worst gear ever

Jon Nelson wrote:The Forrest Titons, listed in that R&I article, were pretty bad. Still, as a young kid starting out, they looked neat to me and I bought a few. MSR, through the original ideas of Larry Penberthy, came out with a few quirky items, though not bad, just never caught on. For example, the "ice hawks". See them here: cascadedesigns.com/msr/time…

Boy, that "auto belay device" sure look interesting...

"MSR’s Auto Belay Device apparatus added shock absorption into a belay system. Should a climber fall, the apparatus paid-out a pre-loaded six-foot loop of slack, reducing force."

Anybody use one of these back in the day?? Sounds like a bit of a liability.

eli poss wrote: If you're falling in one of those harnesses, you probably aren't using the correct tool for the job. The alpine bod is designed for ski mountaineering, at which is excels because you can easily put the harness on without taking off your skis/crampons/snowshoes or whatever. And all the heavy winter clothing should provide more than enough padding should you fall. I can't really think of any piece of gear that I own that is really shitty. Honestly the worst piece of gear I've ever been handed was a trango flexcam. They may work great for splitters at the creek but once the crack starts getting irregular or funky, which is tends to do around here, they're shitty to use.

Eli, last time I used that BOD harness was about 20 years ago, ya know, back when you were still 'Daddy's little Squirt' ;)
Harnesses have come a long way since then.

Danny P wrote: Boy, that "auto belay device" sure look interesting... "MSR’s Auto Belay Device apparatus added shock absorption into a belay system. Should a climber fall, the apparatus paid-out a pre-loaded six-foot loop of slack, reducing force." Anybody use one of these back in the day?? Sounds like a bit of a liability.

http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/Misc/AnchorBrakePages/AnchorBrake0877.html

Garrett R. wrote:The Edelrid adjustable belay station? Total unitasker, can't be any easier than than tying off a sling...

Any personal belay/anchor product. You've got your rope and you've got slings.

eli poss wrote: The alpine bod is designed for ski mountaineering, at which is excels because you can easily put the harness on without taking off your skis/crampons/snowshoes or whatever.

It appears that you are the first person to mention the alpine bod, TBlom mentioned the Bod harness, which hasn't been around since you were a baby, but was a different harness than the Alpine Bod.

i personally don't have an issue with tricams. but the metolius cams imo are junk the stem is way to flexible, also anything climb x is a accident waiting to happen

The Camp Matik.. I thought it would be a great tool for lighter belayers. Nope.

Mine's been at the R&S Annex for over a year... No bites!

Forrest Plastic Foxhead

Will get you to the Foxhead page on Vertical Archaeology....not sure what was wrong with the link further up thread but it was coming up 404.

Also here's a link to the first version of the Pin Bin
The earliest version was even more prone to pins un-clipping unexpectedly or to snagging on clothing. All the comments about the Pin Bins have to be tempered with the understanding that they were developed to deal with the massive heavy pin racks of the day. These things may not have been perfect but they did carry large bong pitons fairly well.

Oops - fixed the link for the foxheads,

I think the pinbin was a cool idea and it almost worked. It's sort of unfair to criticize Forrest for his designs - back then there wasn't enough of a market to do the extensive testing and refinement that big companies can do nowadays. The fact that Forrest was constantly bring new designs to market was pretty amazing and his products have been influential.

Anything that fails resulting in self or partner injury. Link cams and Lowe-balls. Scientific? Nope. True gear failure? Probably not.

kennoyce wrote: It appears that you are the first person to mention the alpine bod, TBlom mentioned the Bod harness, which hasn't been around since you were a baby, but was a different harness than the Alpine Bod.

My apologies, I assumed they were one and the same.

Rob T wrote:Tricams…all of them.

-1 I Love tricams. I'll also be the token defender of Link Cams (but not as a primary set... Nice doubles).

I climbed with a set of SMC cam chocks once. They were horrendous. All the funkiness of a tricam without actually working anywhere. Omega Pacific trinuts are horrendous. They don't fit anything. I have a Cassin Logic belay device I hate more than a little. Any nut tool that doesn't have a nice flat spot for pushing/pounding with your hand (looking at you BD).

Omega Doval wiregate biners, at least when used to rack cams or make alpine draws. It's hard to tell if they've rotated 180 when you go to make the clip, due to their symmetrical appearance.

One of my partners racked on nothing but Dovals. He detested my "girlie biners" (Neutrinos). Eventually we both ended up bringing our gear to the crag and racking up separately for each climb.

Branin wrote:... Any nut tool that doesn't have a nice flat spot for pushing/pounding with your hand (looking at you BD).

Add a small piece of rubber fuel line (make a longitudinal split to get it on) held on with a bit of electrical tape. Works like a charm, soft for the hand, easy to replace if you bash it all up, and still allows you to use the bottle opening function if done correctly (hook the other side under the cap).

Ted Pinson wrote:I hate you all...Tricams 4 life!! But, seriously...I wouldn't trust anything more than a tricam in horizontal cracks. My vote for worst gear is the turantulace. Just a POS beginner shoe that REI sells to beginners as a first shoe even though there are scores of better shoes in the same price range.

+1

Adjustable fifi.. any kind!

Warthogs. Ice pitons made by Salewa. They were no good on hard New England water ice.

Some of the odd belay devises, BD Neutrinos, Dragon Cams, super pointy shoes.
But Tricams?!?!?! those things are awesome!

grigri and the squid