musings of a trad noob

I've learned a lot from the discussion. I don't want to place anything that I am unwilling to fall on. I guess the bottom line is to not push my limits while leading on gear. Somebody mentioned psychological pro, but I don't think that will work for me. Climbing above a piece I am not confident in won't give me any warm fuzzies.

It's a heck of a lot better than climbing over nothing at all. Trad climbing is about accepting that your placements are not always (if ever) going to be perfect, and that sometimes, you really just need to NOT fall.

As others have mentioned, cams get far more use nowadays, particularly in hard/limit pushing climbs. As far as your rack goes, what you are going to emphasize is really going to depend on where you climb. Nuts do not place in parallel cracks, and for these your options are limited if you're only using passive pro. I've led some routes in the Red and I'll echo what others have said: you're going to want cams. I've had one piece pull and it was a nut at the Red that zippered due to upward pull because it was my first piece (luckily, I didn't fall and had more gear in by that point). I actually find the softer sandstone to be generally poorer for nut placements compared to the metamorphic rock (quartzite) I normally climb on at Devil's Lake, but cams are much more solid in sandstone.

Like was said earlier, more placements are made using cams. You would expect to hear about cam failures more often.

Sounds like the consensus is cams. That is cool with me, I'll take the advice, especially from those who have climbed on gear in the Red. I've been pretty close to buying a set a few times now. I have to liquidate a few other items of my own, and then I'll start getting all the neat shiny stuff.

Mark Thesing wrote: We may have to agree to disagree on this. When you're dealing with a stopper that is only a 1/4 inch thick and your fall shears about a 1/3 of that away then I wouldn't call that intact or a bad placement. The fall generated more force than the aluminum was able to support. I honestly wouldn't expect a well placed #4 stopper to hold much more than a 15 foot fall.

Yeah, I mean I can see how you would construe that as failure, but I've taken falls on tiny gear and had it hold. I mean if you think about what you're saying is that you really can't expect a #4 to hold, period. They break (or are rated to) at ~6kn. A tiny nut like that shouldn't be placed where it can rip. I know that's not always the case, and you take what you can get, etc. And fall distance doesn't really matter. If you were 80 ft up and took a 15 foot fall, that's much less force than if you were 25 ft up and took a 15 footer.

Another consideration is how experienced is your second. Passive pro tends to be harder to clean and can really slow things down, especially hexes, which I find can get wedged in place and stuck readily. If you take care to avoid cam placements that walk easily and use slings, they tend to be much easier and quicker to clean.

Very good point. Even for experienced climbers, placing lots of passive gear can slow down the second, and placing it at a difficult point for extraction (e.g: a tall leader reaching above their head to slot a nut and then expecting their shorter follower to somehow get it out) can be especially annoying. Teaching method #2 (pushing the nut wire through and clipping it with a carabiner) if method #1 (sharp upward pull) doesn't get it works wonders, though.

The most frequent cause of gear failure is poor Rock quality. That includes nuts, hexes and cams. The most secure placements are in the most solid Rock. It is very wise to climb well beneath your abilities when learning to place gear. The only bombproof placement is a well placed Hex. They resist pulls from many angles and do not walk. HOWEVER, hexes are fiddly and don't fit everywhere. On steeper, technical ground, cams rule. As previously mentioned, small cams must be well retracted, almost over-cammed.I think nuts are very secure, but you must prevent upward pulls. All this require lots of practice and a mentor to evaluate placements is invaluable.

I'll spray: I've had one cam pop on me, and it was a blindly placed black alien in a crumbly thin crack... I didn't really expect it to hold. A well-placed cam in good rock will not pop.

Mike, I'm not sure why you're holding the hex up as the most solid placement possible. They can be great, but are susceptible to the same upward-pull problems as nuts.

" the bottom line is to not push my limits while leading on gear. "

^^^ This is a great way to look at it, OP.

Hexes set so firmly, the can take a pull from any direction. More solid than anut.

Mike Pal17 wrote:Hexes set so firmly, the can take a pull from any direction. More solid than anut.

NO. Just... no. It depends entirely upon the placement. If you place a nut where the constriction is both downward and to the face of the rock, it will hold just like a hex will in the same kind of placement.

OK. Just speaking from 41 years of experience. I love nuts, hexes and cams. In 41 years I have never had a Hex placement fail. I call hexes bombproof (yes, of course if we'll placed), and don't call cams bombproof only because they can walk. Now, on lead, I probably place 50% nuts, 45% cams and 5% hexes. With experience, any placement can be solid. I rarely place hexes on lead because they are fiddly, I usually use hexes in my anchors. Cams rule on steep technical ground. Easiest to place.
Speaking about learning to lead. Go slow, climb tons of easy routes and learn to set reliable, secure gear. THEN, gradually progress in difficulty. I agree that using your limits is the way to progress, but only after a real internship, preferably under a competent mentor. FWIW.

Yeah, I like to think of KNOWING my limits on trad lead, and staying inside of that boundary. But within that bubble .... carefully test the waters of your next hardest level. Kinda like getting into a hot bath. Don't go too much in, before you're acclimated.

No epics! A good mantra.

For what it's worth, I've been climbing for 30 years, and cams were both expensive and hard to find when I started leading trad. I have had one cam and one nut pop on me, and both were due to my placement. There have been several times I place a piece on a barren section with the thought that "at least this will slow me down a bit before I hit my next solid piece." It's all part of the game.

I have a mixed set of cams, and they come up with me on lead, but I usually look for nut or tricam placements first. Part of this is because I used to lead with two or three cams, and saved them for when I couldn't find anything else. I persist in this style simply because I like it. Cams are great, but I like the style of stitching together a solid system of primarily passive and low-tech gear.

Yeah, I agree with that approach somewhat, and conserving your gear is an important lesson. You'll see a lot of new leaders (myself included, though I've gotten better) go up a pitch with the kitchen sink and place a whole bunch of stuff on the bottom because they grabbed the first placement they saw, then run out of gear when they really need it.

Try to make the first piece able to withstand pull from any direction if possible. Try to get two pieces between you and the ground as soon as you can. If you're climbing solid and confident you can place less pro. If the gear is thin, or your courage is, place more.

If you have beta for the route you're on (size of crack, length of pitch, and so on), you can better determine gear for it. I'd rather have the kitchen sink as a beginner then find myself having to make the choice of running it out or bailing.

Heck, I still often find myself hauling the kitchen sink up with me, all 20 lbs of rack, because of the varied nature of a new climb. I usually manage to leave the big stuff with my second so I can haul it up if I need it, but not have to deal with its added weight and space if I don't.

Scoping the climb and gauging what you will need is an important skill, but its always good to have a range of extras just in case.

Everyone loves to talk about passive gear and how bomber it is and how back in the seventies there were no cams. Thats great. Learn how to place passive gear because its a great skill to have.

Many nuts and cams have blown on me, mainly while aid climbing. Always because the placement sucked. A cam placed properly is bomber and faster to clean than a nut.

I think large hexes are silly and a waste of time.