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Anyone with suggestions on routes that would be good for learning aid placements? hooks, cam hooks, clean stuff. or suggestions for a place that would be good for learning to place pins? something accepted by the community as an acceptable place to hammer?

additionally, any thoughts about the ethics/law enforcement involved in practicing pin placements in public parks where climbing would not otherwise occur (read choss/no potential etc. but not because of laws banning climbing)?

I was told of a place in lexington called the pallisades, but i've asked around for specifics and have found none. anyone know anything about it? I live in louisville, so local suggestions would be the best. i'd hate to hammer in the Red, but if there are aid lines already there, or rock that wouldn't be used for other purposes....

Thanks in advance.

You could clean aid just about anything you wanted....

As far as hammering in the Red, go hammer out all those thin finger cracks and make em a little easier...

absolutsugarsmurf,

I was thinking about aid climbing a little while ago. Need someone to belay??

absolutsugarsmurf wrote:I was told of a place in lexington called the pallisades, but i've asked around for specifics and have found none. anyone know anything about it?

There is no such place in Lexington. Maybe they meant the Pallisades of the Kentucky River. The Pallisades are limestone cliffs at various points along the river. Most if it is privately owned with a few sections owned by The Nature Conservancy, LFUCG Parks Dept, etc. While there have been reports of climbing both rock and ice along the Kentucky, its probabbly not the best place to learn to hammer.

Pallisades are pretty I am supprised there isn't a known climbing area there. potental exists and i'm sure somebody had been out there.

im not sure if we are talking about the same area, but I live in jessamine county, west of lexington and there are limestone cliffs on the banks of the KY river that we call the pallisades. They are really chossy.

There is a very straight foward clean aid line at Funk Rock City (C1)). Also the roof above Where Lizards Dare at Fortress goes clean aid (C2). Right on Solid and Far Out at Sky Bridge Ridge is solid A2 (bring lost arrows). As for finding a place to hammer pins anything you place in the red at climbing areas (away from established routes) should be okay as long as you place them very close to the ground. Three feet or less. THis will keep the damage below holds or cracks that might be used in the future. Please, think before you do this becasue once you start swinging the hammer there is no way to undo the damage you are doing.

I've learned a ton about trad placements by doing a little clean aid, so I'd say go for it!

But I do want to ask, do you really need to learn 'hammer aid'? It seems that mashies/heads are needed for some big walls, but I suspect that they don't work well in sandstone (as opposed to granite). Are there some non-clean routes that you specifically want to do?

You can aid alot of the trad routes in the Red, find one that looks interesting and have at it, cleanly though, if you must practice using the hammer build a doghouse for someone special. I'm pretty sure the intro aid lines in North Carolina, Zion, Yosemite are all going clean now( read hammerless) so the techniques you need to learn like aider management can all be done without harming any lines. In Louiville I remember a bolt line off 64 near Grinstead I use to solo aid some back in 70s it is on the right heading towards downtown and of course is Limestone.

The cliffs near Grinstead are now posted. There is a nursing home on top and they will call the police if they even suspect any activity there. I was there shortly after they opened a few years back and the police came. Fortunately, I knew the officer and got away with a warning. He said that they were having to really crack down on that area because of the new ownership. Haven't seen anyone climbing there in a couple of years. Last I heard, the anchors had been cut and the bolts are gone as well.

I was climing at Sky Bridge Ridge and there were a couple of guys practicing "big wall" stuff. They spent the entire day on this one section setting up a portaledge, dismantling it, moving up a little, setting it up again. They cooked their lunch on it. Great idea to learn the fine tuning just 20 ft off the ground as opposed to 1,000'.