We saw these two guys at the Short Wall in Indian Cove this Saturday. They were aiding Right V Crack. It's a 3-star .10c leaning thin crack.

This was the scene ALL DAY. They got up a maximum of 12 feet, before the belayer would say something to the effect of \"your gear sucks, come on down\". At this point they would down-aid, trade places, and the process would repeat.

These guys continuously harassed each other with advice. For instance, the belayer, standing where he is in this picture 20 ft. away told the climber to place the nut in the other direction (ie. curved side to the right instead of left). How he could see the correct orientation of the nut placement from that far is beside me.

Notice the two screamers on the bottom two pieces which are no more than 3 feet off the ground?

BTW, the climber in the pic outweighs the belayer by at least 100 lbs.

Luckily they never made it higher than 12 feet in 4 attempts. The big guy had 3 pieces (not consecutive) pull while he was standing on them. The little guy only pulled one piece in 12 feet.

Anyway, that was my entertainment this Saturday. Thought I'd share.

—Crotch

source http://www.gdargaud.net/Climbing/ClimbingPosts.html

That certainly is the oddest thing I have seen in a while! Check out the distance between the two!!

Rope in the sand, gear lying everywhere... But hey, that's the least of their worries.

I'm not much of a trad person, but the shoes he's wearing, and the gloves? Surely not

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Dave's thoughts

Beside the distance between belayer and the climber it's pretty much par for the course. Shoes and gloves are the way forward because Big Walls trash hands and shoes. And standing in aiders in climbing shoes for a whole day is not fun apparently.

I guess at least they're getting the training bit done at low level, but it does sound a bit dodgy to say the least. That said I'd imagine \"clean\" aid would be a bit tricker than the traditional \"whack and dangle\" approach.

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\"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you\". - Oom Nietzsche

that is so so so i think my first climb was 10 x better than that!

Blady ridiculous!!-If I had seen this, I would probably have gone up to them and told the guy and his buddy that they dont know what the hell they doing and that they should go home before someone gets hurt. How many times do you see people ( not neccesarily beginers ) climbing with the latest gear, but doing dodgy things on the rock. I for one would rather try reason with someone than possibly see a nasty accident.