Aid climbing roofs is harder than you think

Welcome to another video of the Big Wall Course where I'm going to show you how to lead this roof at this outdoor public climbing gym area and this allows me to practice and also to demonstrate for you in a controlled environment how to lead a roof. If you don't know how to lead a roof or very overhanging and steep terrain or follow steep terrain you're going to bail. When I was on Washington Column I was doing two routes and staying on Dinner Ledge and the entire time we were there over several days we had five parties, not five people, five parties bail because they had somebody lead the core roof for like four hours and then somebody try to follow it for another two or three hours and they're like oh we'll never make it to the top. I'm like well you're probably right but that was the hardest thing they did that was easier after that but it's because five parties because they didn't know this part. So I think this is going to be essential to just make its own video. The next video is where we're at index and we're actually showing you an entire pitch start to finish including the hauling like a one pitch of a big wall start to finish A to Z but this is just going to show you leading and following this very steep terrain and we're going to try to keep it as tight as possible. Now when I'm done I'm going to show you Andrea her first time on this as the perfect how not to do it and she was willing to let me haze her because if you don't know what you're doing it can really really suck and I don't want to make this look too easy in the video and then you're like oh I got that. No no no you need to find somewhere outside it could be a playground it could be two trees where you tie butterfly knots and a rope that you tension up just high enough to be off the ground so you can practice the motion. So you have to practice I'm just lucky enough to have this area we've been doing this wall over here where I'll go up and time myself haul a bag it's only like 20-30 feet and then Andrea will lead and haul and I think that's really helpful in order to iron out all your systems while you're here including ironing out your audio systems because this is now the fourth video I've literally had to reshoot because my audio went out in the big wall bible where all this is going to be where this is going to have more content than just these videos as this is just the start to the entire big wall thing I'm trying to do. I'll leave a little nugget in there behind the scenes of what it was like to film this stuff and now Sylvester's with me and it will now divergenize him on his first roof so you can see another how not to example and we'll see how he does. This is also a great place to haze my girlfriend when I got in the haul bag and had her haul me and then I had her try a three-to-one just to show her how not great it is. You're having a baby up there yes yes that's exactly you you're experiencing big walling right now I'm having the time of my life though I gotta do this more often. Rocky Taki helped sponsor this course by helping subsidize the cost of the new website which has a really amazing filter you can filter out all of the stuff that we have and my videos are not intended to be watched by everybody it's nice to cross-pollinate the sports but if you're super into one thing we've got that one thing for you you just go to the filter the more things you select the better it gets you can't just select one thing and think of filter work this thing lasts multiple days super reliable and super durable I'm taking this on every big wall I've done a 700 foot rope swing 900 meter zip line and a two mile long high line with this thing you get 10% off of these if you go to rockytaki.com slash how not to enough with the plugs let's get on to this oh this is a gear intensive sport please go to extremegear.org if you're going to buy this stuff so another nice hack for practicing is if you're not used to placing gear right this is the debate on whether or not you have to be a good trad climber before you can start aid climbing well who is trad climbing with micro nuts and hooks right you have to learn that somewhere and if you're not comfortable with it you can top rope aid climb kind of sounds silly when you say it but I wish I did that my first hook was 2,800 feet up and it took me two hours to get on it off of the the solid bolt that was behind it don't let hooks be your first time up high if you're scared like I am these are the metolius easy daisies where you have to lift the black loop and if you don't know that you're going to hate life I'm going to do this with a couple of the bolts and then I'm going to switch to the all fifi because I want you to see both systems once I'm on the all fifi it's like cheating on this thing am I forgetting anything no oh can I have my ladders one set of ladders okay I would like to just make sure I articulate that I hate chest harnesses and I'm only using it so the audio doesn't scrunch up against my neck um it's just that when you clip gear to this it covers your other gear now obviously I don't have a lot of gear because this is just a couple bolts and I'm going to just be uh using the quick draws now I can go up down left right right in this case I only have up down so in order for me to get back here I have to go up if I'm too far down I can't now I do not want to vector pull myself and turn myself into a slack line if I pull this tight I won't be able to get off this guy so I try to keep that loose because that'll hold me once I loosen this up I can't take my weight off of this unless I stand up in my ladder so that's why the ladder has to be there but I don't want to get too far down to where I can't reach that so it's a it's an act a balancing act between the two now I'm going to leave this ladder here because I still have more work to do do that in order to loosen this this easy daisy