Storing your gear (the gear wall)

I keep seeing pictures of walls where people hang up ALL their gear. Usually see it in threads where people are showing off their gear closet/rack like this...

instagram.com/p/BH2h-jAjPTe/

My question is don't y'all get tired of packing and repacking your gear every weekend? (or however often you get out)

I like having my gear all layed out because I don't take the same rack or gear on every trip.. Yes it's a pain to re pack it Sunday night.. but I have free time Sunday and Monday.. On Friday after when I'm packing up in a rush like a madman because I don't know how to plan in advance :/ I can easily see everything I want in front of me and be packed in minutes without having to ask if what I have packed from last weekend is what I want for this weekend... No need for the 2 #6's when I'm going to climb some finger crack in boulder canyon.

Plus that's thousands of dollars in gear.. might as well be able to look and appreciate it how pretty it is.. I view it as modern art in my guest room

I know light and heat is not good for ropes/slings (anything plastic)so I store my gear in a big enclosed storage cabinet in the dark in an area of the house that is temperature controlled.

Those who hang gear in an open garage are not putting a lot of thought into it.

I have a closet with those paste on 3M hooks. I sling my cams together, my draws together, and then hang those slings off the hooks as well as any other odds n' ends I might have. Doesn't take much time and makes it easy to select gear for whatever trip I'm leaving for. Plus I get to look at it.

I have a gearstash that's full. What I do is just hang the full rack up after an outing. Next trip out, maybe a couple of this or that goes on and a couple of that or this get pulled off and out the door I go. I just leave the toprope stuff in it's own backpack (equipment which is retired lead gear) tossed into the same spot in my basement.

gearstoragesystems.com/

Like this, only @ 300 lbs more crap on it.

I have 2 bins; Bin A with my standard rack, harness, rope, helmet, and another with stuff I use rarely (sport draws, static rope, hexes, etc.). 90% of the time I just grab Bin A and throw it in my car. Anything I don't need that day just stays in the car.

Dylan B wrote: Right. To the OP, if you're not packing and unpacking your gear after every trip, how are you taking inventory?

I rerack my gear onto a sling at the end of the day, before it goes back in the bin. I know my stuff well enough that I can tell if I'm missing something.

I wish that I had an awesome gear wall but the only room I have in my house for it would be in the basement and I am too worried about mold/ mildew growing on my soft goods like ropes and slings.

I rack everything at the end of the day and count it all out and then I have a few old slings that I organize my gear onto for easy finding. Then it all goes into a huge tote bin in my extra bedroom and my rope bags get stacked on top of it

but I long for the day that I can have a room totally covered in gear cuz it looks bad ass. As it stands that's pretty much what our breezeway but again I wouldn't want to store my soft goods in there because of UV and heat. We have ice axes, snowboards, snowshoes, crampons and other various foot traction items, and an extensive selection of camping gear.

We basically have a small house and a large gear shed.

I like to organize my gear as a nightly ritual. I have a closet with a bar for hanging clothes and I just hang stuff there. Draws go on one sling, main set of cams go on another sling, doubles go on a sling. Aid gear gets clipped to the sling of my fifi and lengths of webbing and cord for TRing get clustered on a bunch of lockers.

I'm one of those gear wall guys. Serves a couple purposes...

I live in an apartment and this allows me to keep all my stuff in minimal square footage on the wall in a back hallway/closet.

When I get home and put my stuff away I know instantly if anything is missing

Same goes for packing, I just stand in front of the pegboard and one by one everything I need goes in the bag

I have everything except my ropes inside a small three drawer dresser inside my closet that holds everything pretty well. However it does get confusing and it's hard to keep inventory of everything I have. Ropes get hung up on the back wall of the closet.

I long for the day that I have the money to afford a second bedroom so I can hang a pegboard up to stash all the gear that way.

shelf stuff

There's another one like this behind me with sleeping bags / packs. Industrial shelving!

Dylan B wrote: That's what I do too. Doesn't seem all that different from putting it up on a wall.

