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Kevster
Trad climber
Evergreen, CO
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Oct 26, 2007 - 12:53am PT
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Whoever coined the phrase "It's all A1 until you fall"...pretty much sums it up.
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Kevster
Trad climber
Evergreen, CO
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Oct 26, 2007 - 01:03am PT
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It should be mentioned that Chris has climbed harder aid than 99.99 percent of the people on this site. Check out his FA's in the Fishers if you do not believe.
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Oct 26, 2007 - 01:28am PT
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i'm going to agree with this folks that say that aid ratings are bunk ..
.. for one thing two different A3 or A4 pitches could be worlds apart .. (ie: the A4 pitch on South Seas.. is very soft... and IMO not A4).
.. the other aspect is that the style of climbing an aid pitch can definately change the risk, and makes the rating mute in those cases... case in point the getting out to the nipple on zodiac .. you can: 1- nail your way out to the nipple (A1) .. use nuts, cams, etc.. (C1) .. or hook your way out to the nipple.. (C3) ..
.. so screw ratings .. climb in the best style that you like .. and have fun ..
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Oct 26, 2007 - 01:43am PT
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It should also be mentioned that CK drilled on a Klaus route.
Heehee!
(Love the rant.)
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Oct 26, 2007 - 01:51am PT
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Coming to the same conclusion as Chris Kalous, I gave up aid climbing in 1973, for the most part. Lest you want to say we didn't know what hard aid climbing was all about back then, here's a quote from an e-mail I got from Steve Bechtel last week, about a route in the Wind Rivers that Geoff Heath and I did in 1969:
"I recently did what might be the second ascent of the North Tower Crack on Haystack, which I felt was VERY stout for A4. It makes Sea of Dreams seem like a bolt ladder...I can't believe you did it so long ago. We went up to look at it for free climbing. I think it will be a really hard route to free...too few cracks." -Steve Bechtel
Not saying aid's bad - just not for everyone (me). I posted a story earlier on ST about this climb. I had been thinking it might make a good free climb for today's masters. According to Steve, maybe knott...
-UnseemlyJelloSpray (Yuck, I detest myself...*)
(*...knott!)
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James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
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Oct 26, 2007 - 01:52am PT
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Through the liquor the guy made some decent points.
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Scrunch
Trad climber
Provo, Ut
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Oct 26, 2007 - 04:37pm PT
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Excuse the response below, just pontificating
We are a race of children, dreaming up our vast pretends as a response to the reality we exist in. We enforce the rules of these games; difficulty ratings, speed limits, politics, even ethical constructs in an attempt to quantify and control things inherently beyond our control. Clinging to these illusions like a drowning man to his bag of gold, we forget that before us we only have the pretends of children. Don't wrap your ego up in a game. Play the games yo want to play because you want to play.
I only live because it interests me, and I only play when i think the game will be fun. On topic, i find the Aid game enjoyable. he doesn't. Either way, I am not concerned with his ideas on the validity of the game because all of this is inherently invalid anyway. He just plays a different game than I do.
Just a thought
Adam
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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Oct 26, 2007 - 06:28pm PT
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"It should also be mentioned that CK drilled on a Klaus route.
Heehee!"
hahaha The irony is great here. I guess some A5 is different/harder than others, huh? Easier to forget things like that when drinking though.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Oct 26, 2007 - 06:42pm PT
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"Through the liquor the guy made some decent points."
maybe, kinda. If; you grasp the concept that every aid placement is equally fall catchable/requires the same skill to hold your own mass, none are dicier than others.
No prob!
A corollary, every free move is the same... 5.14 climbers are just busier.
Glad that's settled!
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piquaclimber
Trad climber
Durango
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Oct 26, 2007 - 06:43pm PT
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I have always admired Chris's list of ascents in the Fishers but I didn't realize that he was such a politician. I mean the way he blends cold truths and utter bullshit so seamlessly is a feet to behold.
ranting about ranting.... wheeeeee....
may the god I don't believe in bless the Internet...
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ckalous
Trad climber
Colorado
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Oct 31, 2007 - 04:46pm PT
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Thanks for the mostly great responses on this thread! Loved the deck building analogy! I knew it wouldn't last forever though. No segment of the climbing populous is as easily ruffled as the aid climbers - well, maybe the super alpine guys, but I really am scared of those dudes.
So in my defense:
1. Its a joke. As in Bullshit of the stinkiest variety. Yes "spraying about spraying". That's called irony and it’s a time honored tactic in satire.
2. Yes, I am guilty of all the things that I joke about. I say this in the video.
3. This was indeed rehearsed in that I had used the same argument to rile up my friends around campfires and such at other times and Dan kept badgering me to put it on video (and it was raining a hell of a lot).