you got to work your thumb to fully extend it out completely sucks you now I got to go back and get that and I can't reach that if that was on a quick draw and I knew this was going to be fairly spaced out I could put a quick draw on there potentially clipping my rope to it and then clip all my junk to the bottom of it which would be easier to remove later now why would I not want to clip to that is my belayers right here and this is a hard move my belayer and so there's no reason for to make them do that I don't need the extra safety we have a Jesus draw on the first bolt down at there at the anchor basically when I'm traversing or doing overhanging stuff I definitely want once I start putting in my first piece continuing to put all the pieces or clipping to all the pieces it almost would be better if I clipped none of these and then got straight to the vertical section because then I could just have them lower out and I don't need that much more said like I'm only going to fall another 10 15 20 feet and if the ground wasn't right here whatever I'm not going to hit anything it's a free rope swing anyways so you want to go up so you stand up in the ladder and you go up now I got to reach back there and get all that crap and this is where it's challenging so I'll take that off oh man good rope management making sure I have the next spot there pull that slightly tight but not so much I'm vectored I have to leave this ladder here so I can release my weight off of this guy you can see how it's kind of annoying to have to stand up to release your weight on this stuff this is why I like having my ladders independent of each other and independent of my personal anchor so I can keep moving this stuff around sometimes I like having two ladders at once so stand here release here stand here and then you can see that I have slack in this especially if I swing over so now I can just swing over and take it off now I'm going to because I'm so scared going to clip this and do good rope management and then once I clip this I have to clip all of them and I'll show you how not to do that in a minute can't reach it you go up look I can't get this every time I'm done I'm clipping I fully max this out so I never get hosed especially if I'm going to go do like a free move before clipping something because then it's easy before I get vectored pulled over there I'm going to want to stand up and release myself as much as possible see when I stand up on this ladder it doesn't do anything for me you got to directly below where you're trying to go because then it's super easy and then I'll show you the all fifi here in a minute but I can take this off and extend that out all the way and clip that to me for now now I have this shoulder length sling right here as in how not to I'm out of free beaners product placement no but I'll show you when I follow this how awful this is because when I come down it's going to come like this and it's going to be up here like this and it's going to basically be this far away from the last bolt and so it makes it almost impossible to clean this thing so I have to reverse aid it to fix your fear because you read too many books on extending your clipping point so you don't have rope drag ******* your rope drag that's not how you lead overhanging stuff you keep it super close all the way across and don't skip stuff even if it's like oh that's a micro nut and it won't hold me no you've got to clip every piece once you start clipping pieces or clip none of them inside of the uh a nipple pitch of the zodiac I didn't clean the first I didn't clip the first half of any of it until once my partner lowered himself out then he got all the pieces after that anyways ideally if you're trying to go fast you don't clip nothing in an overhanging section so I can't reach that so I got up down left or right those are my steering steering wheels to work with clip now you'll notice I got a new piece of gear on me we're going to show you the cheater stick I mean the el fifi this thing's amazing I'll show you why now if I pull this really hard here let me pull this really hard and show you what a vector pull is look I'm almost a slack line how on earth am I supposed to release this right and so many people they'll step they'll pull on this and lift this like you're pulling on the thing you're trying to relax right so there's really no way for me to fix that especially if I don't have this amazing push button here that the el fifi has because that allows me to take pressure off while I'm actually still on it whereas the easy daisies don't so now I can do that but you don't do this in the right order you're going to be hating this I think I'm hating this jeez I need this is Sylvester's el fifi I'm going to go buy some when I'm done with this anyways it slides nicer it's better in every way reach behind fully extend it out el fifi or not don't be a dick clip every piece god my blares got me a lot of slack holy cow I'm going to go up now which is pretty standard and straightforward and then I'm going to fix this rope and I'm going to take some ascenders and I'm going to follow it and show you what that's like because that also requires you not to vector pull yourself so throw that on the tripod and uh throw me on belay if you would I'm now going to show you how to ascend and I'm going off because I'll be sitting in one and moving it above the piece that I'm trying to get past now I don't want to be on one anything ever so I'm tied into the bottom of this rope so if I screw up or the cinders pop off then I am still attached to the rope this is where carabiners in the eye shine because if you're doing this kind of stuff it could pop off and that would suck wouldn't it anyways I only have one ater in my lower ascender because it adds no value to have one in the top ascender I'm only going to be sitting in that when I sit I want my arm to never be more than fully extended and