The difference is that there's no packing stuff up when I go back out. It's all ready to go already.

A lot of these pictures are curated specifically for instagram shots. People are proud of their gear. I have a small peg board I made from screws and a scrap plank of 1/2" plywood. I hang my pro on it, and pull off a small selection of what I need for each trip. I bin my ropes, harnesses, and other soft goods, and I have a pile of carabiners and miscellaneous hard goods. When I get out I may or may not drive, space is often tight, and I often only carry a portion of the rack bc I'm usually bringing the rope too. So hauling a bin, and/or sorting through one every trip is not ideal. This is working for me, but if I could climb more I might move to a more permanent go-bag situation. Plus, OCD satisfaction is real.

That being said, I'm pretty sure my buddy who usually brings most of the pro just leaves everything in a backpack.

Yeah, I don't really see the point. I keep all the trad pro in a small haul bag, aid gear in a big haul bag, ropes in a big waterproof north face duffel. I usually do an inventory every time I put gear back in the pig. When I go on a trip, i take the pig associated with that type of climbing, and rack up for each climb out of the pig.

Maybe if I had more space at home....

steverett wrote:I have 2 bins; Bin A with my standard rack, harness, rope, helmet, and another with stuff I use rarely (sport draws, static rope, hexes, etc.). 90% of the time I just grab Bin A and throw it in my car. Anything I don't need that day just stays in the car.

+1 .

The peg board systems are ridiculous, and are a guaranteed way to show up at the crag missing a critical item.

mpech wrote: +1 . The peg board systems are ridiculous, and are a guaranteed way to show up at the crag missing a critical item.

Dylan B. wrote: I presume you're not carrying your bin to the crag. At some point you're pulling it out and putting it in a pack, no?

Unless you have literally no approach you have plenty of opportunity to leave something behind with a bin or a peg board. At some point most of us reduce our gear to what we presume is necessary for the climbing ahead prior to arriving at the crag. The only way to eliminate that is to carry it all with you for every climb. If you do this you probably have a small rack or are a glutton for punishment. I think this is really just splitting hairs the whole bin vs. bag vs. peg board, whatever.

Dylan B. wrote: I presume you're not carrying your bin to the crag. At some point you're pulling it out and putting it in a pack, no?

Yes, but I'd notice if I was missing the weight of my rack or rope in my pack.

I guess my system works best if you're mostly doing one type of climbing, and your rack is tailored to that. I don't aid or sport climb, so usually the only gear decision is whether to leave the #4 in the car; everything else comes with me.

EDIT: I used to just keep it all in the pack full-time, but I have a tiny (<500 sq ft) apt, and the bin is more efficient for storage (it stacks w/my other bins for camping gear, etc.)

Peg board is where its at!!!! Especially if you sport climb, trad climb, ice climb, backcountry ski, mountain bike, climb at the gym etc.

I just grab what I need for that activity and roll out... Makes total sense to me...

Collonious wrote:Peg board is where its at!!!! Especially if you sport climb, trad climb, ice climb, backcountry ski, mountain bike, climb at the gym etc. I just grab what I need for that activity and roll out... Makes total sense to me...

This seems understandable. If you're only bringing a portion of your gear each time, and some of it is multi-purpose, the wall sounds like the way to go.

However, most of these instagram/pinterest pegboards I've seen consist of a single rack, with hooks for individual cams! That part seems silly to me.

Maybe it makes less sense for people who climb for a few days at a time. If you do, you can't rack for a single climb in your garage.

For me, I usually rack up for a weekend of climbing many routes. I bring a huge free rack (triples of most sizes), including large gear that I probably won't use, and take stuff off for each route.

It seems like the only thing a peg board would help with is for day trips or single-route weekends (like aid climbs). But then, usually I need to combine with a partner's rack to make a good aid rack, so then you have to re-rack at someone's house anyway...

Seems like an extra step to rack on to a peg board when you get home with little benefit.