UKC

how do I use fifi hooks while aid climbing?

Is the idea that I move up the daisy chain loop by loop with the hook or what?

In reply to Anonymous: Yes - rather than go into a detailed description of how to do it get a a copy of How to Aid climb by John Long and John Middendorf - they write in a easy read/understand fashion other wise google yosemite aid climbing and there are plenty of pages to view

In reply to Anonymous:

if they are the same as we used to use you hang them on pegs or bolts for your etriers. Daisy chains are too weak, the flower heads fall off when you stand in them.

you need to read some books on the subject.

In reply to Anonymous:

They used to be used on etriers with a long cord, so you could retreive them. Modern techniques don't use this system.

Nowadays, you clove-hitch a fifi to your belay loop, so it's about 6" to 9" long according to taste.
When you stand in your top step, or the highest one you want, you hook the fifi into the krab attached to your gear.
Then you can sit and rest, or continue stretching to place your next piece. Then you're tensioning on the hook for stability, rather than holding on with one hand and flaming your arms.

In the old days, you would clip your rope and your second would hold you steady on tension, but poor communication would cause all sorts of problems, especially when you needed to stretch up.

It is possible to reach much higher than normal by tensioning up, (having your hook going down to your gear), - that takes practice and nerve, but saves time with less placements.

The hook is better than a krab, as it's so fast to hook in and fast to release when you are needing to move it from one piece to the next in less time than you've got and the one arm you're hanging on is screaming for a rest.

You can hook up your daisy loops, but with practice you will find you can move it from piece to piece without wasting time in between.

In reply to Anonymous:

I used two different sorts of fifi, big ones with handles on the top of my tape etriers. These were attached to my waist belt with thin line so the you could move off a peg onto free climbing without having to unclip a crab if you used one on the top of your etrier (this was probably the most common solution at the time). They were made of 3/8" dia steel tube and were comfy to hold on to.

The other use of a fifi hook was as described above on the waist belt - I had two, both stamped out of 3/16" sheet steel. One was close to the belt and the other was on a 6-8" sling for moving up higher above the peg.

The system worked quite well, avoided all the faffing about asking for a tight rope from the second when reaching high on the peg (stretch inevitable arose just when you didn't want it)... the only thing you had to watch out for was that the thin lines could get tangled.

Good artificial climbers, Tony Wilmot, for example, seemed to prefer just using a crab at the top of their etriers... probably more foolproof.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Yeah, the handled ones were called "griff fifis".

To the OP, yes, you really ought to get your artificial technique pretty slick using ordinary krabs before thinking about using fifi hooks.

In reply to Cosmic John:

He needs to get strong thigh, calf and stomach muscles too for serious aid climbing. Watched a film of someone doing it the other week and they were surprised how much it took out of them.

In reply to Anonymous: I'd stick with a lightweight crab on your etriers if I were you. There is less chance to drop the thing when you move it !

Andy

In reply to Andy Manthorpe:

Not really if you have lines attaching the etrier fifis to you, you can't drop them... just get tangled if you are not organised. The big advantage is on mixed free and artificial as you just climb off the peg and the etriers look after themselves until you need them again.

In reply to Anonymous: Hook them onto a passing climber

In reply to Anonymous:

I'll second the recommendation of the Long/Middendorf book. Remember that the book is not 100% current so after you've got the basics dialed, head over to supertopo.com & rockclimbing.com and check out the (extensive) postings from Dr Piton et al.

The fifi hooks are attached to your daisies which are larksfooted to your harness. The best fifi hooks are made by King-Bonatti (and only available in the states) which feature 2 holes which you can rig with cord to make the length adjustable as you step up.

In the interim, tape a krab open (remember this reduces it's strength) and see how it works.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

I think we are from the stone age Bruce. They do things differently now it seems. Psst, want some coin de boefs hardly used for 40 years?