Climbing and Part 1 of Russian Aiders

Today was spent climbing...nothing more...nothing less. With a lot on my mind, I decided to take some time off to clear it. I climbed around Boucher Rocks only to find out about 4 hours into climbing that the area I was in had been closed off and that I was in fact trespassing. Since I didn't feel like driving anywhere else, I decided to practice my aid climbing and my newly purchased Russian Aiders. If you don't climb, the rest of this paragraph (and maybe this post) is going to be really boring and confusing. Now for those of you trad climbers out there that have ever thought about climbing aid or for you hard core aiders as well, Russian aiders are pieces of webbing with steel rings sewn into them every foot or so that allow you to hook into them with stirrups that go around your calves and the bottoms of your feet. Before I had used them, I had been reading about big wall and aid climbers that swore by them. The information I could write on them would take you hours to read. If you're truly interested in what other people think of them, go to www.rockclimbing.com or www.supertopo.com and search for Russian Aiders. The skinny of it all is when you're using normal aiders (Etriers) with your center of gravity being so high, you have nothing to hold you to the face of the wall your climbing but your arms which makes it awkward trying to hook into a piece of protection once you get closer to the top of your aiders...especially if you have to stand in the last couple steps. With Russian Aiders, because of the hook of the stirrups being right below your knee, your foot acts as a stop, keeping you from falling backwards while you're hooked into the rings at your knees. The results? Less fatigue in your arms, more stability, and ease of reaching the piece of protection you placed. What I found was great about them was the rings proved useful to clip other things (carabiners, other protection, etc) into them while you're working your way up the aiders. The point of all of this is, I am freaking sold on Russian Aiders and I'm glad I spent the $80+ now that I've tried them. Anyways, I'll make a better, more detailed post on their use and great benefits when I can get someone to take pictures of me using them.

Today was my first time climbing aid and I learned a lot of things the hard way. For one, you will be hating life if you don't wear kneepads while you climb aid. My knees are still shredded and bloody hours after climbing which is another great thing about Russian Aiders compared to Etriers because they keep your knees off the rock. Gloves (which I just found) are nice too because they keep your hands from developing blisters and getting scraped up. You constantly hear about climbers taking hours to complete one aid pitch and I can see why. Deceivingly, it takes a lot of time to place a piece of protection, test it to see if it will hold your weight, climb up your aiders, clip into that piece, place the next piece, clip your second set of aiders into that, test that piece of pro, transfer your weight over to those aiders, and repeat the process over and over till you get to the end of your pitch. Man I can't wait to get out west...