then when I lift this up I lift that bottom foot up notice I can't get much distance here it's because I'm not standing up high enough so if I can get that right up against there I can throw that pretty high now I don't want my center too much higher than that because I'm going to be putting the other one right here and then I want to make sure that I get that carabiner in there and I'm going to transfer my weight to this now now this is where a second ater comes in handy because you're kind of playing some weird games with this now remember that cluster I gave myself earlier I'm not two vector pulled yet but the problem is I haven't put any of my weight directly in line yet so not quite sure how I'm going to be able to get my weight off of this by like without getting this over really really clusters the other person if somebody does this to you let me show you how to get out of it basically you have to re-aid because I'm not high enough so I'm going to re-aid it what I can do is put this in here that off leave the rocky right there instant replay now that I'm not going to go for a ride let me show you a cool trick you take this and you rock towards it but you have to get the weight off of it you can't be fully loading it now this if I was connected to this I'd be all the way over there and I don't think I'd be able to get that initial of the part of the teeth off but do this ladders on my bottom ascender I can stand up hey look I'm already at the next piece I'll get that off in a second now I have to reach back and unclip that I'm not high enough then I am closer to that bolt now I can reach back and I can clean it keeping it attached to the rope until I get there now I want to get off of all of this now if I stand up in that I can't take this off can I so I'm going to stand up in that and get back onto this personal anchor now it's time to move this guy but you can see it's very technical like as technical as the aid climbing is we'll extend the personal anchor right there right there this case I'm going to just go right up against my next spot so I'm done ready now if I talk I this a little I can treat it like a manky repel device so it doesn't swing me as hard if I twist it while I do that anyways I'm as high as I want that ascender to be so I'm just going to come up here and if I'm fortunate enough I can just reach back here and unclip all that so I'm going to take the bottom of cinder off in this case I'm going to extend this out a little man extend that out clip it to here clip it to there there just a little if I pull myself too hard then I'm putting too much pressure on here and I can't get off take it off take it off lower clip ladders on this one maybe I can stand up a little bit more yes I can what I'm going to do is unclip that and hopefully I can still reach one trick you can do is you don't always have to be super comfortable to get it so you can just swing into it and pull it off so you can see I can't really get this piece off unless I pull myself in which I will you don't have to always pass your ascenders past everything lift your bottom leg stand up lift your bottom leg stand up this doesn't need to take long once you get to a spot like this just swing into what you're trying to take it off of hold your bottom of the rope right here so you can slide that foot up when you get up here don't diddle doddle take your personal anchor off clip it on there and get yourself off of the rope system so that way you guys can start pulling the rope up and flaking it out and getting it ready for the next thing I'm going to show you how to not do this I've never done this before the leading the roof um and so it's bound to be a shit show and not to be romantic how's that going for you it's not the 5-4 edition those are your two options to go higher or lower oh maybe I should spider this shit oh maybe I know how to solve this oh my god you wouldn't I wouldn't go too much before lowering that yellow you want to go down before going up so lift your hand high then as you sit keep your hand high there you go what might help yes what technique do you call that big old dino there you go there you go it's not a micro nut because many times the issues are you pulling down on the thing you're trying to lift up now what are you trying to do next loosen this well standing on that's not going to help you you have to lift your body from below that yes you're you're close you haven't solved it yet pull myself over and lift at the same time no because you'd be tensioning the thing you're trying to loosen yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you got to keep going oh reset that in your hand you got a lot one more time there you go yeah yes yes yes yes yes yes yeah you're doing great babe there you go now you're below that enough to go up one hand to pull that one hand to hold yourself there you go like a climber well put your foot under your butt there you go you already discussed you might be high enough let's see how this goes for you yeah yeah something something like that yeah sort of wow you all right you got it all right there you go there you go you're in the hardest part while you're trying to make these adjustments with your feet pick your feet stand up if it doesn't work come back and reposition there we go oh yes where i remembered to be a climber and i can't use any of that footage because your ass is hanging out now and anything should feel easier than what you just did i know it does there you go now now you're one step closer right your blue thing is keeping you from getting over there because you can now stand on this up's not always the answer sometimes down is these are the metoleus easy daisies aren't they yeah i propose a name change totally difficult daisies what is this starfish okay it's not a mermaid i found it's a starfish figure four you are figure four in this aid what is this i have to black square your ass again jump