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Aid climbing is a form of rock climbing that uses mechanical devices and equipment, such as aiders (or ladders), for upward momentum.[1] Aid climbing is the opposite of free climbing (which can be performed as traditional or sport free climbing), which only uses mechanical equipment for protection, but not to assist in upward momentum. "Traditional aid climbing" involves hammering in permanently fixed pitons and bolts, into which aiders are clipped, whereas "clean aid climbing" avoids hammering, using only removable placements.
While aid climbing traces its origins to the start of all climbing when ladders and pitons were common, its use in single-pitch climbing waned in the early 20th century with the rise of free climbing. At the same time, the Dolomites became the birthplace of modern "big wall aid climbing", where pioneers like Emilio Comici developed the early tools and techniques. Aid climbing's "golden age" was in the 1960s and 1970s on Yosemite's granite big walls led by pioneers such as Royal Robbins and Warren Harding, and later Jim Bridwell, and was also where Robbins' ethos of minimal-aid, and Yvon Chouinard's ethos of "clean aid climbing", became dominant.
In the 1990s, the traditional A-grading system was expanded at Yosemite into a more detailed "new wave" system, and with the development and growth in "clean aid climbing", the A-grade became the C-grading system. The grading of aid-climbing routes is complex as successive repeats can substantially change the nature of the challenge through hammering and also the build-up of large amounts of in-situ fixed placements. It is not untypical for a new A5-graded aid-climbing route, to migrate to an A3-graded route over time.
Aid climbing is still used on large big wall climbing and alpine climbing routes, to overcome sections of extreme difficulty that are beyond the difficulties of the rest of the route. A famous big wall climb such as The Nose on El Capitan is accessible to strong climbers as a partial-aid route graded VI 5.9 (5c) C2, but only a tiny handful can handle its 5.14a (8b+) grade as a free climbed route. Aid is also used on "next generation" big wall routes such as Riders on the Storm on Cordillera Paine or the Grand Voyage on Trango Towers, which cannot yet be freed. Extreme A5-graded aid-only routes are also established, such as Nightmare on California Street on El Capitan.
Aid climbing is a form of rock climbing that uses mechanical devices and equipment for upward momentum. It is considered the opposite of free climbing (whether done as traditional climbing or sport climbing), which only uses mechanical devices and equipment for climbing protection, but not to assist in upward momentum. Like traditional and sport climbing, aid climbing is typically done in pairs with a lead climber making the "placements" into which ladders (known as aiders) are clipped, thus enabling them to ascend. After the lead climber has reached the top, the second climber (or belayer) then removes the placements as they jumar up the rope.[2][3]
"Traditional aid climbing" relied on fixed placements, which were mainly metal pitons that the lead climber hammered into the rock as they ascended. These placements remained permanently fixed on the route (and in such cases, the second (or belayer) didn't have to take any placement out and just jumared up on a fixed rope). "Clean aid climbing" avoids any hammering, and uses the temporary protection of traditional climbing (e.g. spring-loaded camming devices) for placements, which the second removed as they followed after the lead climber. "Clean aid climbing" avoids the damage that repeated hammering of metal does to aid routes,[2][3][4] and has been advocated by some as useful training for traditional climbing protection placement.[5][6]
While aid climbing has waned as the free climbing movement has grown, elements of aid climbing are still a regular feature of many major big wall climbing and alpine climbing routes. These routes are long multi-pitch climbs where it is possible to find specific sections that are considerably above the difficulty level of the rest of the route. For such sections, aid climbing techniques are accepted, even by free climbers.[2][3] For example, the world-famous big wall climbing route The Nose on El Capitan is a 31-pitch 870-metre graded partial clean aid climb at VI 5.9 (5c) C2, but as a fully free climb with no aid, it is graded VI 5.14a (8b+).[7] Extreme big wall climbs such as the 1991 route Riders on the Storm in Cordillera Paine still remain a partial-aid route at VI 5.13/7c+ A3.[8]
