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Trad Rack
Nick Drake wrote: Yep, the term "splitter" was not coined in Indian Creek (no slight on those splitters and certainly, many many routes there need deep multiples). |
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Jason Todd wrote: 1? How are you going to belay after you burn your only locker to clove into the anchor? I tend to think 3 is a good number: clove, guide to anchor, guide to rope. Shouldn't need more at any one time in most situations. |
Jason Todd wrote: LIKE! Stay away from "single-use" items. Two-foot slings are mighty versatile. Tying in at rap stations (PAS), climbing the rope (long prussik), rap backup (short prussik), quickdraws ... all can be done handily with two-foot slings. Once you discover the simplicity of tying in with the rope, you'll likely leave the cordelette at home as well. Earlier, the OP asked about low-weight gear. What makes the biggest difference (at the lowest additional cost) is low-weight biners. You'll carry heaps of those on a trad rack. And, of course, staying away from buying hexes ... or tricams. Yes, these CAN be useful at some specific crags (such as tricams in the Gunks), but they are not as general as ordinary nuts and cams that seem to work basically anywhere (except Indian Creek, where even nuts are optional). Some are "promoting" DMM Wallnuts or offset nuts in this thread and other "rack threads". I'll throw in some negative aspects: They are much harder to clean compared to the ordinary BD-style nuts. Following someone skillful at nut placements playing with BD nuts is a delight. Once Wallnuts or offets show up, it is just a pain in the batootie. And, please, NEVER, EVER consider the Metolius curved nuts. Probably the worst invention in passive gear I'm aware of. |
Z Winters wrote: Clove into a regular biner. I should have been a bit more clear. 1 or two lockers, in addition to your HMS style locker that accompanies your belay device, is plenty. Those lockers can be useful for "critical" placements on route, particularly on the rope end of long slings. In that case your anchor may have ZERO lockers in it, other than the one attached to your belay device. An organized anchor does not require lockers to be a safe anchor, especially in a multi-pitch climb where the anchor is always attended. |
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I've been building out my new rack with mostly new gear off of backcountry.com You can find cams that everyone loves(Camalot C4s and X4s) for 25% off which puts them right around 50$/cam. I looked at a lot of used gear and unless you get stuff that is a generation old or really beat up I didn't have luck finding anything under 40$/cam. I'm still very new to trad but for the areas I climb at (Chattanooga area and Sand Rock AL) I bought: .5-3" BD set Set of stoppers DMM Torque set Dyneema Tricam Set and a few runners - assorted lengths. I started placing these in between bolts or skipping bolts on climbs I was comfortable on then did a couple really easy ground up trad routes. I also wanted to get a little of the differnt types of pro so I could use it myself, particularly the Torque nuts and Tricams. I've since bough X4s for the lower ranges .2, .3, .4 and and 4" since I plan on getting on some bigger climbs in NC soon. I'd look at something like this to get you going: https://www.backcountry.com/black-diamond-trad-rack-starter-package?skid=BLD00GP-ONECOL-ONESIZ&ti=UExQIENhdDpQcm90ZWN0aW9uOjE6MTA6YmNzQ2F0ODExMDAwNzA=# |
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climbing friend, do not forget the massive nuts or ovaries and nerves of steel you would be needing to lead the sandbagged and perhaps runout old school gear climb. |
Patrik wrote: why? |
Patrik wrote: Following someone skillful at nut placements with wallnuts and offsets you'll be able to clean 95% of them without a nut tool just as easily. The problem is people yanking on them hard as hell, with the divots in the face to get around granite crystals they simply don't need a massive tug to be secure. The first time I placed a DMM nut my partner had to hammer on it for ages to get it out. I learned fast to not yard on them. The downside to a flat face like BD is that on rock with larger crystals you can have more minimal surface contact and frequently this makes the placement less secure (ie yard on it). So the answer really is that it depends on the rock type you're climbing. I agree wholeheartedly on the metolius curved nut comment. I don't care how you set them, those things will just fuse into a crack magically from a foot away. |
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The above comments about needing triples in cam sizes is appropriate for some places. But the theme of the thread is beginner trad rack, not what rack to you need to climb anything. I'm betting you can find lots of routes that will eat up 4 or more of a single cam size, but guess what. You either don't climb those routes with your first bit of gear or you climb with a friend that has the gear to cover your gaps. Don't make someone feel like they have to have a giant rack to start trad climbing. A set of cams and a set of nuts will get you up lots of easy-moderate routes that have bolted anchors. You just have to get the gear details from the guide book or MP. Also, I suck at trad climbing and sew most things up. Learning how to stretch the rack when possible is a skill everyone needs. If you're in a low angle spot and can slot in a nut so that you can save a cam for later when the route is steep and you need to slot in some gear quickly then do it. Think ahead and find creative ways to use gear. Lots of times there are several options. Sometimes there aren't a lot of options. |
