Racking Gear

I've recently returned to the world of Trad, mainly to do sweet multipitch I can't otherwise do in Sport, and am working out a racking method for my new gear. Now I've been around the block with trad before and I've always just racked on my harness, and it's still the method I use now. So I'm just throwing out a general How do you rack? questionnaire so I can try new things when I'm out training. Specifically for multipitch.
Here's a list of my gear
BD C4 (purple to blue)
BD C3 (purple to yellow)
OP Link Cams: 2 of each size
metolius master cams (purple, blue, yellow)
2 sets of tricams (pink to purple)
BD nuts (1-13)

The BD's are all on the left side. The OP's and the Metolius are on the right side. 1 set of tricams on either side and the nuts are generally on the left. Thx in advance.

To be honest, I don't think there's one best way so much as there's one way that's best for you. I'd find a system that you like and so long as you always know where everything is, that's all that matters.

That being said, I usually rack my cams (for no particular reason) from largest to smallest back to front on my gear loops. Any items racked on a single biner (stoppers, loweballs, etc) have a gear loop to themselves and their associated alpine (extendable) draws. On a good day if I know the rack well, I can grab a cam blind. (which is a super useful thing to be able to do when you start getting scared)

I place mid sized cams on a sling over the shoulder .4-#3
Micro cams .3 and lower on the left side of my harness. Nuts on the right with a nut tool.
Big cams - #4 and up on the rear loops of my harness.
Draws on the rear loops.

That means generally speaking smallish stuff on the front, mid sized on the sling over the shoulder and big crap as far out of the way as it can go.

I have two sets of standard nuts and one set of micro nuts that I rack on the left front loop of my harness from large (back) to small (front) with my pink and black tricams at the very back of the gear loop.

Cams I have a set of C4's from purple to blue doubled on green, red, gold along with metolius power cams from 00-3 and an 8 that I rack on the right front gear loop largest to smallets back to front.

edit: my doubles on the c4s I keep on the same binner and the powercam 8 shares the same binner as my blue (3) c4

all draws on the rear two loops, cordolet on the haul loop.

I generally prefer to rack on my harness. With my current partners I do all the leading so handing off the rack, which would be more convenient on a sling, is not an issue. With the exception of my #4 C4 and a big hex if I think I'll need it, I rack all my pro on my front 2 gear loops as follows.

Left front:
BD C3 1 & 2
BD C4 .4-3
BD stoppers 2-13

Right front:
BD C3 0
Metolius Mastercams 1 & 2
BD C4 .5-3
Tricams .25-2
Micro Stoppers

As far as 'biners go, each cam gets its own biner, the tricams are all on one biner, the stoppers are split by size onto 2 biners, and the micros get their own biner. Obviously if the route dictates I will bring less gear but this is my basic double rack from micro gear to cupped hands/fists range. After than I put my draws on my back loops equally distributed on each side.

I usually rack on my harness. The only exceptions are when I go to some place like Devil's Tower where I have more gear than usual and then I use a over the head gear sling for racking the extra stuff and the pieces that I think I'll need right away OR if I'm in deep cracks or chimneys where I think racking on the harness will be inconvenient.

I place cams on my left side loop and nuts on the right front loop. Quickdraws and looped slings go in the back on the rear loops on both sides of the harness. This system works well for me either because I've been doing it for so long I'm accustomed to it or just because it's very organized and I can see each color-coded piece immediately. Size-wise I just look ahead and if the crack is wide big gear goes up from. If it's a thin crack, thin stuff goes to the front. I try and keep the system simple and uncomplicated by not taking too much stuff. Too many types of cams and nuts just slow down the time it takes me to get in a solid piece.

Thanks guys for the replies. I think I'm mainly going to stick with the tried and true method of racking off my harness. I've rediscovered how much I hate carrying a gear sling. Darn thing seems to always be in the way. Hey tytonic how do you like your black tricam? I'm looking at getting two but am not sure how I feel about the dyneema slings.

I love my black tricam. I always seem to find shallow horizontal seam or pocket that it protects perfectly. Originally, I was worried that the small size would make cleaning difficult, but I still have it. As far as the sling goes mine is actually nylon. It's not as stiff as the larger sizes but that is just because the sling is narrower. The only downsides are that the maximum rated strength (camming mode) was decreased from 7 to 5 kN and the retail is now $25 each.

suprasoup wrote:I think I'm mainly going to stick with the tried and true method of racking off my harness. I've rediscovered how much I hate carrying a gear sling. Darn thing seems to always be in the way.

I used to hate climbing with a gear sling--it was always getting in the way and such. To be honest, it kind of still does. But since I've switched to a sling that has gear loops, I don't notice it in the way even nearly as much as the non-looped sling. Maybe I've just gotten used to swinging the rack out of the way before making hard moves.

