 and you save 10 to 20 minutes per pitch. Multiplied by 30 pitches, that is five to ten hours. Also, when you reach farther and leave less gear you will have more options for gear placements high on the pitch. There is nothing worse than using all your good pieces down low and then having to improvise crappy placements up high.
Short people take heart—reach is only partially a function of how tall you are. It is mainly a function of how high you were standing on your last piece. And that is all about technique. In aid climbing, a five-foot-tall person who maximizes their reach can place the next piece higher than a six-foot person who does not.
Bounce Testing
The goal in bounce testing is to generate enough force to mimic a small fall. Proper bounce testing is essential for safety, peace of mind, and speed. If you don’t properly bounce test…
You might place strings of barely bodyweight gear that will all zipper out in a fall. A marginal-looking piece will feel like a time bomb. You will be terrified that the piece might blow at any second. You will timidly step up the piece and won’t feel more confident about getting high in your Aiders and/or top-stepping. Two Types of Bounce Testing: Aider and Daisy
Aider bounce testing is where you put one foot in the piece you are testing while keeping the other foot on the previous piece. Another technique is to bounce on the piece using just the daisy chain. On most routes I use Aider bounce testing 80 percent of the time and daisy 20 percent.
Pros to Aider Bounce Testing
Faster. Less wear on the daisy chain. The only way to test pieces to your side. Best way to test hooks.Pros to Daisy Chain Bounce Testing
If the piece you are testing pulls, it puts the least amount on force on the previous piece. Can generate a little more force than Aider bounce testing.In general, the bounce of each piece has three stages: light, medium, heavy.
Light—Gently move onto the piece you are testing. Be ready in case the piece blows right away. Medium—Point your toe down a little lower than you heel and gently bounce a couple times. Look down. Don’t look at the piece because if it pulls it will hit you in the face. After a few bounces, stop bouncing, look at the piece to make sure it is not shifting into a bad position, and then look down again and continue bouncing. Hard—Bounce hard, harder than you think. Bounce almost to the point where you are jumping out of your Aiders. Try to pull the piece. If it blows now, you just transfer your weight to the previous piece. If it blows later, you are taking a fall of unknown size or outcome. At first, vigorous bounce testing feels counter-intuitive and scary. After all, you are aiming to get a piece to fail—something you hope won’t happen if you actually fall on lead. One mental trick I use is to convince myself I am trying to get the piece to pull out. If I am in A4 or A5 terrain and scared I occasionally resort to yelling at the piece to “Get out!” If after screaming at the piece and hard bounce testing it is still in place, I feel confident I can move up on it.
Video: How to Bounce Test
When Not to Bounce Test Hard
There are a few instances when I only use the light and medium stages of bounce testing:
On bomber C1 terrain. If it is obviously a bomber cam, give a real quick light bounce and maybe a medium bounce. Sketchy fixed gear. If there is a tiny copperhead or fraying fixed stopper, use the light and medium stages of bounce testing. Vigorous bounce testing is likely to weaken the already fraying cable. 
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Testing Hooks and Cam Hooks
I will point my toe down low and bounce gently a couple times. By pointing the toe down, you are creating a little lever that allows you to apply a force greater than your body weight without actually have to bounce up and down too hard, potentially causing the hook or cam hook to fall off.
Leading Technique in This Section
Place the first piece in the highest but most secure spot possible. Close to the ground always choose the most secure placement. Once you are a way off the deck, strive for the highest acceptably secure placement.
1. Clip to the piece directly (not to a biner or draw). Step test the piece, keeping your head down. Aggressive testing ensures that the piece will hold if the next piece comes out and you take a short fall onto it.
2. Walk up the piece/secure your hips. Tom Frost says “Don’t even look at the crack until you are at the highest step in the Aiders.”
KEY POINT: Probably the biggest time waster in aid climbing is pausing or stopping before your are high enough. Before even thinking about the next aid placement, get your waist even with the top of the biner or go higher.
3. Step higher, focusing on the next placement. If the fifi is too long or too short it is ineffective for second stepping.
4. Place the piece.
5. Head first step testing.
6. Remove the last piece or clip the rope to the last piece. Make sure the rope is not between your legs.
7. Clip the bottom Aiders to the harness.
8. Place the next piece.
Back cleaning
Back cleaning is when, after using a piece, you remove it instead of leaving it for protection. There are a few reasons to do this:
You usually don’t have enough gear to leave every single piece on an aid pitch that is more than 100 feet long. Sometimes you climb a crack that is the same size for a long time so you need to conserve gear to re-use higher. It is faster to back clean every piece for protection.On most pitches, if you are a conservative leader, you only back clean five to ten percent of the time. If you are trying to climb really fast you might back clean more like 25 percent.
I generally back clean when it is safe. You don’t back clean if you are setting yourself up for a fall onto a ledge.
When doing a traverse, you either need to leave every piece so that the follower can clean the pitch or back clean a lot between lower points. For example, on the Great Roof on The Nose, the leader needs to either leave every single piece or strategically leave pieces so the follower can lower-out off the fixed pieces.
NOTE: When you are first learning, don't back clean unless you have to because you are running out of gear. Play it safe; clip lots of gear. Only back clean when you feel comfortable doing it.
Leapfrogging
Leapfrogging is when you back clean and re-use the same piece immediately. This is not only the fastest way to aid climb, it is often necessary to make your rack last over an entire pitch. For example, on the last eight pitches of The Nose there are a bunch of pitches with 20 to 30-foot sections of the same-sized crack. With a little leapfrogging you are fine with two to three sets of cams. If you want to leave every piece you would have to bring three to four sets of cams.
This is part of my How To Big Wall Climb project. View the table of contents here.
