Erik's bigwall tricks

• Underwear
  Be sure to find comfortable underwear and pants which match your harness. If the top of your pants and underwear cluster under your harness they will rub against the skin on your hip with every step you make with your jumars and for every pull on the haul-line you make. For me it works best with underwear and pants which I can pull up high enough that the edges are above the harness (yes!! this make me look like a nerd!)
• Cinnamon rolls
  Pastries are not only delicious but gives you an energy-boost in the morning.
• Finger-gloves
  To save your fingers wear gloves which cover your fingertips. Franklin climbing makes a pair of gloves which are tight and flexible enough that you can aid-climb, jumar, tie knots, etc... without removing them. REI sells them.
• Campbell's cans
  Campbell has some delicious cans. Be sure to buy the 'soup-like' cans which will give you some extra liquids.
• Jumars
  The nerves and muscles in your hands take a lot of beating from the jumaring which can cause your hands to go numb. Be sure to use beefy, sturdy jumars like CMI expedition ascenders.
• Adjustable Daisy The best buy of the climb was Metolious adjustable daisies. We all had one and we all loved it. When the climb is overhanging you just clip into the next piece and haul yourself up. No streneous moves trying to hook the fifi-hook to something, and no worries about the fifi-hook coming undone when you move around. Also useful for clipping in at belays. No fiddling with carabiners to estimate which loop in the daisy to use to hang comfortably from the belay.
• Shit-bags
  Just the thought of hauling your own ( and your partners' ) crap could make you bail from a bigwall. We used bags from a company called www.whennaturecalls.com. They are easy to aim into, spillproof and contains a mixture of polymers and enzymes which breaks down the waste immediately making them virtually smell-free. On one wall I even carried a used one in the top of the haulbag for two days.