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See also: History of rock climbing |
Aid climbing traces its origins to the start of all climbing, with ladders used on historic ascents such as the 1492 ascent of Mont Aiguille, the 1786 ascent of Mont Blanc, or the 1893 ascent of Devils Tower, and with drilled bolts on historic ascents such as the 1875 first ascent of Half Dome.[9][4] By the start of the 20th century, the widespread use of aid (e.g. ladders and pitons) was challenged by the free climbing movement led by Paul Preuss. While the use of aid diminished on single-pitch routes, big wall climbers in the Dolomites, such as Tita Piaz, further developed aid climbing techniques.[9][4] The legacy of the Dolomites as the birthplace of big-wall and modern aid climbing was cemented by pioneer Emilio Comici who developed the multi-step aider (or ladder). In 1933, Comici used these aid climbing techniques to climb the overhanging north face of the Cima Grande, then the world's hardest big wall aid route.[9][4] Comici's aid techniques were used by the leading European big wall and alpine climbers such as Riccardo Cassin on famous routes across the European Alps.[9][4]
In 1946, John Salathé developed a piton made from high-carbon chrome-vanadium (salvaged from the axles of the Ford cars), which enabled him to overcome the hard granite cracks of Yosemite and climb the iconic Lost Arrow Spire in 1947 with Ax Nelson.[7][10] Salathé's new aid climbing equipment (including the skyhook), led to a "golden age" in big wall aid climbing.[4][10] In 1957, a team led by Royal Robbins used Salathé's aid tools to climb the Northwest Face of Half Dome in Yosemite, ushering in modern American big wall aid climbing.[7] In 1958, a team led by Warren Harding aid climbed The Nose on El Capitan using siege tactics (600 pitons and 125 bolts) over 47 days; while the ascent got worldwide recognition it was controversial due to the excessive use of aid.[7] Robbins' ethos of minimizing the use of aid prevailed over that of Harding, and his legacy of partially-aided ascents including the Salathé Wall (1961), the North American Wall (1964), and the Muir Wall (1968) cemented Yosemite, and the granite walls of El Capitan, as the world's most important big wall aid climbing venue, and Robbins' place in climbing history.[9][11]
1970 saw one of the most infamous events in big wall aid climbing, with the creation of Cesare Maestri's Compressor Route on Cerro Torre.[9] Maestri drilled an extreme amount of bolts into the famous headwall using a 300-pound air compressor drill; in one section he drilled across a blank 90-metre face to avoid the wind.[4] Maestri's excessive use of aid was condemned.[4][9] In 1971, Reinhold Messner wrote a now famous essay titled The Murder of the Impossible on the trend of excessive aid saying: "Today's climber ... carries his courage in his rucksack". Another famous essay in 1972, by big wall pioneers Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost, appealed for "clean aid climbing" techniques to avoid the damage incurred by pitons and hammers.[10][12] Messner's and Chouinard's essays marked the end of the excessive aid techniques.[4] The 1970s saw new big wall aid climbing pioneers such as Jim Bridwell pushing standards in Yosemite using less intrusive aid (e.g. Chouinard's RURPs) to put up groundbreaking routes such as Pacific Ocean Wall (1975) and Sea of Dreams (1978), with its famous A5-graded "Hook or Book" pitch, the first "if you fall, you die" rope length on El Capitan.[13][9]
Bridwell and others pushed big wall aid climbing standards into the 1980s and 1990s with ever-harder A5-graded routes like Reticent Wall (1995), on the blank south faces of El Capitan.[9] The arrival sport climbing in the late 1980s saw a dramatic rise in rock climbing standards.[9][10] Many big wall aid climbs were freed, with the most notable being Lynn Hill's 1993 free climb of The Nose on El Capitan at 5.14a.[7][4] Aid climbing continued to be a skill set for big wall and alpine climbers in both being able to complete routes that would otherwise be almost impossible to most climbers (e.g. The Nose on El Capitan) and in creating "next generation" big wall and alpine routes that are not capable of being fully freed (e.g. the Grand Voyage on Trango Towers).[9] In a 1999 essay in Ascent titled The Mechanical Advantage, big wall aid climber and author, John Middendorf, said of that Hill's achievement on The Nose: "But without the old piton scars, without fixed protection, without her big-wall aid climbing experience, without the extraordinary free-climbing ability she gained from bolted sport climbs and indoor gyms and competitions, would there have ever been a such a free ascent?"[4]