I'll admit, I like racking on my harness loops. If I'm doing some single-pitch trad cragging, I usually still do. But when going for some fairly long multipitch climbing, having everything on the sling really simplifies things when going to swap leads as long as both you and your partner are on the same page as far as organization goes.

I organize my rack as follows, from front to back, small to large:
1st loop: small-med nuts on one oval biner, med-large nuts on another. Micro-cams.
Second loop: camalots #0.3-#1 (doubles across this range)
Third loop: camalots #2, #3, (doubles of both if needed), hexes, pink-red-blue tricams
Fourth loop: extra locking carabiner, cordolette, any other large gear that I don't normally carry in the above ranges (like a #4 or larger cam, huge cowbells)

I rack alpine-tripled draws on my harness, opposite the gear sling, and I carry a few over the shoulder too. Nut tool, belay device, extra carabiner or two, misc. gear, water bottle, walk-off shoes, etc. are also on the harness as far to the back as I can rack them.

Everyone has their own system. Adaptability to other systems is pretty important; but I've found that this one is pretty versatile and easy to work with for most people I've climbed with.

if you are doing a 10 pitch route, and have to trade gear off of your harness to your partner's harness every pitch, you are going to end up eating an hour of daylight just f&%$ing around. start racking on a sling so you can hand it over immediately to your partner when he/she hits the belay.

nothing more frustrating than a partner who insists on wearing an aluminum skirt. when you are halfway up the finger crack pitch and have no small gear, you look down and say "where the $%&* are all of the aliens/rp's/tcu's or whatever. "oh, i must have forgotten to give them to you, they were on my rear gear loop".

if i had a dollar for every time i have climbed with that insists on the metal skirt, and tries to convince me that they will be able to hand over gear quickly, etc, and ends up shuffling around at the belays i would retire a rich man.

What Slim said.

Doug Shepherd wrote:Whenever I climb with someone who does, they spend more time making sure all the right pieces are racked on all the right gear loops on their sling that I would of been racked on my harness and gone LONG before they finished. Also, if you are really trying to make short work of a long climb, considering leading in blocks...you'll speed up considerably.

Good point about leading in blocks.

As far organization of gear on sling: that's why it's important to be both adaptable, and get your organization scheme in line with your partner before you ever leave the ground. To be realistic, neither system is superior to the other in ALL cases. In my experience thus far, I've found that a sling is more versatile, but it's not perfect. Neither is the "aluminum skirt" (lol.) It just depends.

Perhaps it's best to be familiar and efficient with both. Climb with enough people and at some point you'll have to work with both systems anyway.

Two or three things:

1. Doug, why would racking the loops on a gear sling take any longer than the same job for a harness? And most harnesses have only two big loops on each side, requiring a tighter, more precise system.

2. Wonder if anyone sees benefit in a product I've imagined: a removable hip-strap gear sling. Need to work out some details (have some thoughts already) but the concept is a detachable hip belt with three loops on each side.

3. Wonder if anyone has thoughts about a racking strategy for cams that recently occurred to me: So, everyone racks single cams on individual biners (sometimes saving loop space by racking duplicates on the biner of the "first" in that size, and then racks a bunch of quick draws or tripled runners on the other side. Almost every time you place a cam, you also extend with a draw, maybe leaving a redundant biner on the connection or spending the energy to collect and rack the extra.

First thought was: why not rack a bunch of smallish loops with one biner each, so after the clip, you aren't leaving a wasted biner or spending energy to pull it off? Second thought--a revelation!--was, why not rack the cams with the extender loop and free biner already in place on the cam? So every cam you place already has a runner pre-attached. Essentially one motion: pull your cam; place it; clip the rope to the draw or sling biner. No hanging on to grab a draw from the other side and clip it to your cam, that is just desperately wanting to protect you already!!

Does anyone do this? Thoughts?

yeah, the reason the sling-users are spending time putting the gear on the sling is because somebody is taking it off of their harness one piece at a time (or maybe they clipped all of the gear to the anchor rope etc, which still means that the new leader has to unclip it from wherever and then clip it to himself).

also, most long routes in the west are going to have a wide pitch or 2. i have a partner who 3 times in a row has gone into an OW with crap on the harness, had something come flying off the harness, and then said "wow, that's never happened before"!

as for leading in blocks, i agree if you are short fixing, but for most typical applications people are delusional if they think it is faster. no frickin' way. it's like they read something in rock and ice and take it for gospel.

drop the aluminum skirts boys, for the love of god!

if i am climbing a long route, the leader has the primary gear sling, and both climbers have a transient sling.
so, the first leader heads up with the primary sling.
the second follows and clips the gear (in increasing size order) to his transient sling.
when he gets to the belay, the first leader gives him the primary sling.
the new guy starts leading (with gear on his transient sling, and gear on the primary sling). this isn't a problem because the gear is in order on both slings, and he just has to look down on one side to find it.
when he gets to the belay, WHILE HE IS BELAYING, he transfers any remaining gear from his transient sling to the primary sling.
when his partner gets to the belay, he hands the primary sling over.
leapfrog ad nauseum.

