Nate, thanks for clarifying your earlier report.
Sounds like some shiz-nit did make it onto Hesitation (!) - which I personally don't think is very cool. That route is a committing lead and the possibility of breaking the meager finger holds or the even meager-er protection opportunities seems to me to be quite thoughtless. [On par with dry-tooling established free climbs I would say]. What do the aiders (all 3 of you!!!) say to that?
S
Am I one of the three? What I say to that is if the hammer was not used it is clean aid. A hand placed piton is no different from any other passive protection. The fact that you could hit it with a hammer does not change this. You can hit a nut with a hammer to make it set better too. It is not the gear that determines if it is clean or not, it is how you use it. A hand placed tied off piton acts much like a tricam when placed in a horizontal crack.
Truly, I don't know what a "hand-placed pin" means to all people. Is it "hand placed" if your hand is on the end of a hammer? Why would you need to place a pin on a route that is lead with nuts - why not "hand place" a nut and high-step?
Hand-placed means no hammer was used. You slide a pin into a horizontal crack and it acts like a try cam. You weight the end of it and it pivots on the bottom lip of the crack while the end presses against the roof of the crack. This is clean and will hold for aid as long as you only pull down. Don’t pull out, because there is nothing holding it in the crack except for the leverage. I could bounce up and down on such a pin, and then remove it with my pinky finger once I had taken my wait off it.
Also, aid climbers normally have to make more placements than free climbers, which is part of the reason they climb so slow. I hope you found this post informative.
Nate, I might be interested in getting out on the rock with you next year. I did not climb this year, but I might be able to get out next year.
Teth