and wiggle jump and wiggle yes oh my god you did it i'm so proud of you you got this yeah i was just trying to get the whole shebang out no stop shebanging just yes now go sit sit sit sit now your original strategy of going higher comes into play there's not even a way to fix it my ass isn't rescuable wow look at you yay yay i think we're 25 minutes into this episode wow isn't that way better when they're not so far apart truly it is all right so now you get to practice the real technique and not the hazing spacing you definitely want to lower yourself there you go now it's under your butt now your center of gravity is there stand up don't do a pull-up stand up okay just clip that to you clip a quick draw to it yeah just step okay yeah yes yes you yes you've got it yes do it yes there you go yes yes yes yes more as much as you can as much as you can there you go yeah yes oh that that look that was determination yay you are officially five pieces into 180 foot pitch i think this is more helpful for people than how to do it yeah watching someone make all the mistakes you're gonna make yeah this is like the reason you practice and if you watch something on youtube you're like oh it looks easy and then you go out in real life and you screw yourself yes and then yeah uh i struggle well enough yeah you did you did you actually i hazed you the whole time never give you any gimmies never got up there and helped you you did it good job baby you mostly just laughed at me me and my butt crack hanging out all right you want me to clean it yeah are you going to introduce yourself yeah so hi i'm sylvester i have a gear problem worse than how not to and i've only been climbing a year and a half now i'm going to try to aid my first roof maybe we should get your boulder pads for uh this aid climb you make it harder for me to follow but that's okay don't act like a climber dude just just clip your shit to it and dog hang it uh put on the other side of your climbing rope underneath yeah like this yeah because you're going to be coming towards towards me basically yeah fifi for the wind let's put some more pro let's have some more well hold on hold on if that piece blows because that is what would make you fall technically you would have more rope out in the system so you clip after you've passed a piece this made sense because you were climbing up to it okay you're not you're leading get it thanks you can clip the bottom of the quick draw so you're not competing for space okay because you're not obviously going to top step that nice cool now you want to release purple okay but you can hang on to the tail and push that button because you have an all fifi i'll push hang on to the tail of it you're gonna go for a ******* ride dude because you're gonna go for a ride i should have let you just push that i should have hazed you on that thanks ryan yeah i mean it works now you can clip it up to the beater right yeah oh that is nice oh that andrea's gonna be so jealous now that's a lot easier than what andrea had to deal with because you can hang on to the quick draw and then unclip it so now since i have this handy alfifi i think i want to draw over there and clip the wait i didn't when i didn't just well no clip you want to be directly in the piece the alfifi isn't necessarily like how you're quote unquote attached you want to be closed beater attached stand and pull oh yeah that's way easier just uh grab something nice this is how youtube should be showing you real life man lift up not out lift towards the roof nice take that off yep you are officially clipped this is gonna take a while yeah yeah yeah nice how do you sweat profusely before work nice that's so much work to get this far you got it just just do the jump method do it yes that's how you just get it done man that's the right way don't be a climber if you need to go up use the purse the purple thing or that i got it thanks dude now this part's easy yeah i'm used to this part no it's not oh you got it keep keep your head clear keep your head clear you got it keep your head clear keep your head clear keep your head clear that was the hardest move i've ever had to make in aid climbing so what what's the problem there i'm stuck in the beekeeper he used a carabiner on his belay loop and he clipped it so he could be like higher than the alfifi would allow him to be but then he pulled his red personal anchor too much and now he vector pulled between the carabiner and the red personal anchor which he can't reach high enough to release it because it's the metolius difficult daisy and ah and as soon as ryan starts talking it's been 10 minutes though at least 10 minutes 10 minutes is generous but that just shows like you don't want to too much of one thing before starting to undo the last thing the reason i'm showing you so much of andre and sylvester climbing this stuff because it's so important that you practice um he watched me do it he was here it wasn't even just like a youtube edit you know it's it's hard to do these unnatural motions and so you don't have to have a beautiful place like this you can you can just tie butterfly knots and string it up horizontally and try to traverse something and you can spread out the knots more and more skip knots until you can really pass certain sections uh playgrounds are pretty nice as well like swing sets as long to go from just girth hitch a sling every so so often but um you definitely want to practice this the hauling jugging we're gonna fix the rope and another session to this wall here and then run it over to this wall and then down so when you come up to here you have to lower out into that um and we're going to include all of this these practice shots in the big wall bible as just like little snippets just to show you like another way to practice but this is just emphasizing how important it is to practice this stuff and not just watch a bunch of these and think you're ready