i still disagree about typical leading in blocks. by the time you try to "flip" the rope (wish i had a dollar for each time a partner told me this was going to work smoothly), transfer gear, etc, it just eats up time.

another thing about racking on a sling, is you only have to look in one place for the gear. if i had another dollar for every time i belayed a "skirt samurai", and watched them grope around the right, then around the left, and then around the right side behind the back, and then switch hands on the hold and repeat the process with the other hand....

not sure what the comment about colorado is addressing. i've climbed at 1 or 2 other places....

Hey dudes,
Hip/waist gear sling...
Racking draws on cams...
Good ideas?

Doug--so you mean Alaska, South America, and Asia?

i don't rack draws on cams because it feels bulky. for most of the areas i climb at (following crack systems), i don't tend to need many draws/runners as i generally am mindful about putting gear in locations that will run pretty straight. if i am climbing at a "wandering" area (ie eldo, red rocks, gunks, etc) i will put 6 on one side of my harness and throw maybe 6 more over the shoulder.

i am dead against racking around the waist. it kills a crucial feature of being able to get your rack out of the way quickly. for example, if you are climbing an OW right side in, and then need to switch sides, you can just "yngwe malmsteen" the whole rack real quick.

(malmsteen is a guitar shredder famous for throwing his guitar around his neck between blistering moments of shredding)

if you use a sling with the gear loops (ie metolius), then the gear stays in place better when you fling it around. a friend of mine was doing a massive OW roof, and had a regular webbing sling. he was upside down above the lip, and every time he would fling the sling, the gear would slide back behind him. checkmate, need i say more. so, i know what you are saying, but the metolius works pretty well in that situation.

the primary and hot sling thing takes a pitch or 2 to dial in, but if you are disciplined about it, a belay transition will take 15 seconds or less. in my book, on a long route where a team will be at the limits to get it done, spending more than 30 seconds at a belay is dismal failure.

another rant! cordalettes and daisy chains. argghhh! talk about serious time wasting!

C'mon slim. You can't growl about rope-end switches and then trash cordalettes. Beyond equalizing pieces faster and easier than other systems, they hugely facilitate rope switches.

Also, your points about waist v. shoulder slings make sense.

On the cams, though, I put at least a short draw on almost everything anyway because it seems cleaner to pass without risking unsettling it.

no way shawn. the ONLY time i use a cordalette/webalette, is if i am leading all (or most) of the pitches. then i carry 2 of them. on a typical long route, if you use the rope for your anchor, all you have to do is undo a few clove hitches and go. with a cordallette, you untie from the powerpoint, unclip the cordalette from each piece, wrestle with untying the powerpoint knot, loop up the cordalette, tie it in another knot, clip it to your harness.

when you multiply this by each belay on a long route it is a total killer. not to mention if you are at a hanging belay and have to instantly launch into some climbing, hanging around and doing this totally blows. remember every minute you waste at a belay on 10 pitch or longer route at your limit is going to come back and bite you.

another problem with the cordalette is the pacifyer effect. people become absolutely reliant on them, and if they get to the end of a pitch, and the available gear isn't conducive to their 15' cordalette, they are like deer in headlights.

don't get me wrong, the cordallette has its place. but not if you are trying to do a long route as quick as possible.

+1 for gear sling. i like the modularity of the system and the space factor. between 10 to 12 cams, three biners worth of nuts, 14 draws, a couple loose biners, 4 lockers and a 240cm dyneema, i find there just isn't space on my harness or everything not to get needlessly piled up. draws go on front harness loops so they're never 'lost' and my anchor stuff goes on the rear loops. pro stays on the gear sling, which gets handed to the second for re-racking when the pitch is done, and i'll hand over any draws i have left afterwards.

also, i like my huge dyneema sling way better than cordalette. cord is thicker, heavier, and, for me, clumsier. my bigass sewn dyneema sling is light and gets nice and small. i see slim's point about the advantages of buidling a belay with the rope, but using a cord/sling seems more intuitive, especially for equalizing. pacifier effect i could see applying to people without much experience, but not all cord users necessarily.

leading in blocks. i understand the idea that it's more efficient for resting (climb one, belay one as opposed to climb two, belay two) and that one climber of a pair might be better suited for a given block of leads than the other, but is leading in blocks really fundamentally faster than swinging leads? i feel like in either situation you're still handing off a bunch of gear between climbers, and with leading in blocks there's the added disadvantage that the climber leading next can't be handed the gear sling and re-rack himself - the second must re-rack and hand the sling back, or pass off cleaned gear piece by piece.