Ryan Hamilton wrote: Spot on. There really is no need for 3 or more of a single size unless you regularly climb at Indian Creek with people who don't own any gear. |
Kirsten Kimbler wrote: They get stuck....often and badly. DMM Offsets or BD Stoppers are the way to go. |
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Kirsten Kimbler wrote: My statement of easier to clean is from past experience of cleaning gear on a thousand pitches or so and picking 100+ booty nuts over the years (yes, I guess it is a little bit of an engineering obsession of mine). As to why some style of nuts are harder to clean than others, I only have a somewhat qualified guess. I have no "scientific proof" for this, but I get the feeling that nuts with lots of surface area contact are the easiest to remove (in addition to the advantages of being less likely to be "lifted" out by rope drag and less likely to break the rock at a fall). A BD-style nut will generally have three horizontal "lines" of contact with the rock (unless crystals interfere). Two "lines" are on the concave side and one on the convex side. Unless fallen on, these nuts usually only get badly stuck when they are hung up on crystals so one or two of these "lines" are replaced by single-point of contact. In my experience, climbers who have been at it for a bunch of years are much better in avoiding crystals, so cleaning nuts of beginners is a lot harder. Look at the shape of a Metolius curved nut and you will find that most likely you only get three single points (not "lines") of contact. Most people I have ever climbed with yank lightly (or not-so-lightly in case of beginner climbers) on their nuts to "set" them and avoid them being lifted out of their placements. For the same "yanking power", a nut with single points of contacts is "set" a lot harder than one with good (= lots of) surface area contact. Due to the different designs of the "grooves" on various sizes of DMM Wallnuts, it can either have six points of contact or one complete "line" and four points of contact. So the total surface contact is somewhere in between a BD nut and a Metolius Curved nut. This fits my experience in the difficulty in removing them being somewhere in between BD and Metolius as well. An offset nut is much more random in what the surface contact is, but from what I have seen, it is somewhere in between a Wallnut and Metolius nut in difficulty of removal. All of the above is true (at least in my mind) as long as crystals do not interfere. There is one fundamental difference between BD nuts and the group of Wallnut/offset/Metolius. The last three have "grooves" on their sides, so when setting these nuts you will try to place them such that any crystals will end up in these grooves. I get the feeling that most users with these nuts actually seek out crystals for this purpose. Users of BD nuts try really hard to avoid crystals in the first place and are looking for smoother sections of rock. Nuts touching crystals are generally harder to clean, so that could be another reason why Wallnuts/offsets/Metolius are harder to clean. In short, easiness of removal is: 1) BD, Wild Country and the likes (the "standard" nut on most climbers rack) 2) The old fashioned straight-sided nut (from the 70s?) 3) DMM Wallnut 4) DMM aluminum offest 5) Metolius curved nut |
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When you go out to climb with an experienced leader, and for crying out loud please go out at first with an experienced leader, you can get a feeling of what gear you feel best about placing, trusting, and falling on. I'm a huge fan of passive pro over mechanical. Big hunks if bombproof metal. I've heard the chatter about hating hexes and tricams but I love them. Don't fail to learn to place gear of all kinds. Hopefully by the time you are ready to throw down your hard earned female deer you will have a decent idea what pieces you feel best about and can build your rack accordingly. Cheers |
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Love my ultralight metolius curved nuts. I don't really feel like I need to set them with any force, but I can see how a new leader or someone freaking out could get one stuck. That said, the price on them is insane. I was lucky to get mine for basically nothing and would never pay that much for a set of nuts. |
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Hexes are okay but cams are better. I also agree about buying new cams is a good idea. If you end up never using them then post them for sale on here and they will sell quick. Don't get offset nuts. Don 't get tricams, I am glad they haven't been listed a bunch here. |
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You might also want to consider what is being used in your area. Different setups are better in different areas. Pretty sure there is an article on climbing.com about how some nuts and cams differ for a certain area. I live in the black Hills and have heard from different people and the said article that certain nuts work better here. |
grog m aka Greg McKee wrote: Why the aversion to offset nuts? I think what you want just depends on the rock type. I have the range of alloy and brass offsets as well as a full set of wallnuts. For the granite in the PNW I find myself placing the offsets at least twice as often as the wallnuts when I bring both sets. Same case at Red Rocks. In tieton (andesite columns) I find that I place the wallnuts much more frequently. Same on many alpine routes that aren't granite here in WA. |
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i stopped carrying regular nuts and only carry offsets and cams on my usual go-to rack around here |