In 2012, the Oxford English Dictionary added the term "aid climbing".[14]
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See also: Rock-climbing equipment |
Modern aid climbing typically uses most of the equipment used in traditional climbing, and particularly the protection equipment of traditional climbing (e.g. nuts, hexcentrics and tricams, and spring-loaded camming devices) that are needed for "clean aid climbing".[2]
In addition, a number of unique items of equipment are also used in aid climbing:[2][15][16]
Where aid climbing is done as part of big wall climbing – which is normally its most common format – then even more equipment is required (e.g. including haul bags, hauling pulleys and trail ropes; portaledges, and poop tubes).[2][3]
Aid climbing, for both "clean" and "traditional", is a very different type of climbing to traditional climbing, relying almost exclusively on mechanical devices for upward momentum. A number of specific techniques are important in aid climbing, which include the following:[2][17][3]
The grading of aid climbs is regarded as being complex and in a state of flux.[19][20] Aid grades can change materially over time due to improvements in aid equipment but also due to the impact of repeated ascents that subsequent aid climbing teams make to a route.[19][20] Big-wall and aid-climbing author Chris McNamara outlines in his 2011 book Yosemite Big Walls, how the grade of a typical "new A5 route" in Yosemite evolves over time:[21]
While different aid grading systems have been devised to address this (e.g. the "new wave"), in Yosemite Big Walls, McNamara says: "Although it was originally touted as being more precise, than the previous A1-A5 system, it is now clear the new wave system only brought more confusion to the rating process".[21] In practice, aid-climbing authors use a "composite" of the two systems (original and "new wave"), going from A0 to A6, and focused on the number of "bodyweight placements" (i.e. "tenuous" aid placements that can only hold a static bodyweight) vs. "bombproof placements" (belay-like aid placements that can hold a falling body) on a pitch, as a guide to the consequences of any leader fall.[19][20][21]
Original aid climbing grades go from A0 to A5 and focus on the number of "bodyweight placements" vs. "bombproof placements" on a given pitch.[21] They are less concerned with the physical demands of an aid route.[19] In Yosemite, the "R" and "X" suffixes of the American YDS free climbing system are added for routes with dangers of falls onto ledges or ramps or the risk of cutting the rope on an edge, such as pitch 13 on Reticent Wall at A4R.[21]
The original aid climbing grades are described by the American Alpine Club (republished in 2013) as follows: "In general, older routes, routes with little aid, and those put up by climbers without extensive big-wall experience use the original aid rating system":[22][23]
In the 1990s, Yosemite aid climbers created what they called a "new wave" aid grading system that expanded the range of the original system to A6, introduced an intermediate "+" grade from A2 onwards for specific tricky or strenuous sections, and gave detailed definitions at each level. As with the original system, the main focus is still on discerning the number of "bodyweight placements" on a route, and therefore the consequences of a fall.[21][19]
"New wave" grades are described by the American Alpine Club (republished in 2013) as: "Newer routes put-up by big-wall aficionados often are given a "New Wave" aid rating using the same symbols with new definitions":[22][23]
When the original or the "new wave" aid climbs can be ascended without the use of a hammer (for pitons or copperheads), the "A" suffix is replaced by a "C" to denote "clean climbing".[22][23] In Yosemite, an "F" suffix is placed after the "C" if fixed gear (e.g. bolts) is required to go clean (or hammerless).[21]
The following are some of the most notable milestones in the development of aid climbing routes:
A few notable films have been made focused on aid wall climbing including:[33]