4. The drink is Pisco - a hard Chilean imbibe made from grapes- and coke, or a Piscola.
5. Bingo! Cochamo.
6. I didn't drill on a "Klaus" route. My partner did. But I agreed with it, so I guess that is the same thing- accessory to a crime, as it were. It was at a belay which I remember having only one 5/16th buttonhead. But I have been told that I am wrong about that memory. One of you guys should head up and chop it so I can sleep at night(before you use it to haul your bags, of course)!
9. I do not believe that aid climbing is stupid or not fun. Just that it isn't as challenging as free climbing. Ask anybody that has done both at a high level. Our system supports this simple statement by that fact that an achievement of note is to free an aid line, while aiding a free line is seen as a form of concession and failure. Even partially eliminating aid is seen as better style.
10. Finally, did I mention that the video is a joke. We were goofing around drunk in the rain. But in Shakespeare's words, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" which leads me to believe I might have gotten something right through the alcohol.
Anyway, keep climbing, spraying, slandering and having fun, otherwise we might as well trade in our ratty shorts for pleated pants and call it golfing instead!
I am going to be in Josh next week. Anybody want to climb? (or beat me up?)
Sincerely,
Chris "the guy who drilled on P S D" Kalous
By the way, I need to come clean on something. Many of you think I did the second ascent of Scorched Earth. It has occurred to me that Randy probably freed the first half of the Leavitator pitch, and I did not, which means that I did not in fact achieve the second ascent as the style of my ascent was worse than the first. I would guess it probably still hasn't been done. I guess I will have to give back all my sponsorship money. Randy Leavit is a way better climber than I will ever be.
Where, oh, where have all the Randy Leavits gone?!
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Oct 31, 2007 - 06:35pm PT
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Which site in Josh you gonna be in? I wouldn't sleep if I were you, driller!
Not a joke!!
Serious as an aid rant!!!1
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Oct 31, 2007 - 06:45pm PT
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Aids climbing is for people who don't get enough boredom in the rest of their life.
Having had to resort fo full blown, nasty, miserable, slow, tedious, free hanging aid in a few sections of otherwise free-able climbs, all I can say is that there is NOTHING better than getting to the end of the aids section and going free again.
People who wan to do 'climbs' where the hwole thing is aid, and they know this before hand, are just sick, sick, sick, I tell you.
IN the future there will be treatment for them, I hope.
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Jonny D
Social climber
Lost Angelez, Kalifornia
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 31, 2007 - 07:01pm PT
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Chris:
Thanks for posting, I was kinda hoping you would when I started this thread. I had a good laugh with it all, still agree with your drunken joke though... climbing 13a with beak protection not harder than aid, yeah right!
Jean
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mooch
Big Wall climber
The Immaculate Conception
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Oct 31, 2007 - 07:16pm PT
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Kris said:
"But then I think spraying in good style is a worthy art."
And a fine artisan you are. ;)
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NBB
Social climber
Boulder
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Oct 31, 2007 - 10:11pm PT
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If guys worked on hooking, pins, heading, etc like you see freeclimbers working to hone their skills at Cookie, C4 boulders, etc - in perhaps 1 month's time we'd have A7. I'd say it took me perhaps 1 week to get to A5, when you seperate it from the time learning all that other stuff.
When you pull the technical difficulties of aid climbing out of that mess known as "doing a wall", it's not a very big part of the picture, yet mentally I think it's what neophytes focus on. Bailing because of specific technical aid difficulties are extremely rare.
Agree with Jello that there's basically a ceiling to the difficulty, in that there is only so much a stretch of rock can offer before you have to either start drilling it or work with rock so fragile the 3rd ascent will be doing a bolt ladder. There in the middle generally lie placements that hold body weight or better. Here, if you can't get something to stick well enough before your supplies of food and water run out, then you should consider another sport.
Lastly, I love the talk of spray in that video! Yosemite, we must all concede, is Spray Central - a flaming crucible of SPRAY! You can't blame the big brave El Cap climbers (including Chris, or even myself..!) for spraying too much - it's just the culture we were nurtured in - scarred for life!
 Nate
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Burns
Trad climber
Nowhere special
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Boulder is Spray Central, except in the summertime when it moves to Rifle for the season.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Chris has climbed harder aid than 99.99 percent of the people on this site.
Don't forget his freeklimbing skills (same math, likely). Guy's a genuwine all-rounder...
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Handjam Belay
Gym climber
expat from the truth
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I leapfrogged two big bros up the Leavittator...I was pretty gripped.
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Blakeb
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Maybe third to the valley and boulder, would be supertaco itself.
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