Cam stuck at DL

I admit, I'm not very good at this whole climbing business. I got a cam (#4 Metolius Ultralight power cam) stuck on False alarm jam. I'm posting this here with the hope that someone better than me can extricate it and save me the guilt conscience of leaving stuff behind. If you do get it out, I'd love to know how you did it. I'll trade you a beer for the information. And ohh of course.. the cam is yours to keep.

Depending on the placement you can often over cam the lobes using a nut tool. This works better on the bigger versions of the Metolius as they have the hole in each lobe. But I have definitely had to do this after over camming a power cam of similar size.

varunr89 wrote:I admit, I'm not very good at this whole climbing business. I got a cam (#4 Metolius Ultralight power cam) stuck on False alarm jam.

If it were me, I'd blame my partner. Maybe not Kristin, though.

Good luck. Taking out gear can be an art form. Look and see your path of least resistance out of the crack (up, down, back, forward, etc). Then use your nut tool and work each lobe seperatly. Can be tricky but usually it is one to two lobes you are really stuck on. Work on those, If really bad use nut tool on lobes while pulling trigger with sling. Good luck. Put a cam above to hang on while you get the other out.

varunr89 wrote:I admit, I'm not very good at this whole climbing business. I got a cam (#4 Metolius Ultralight power cam) stuck on False alarm jam. I'm posting this here with the hope that someone better than me can extricate it and save me the guilt conscience of leaving stuff behind. If you do get it out, I'd love to know how you did it. I'll trade you a beer for the information. And ohh of course.. the cam is yours to keep.

I recall seeing one stuck, and badly placed, on '30 second crack' of all routes a few weeks ago. Now there is a really dumbass total loss of a good piece of gear ! I'm about even over the years for what I've lost and what I've found back in 'booty'.

I bet now you wish those stories of cams slipping out of DL quartzite were true. ;)

Doug Hemken wrote: If it were me, I'd blame my partner. Maybe not Kristin, though.

Doug, I wish I could blame my partner. Unfortunately, I placed the cam and I got it stuck while cleaning on rappel.

Ted Pinson wrote:I bet now you wish those stories of cams slipping out of DL quartzite were true. ;)

You bet. That was exactly what was running through my head. The crack flared inward so the cam walked it self deeper with any movement. Someone at the crag mentioned trying to spit on it to reduce the coefficient of friction but I think you can only bend the laws of physics so much. The cam had to get smaller to work itself out and that was simply not happening.

Oh, yeah. That's a really common way cams get stuck at the lake. Was it extended at all? I find from my (admittedly limited) experience that they tend to stay put more if you at least put a QuickDraw on them.

How far up the route was it? I might go take a look.

Joe Z. wrote:How far up the route was it? I might go take a look.

You can reach it from the first big ledge about 15-20ft off the ground.

occasionally a cam will truly get fixed. I seem to recall seeing a fixed TCU on After Six in Yosemite Valley. Doesn't happen often but it does occur