Quickdraws, alpine draws ... the basics and where to start?

Thanks guys! I got my hands on some BD hotwires last night and practiced clipping them with and without gloves to mimic trad/sport and alpine clipping - seemed to work. I also tried loading multiple ropes, clove hitching, etc and again, they worked.

My preference is probably slightly toward the lighter CAMP photons, but the BD Hotwires were 30% off... So I bought 10.

Next up, I'll grab 4 10mm x 60 cm dyneema slings and 6 15cm dyneema dog bones and call it a day. I'll probably wind up buying/making a few more draws, as needed but I think I've got a not terrible roster draws to start.

Don't forget the alpine draws when you're sport climbing... It can still be more comfortable or safer to extend a bolt. I also like to have a couple different lengths of dog bones on my sport draws, to prevent the biner from being loaded over an edge for example.

Lofg0029 wrote:Thanks guys! I got my hands on some BD hotwires last night and practiced clipping them with and without gloves to mimic trad/sport and alpine clipping - seemed to work. I also tried loading multiple ropes, clove hitching, etc and again, they worked. My preference is probably slightly toward the lighter CAMP photons, but the BD Hotwires were 30% off... So I bought 10. Next up, I'll grab 4 10mm x 60 cm dyneema slings and 6 15cm dyneema dog bones and call it a day. I'll probably wind up buying/making a few more draws, as needed but I think I've got a not terrible roster draws to start.

Where 30% off hotwires?

You're going to need 20 biners to make 10 draws.

rocknice2 wrote:You're going to need 20 biners to make 10 draws.

You're correct. That's why I bought 10 Hotwire's and 10 Hoodwire's (I talked about those in my first post).

mountainhick wrote: Where 30% off hotwires?

From backcountry gear. 20% off + coupon code 10more

i use the omega pacific dirt bag dash pack its cheep its light and from a good company it gives you 6 quick draws and a handy light locker.... for alpine draws i use all wire gate saves weight when your doing wandering trad routes when your rack bigger also i get the strongest sling because i sometimes break them down for sliding exes on my trad anchors.... realize that if you ask 50 climbers your probably going to get 53 different answers....i feel that this is more a question of personal style

I started with a couple 5 draw packs of the CAMP Orbitz (cheaper to buy the packs than buy individual biners), ended up with 12 or 13. I bought slings to make alpines with them. Then I realized the bolt sides were getting chewed up a bit on sport so I bought more biners to keep the bolt side ones just for the sport draws. I ended up not enjoying switching them all around and bought even more biners. So I now have a set of sport draws and a set of trad draws.

The sport are mostly the CAMP Orbitz, 11 of those and two shoulder length slings with BD biners for when extension is nice.

I ended up with the CAMP Photon keylocks for trad. 5 shoulder length alpines, 2 shoulder-and-a-half, and 2 doubles. Then I think 4 shoulder length slings with one biner each. And I carry spare BD oval wiregates for various things like clipping bolts, building anchors, etc. So that's 13 slings for trad with effectively 2 biners for each.

Some might say that's too much, but I'd rather have a little more than I need than not have enough. I've been down to my last one once before and it didn't feel good. And I like to extend almost every piece at least a little to mitigate rope drag and walking/shifting.

I didn't buy the Photons because they were light (those keylocks weigh the same as the wiregate Orbitz), it's just what was available at a good price at the time. I was looking to get more bend wiregates, but the photon keylocks are very nice. I've seen people climb on old heavy gear and it didn't seem to hold them back at all. I think it's largely personal preference.

Ditto a couple of shoulder-length slings. My preference is to clip a biner on each end, clip the biners together, and throw it over my shoulder. Easy to unclip and ready for use. 10 single length draws and 2 doubles should do fine for just about anything. Now you need to pose the dyneema vs nylon question...

Jonny d wrote:Now you need to pose the dyneema vs nylon question...

Ha. I'll be rigging mine up with dyneema slings because I'm also planning to use these draws for ice climbing. Maybe once I've accumulated the remaining basic components of my trad rack, I'll consider seasonally optimizing my rack. I don't think I'll be climbing so hard in my 1st year outside that I'll be falling and spending much time hang dogging.

Pavel Burov wrote: 10 alpine draws is a way too much. It is a rare case one needs to place that many pieces of pro at single pitch.

lol what? yeah, for a 60 foot 5.7 sure, a piece every 10 feet is only 6 peices, but on a 150 foot climb close or beyond the onsight limit? 10 pieces is one every 15 foot... yikes. Def need more than 10 for most trad applications, especially multipitch.

As far as biners go, the favorite I've ever used is the helium... they are just so damn good, except the price...

Also, I dont use spectra in my runners since it doesnt tie a great friction hitch for backing up rappels/self rescue stuff. I have a couple but I only use it for toprope anchor sliding X's