How often do you carry triple cams?

Tradiban wrote:

Lol. Cop-out because you know I got you. Enjoy!

So the standard practice of almost always using a combination of cams and nuts rather than exclusively using one or the other is a cop out? Why don't you go tell tommy caldwell, scott cosgrove, Honnold, etc. that they're all just using a cop out because they don't exclusively use cams or nuts? I guess that invalidates all their sends, oh mighty lord tradiban.

i bring trips in .5 and .75 camalot sizes pretty frequently. it seems like most routes are usually hungry for those sizes.

Jeffrey Constine wrote:

12 #1 cams plus many others.

What route is that? That's a good size for me... 

eli poss wrote:

So the standard practice of almost always using a combination of cams and nuts rather than exclusively using one or the other is a cop out? Why don't you go tell tommy caldwell, scott cosgrove, Honnold, etc. that they're all just using a cop out because they don't exclusively use cams or nuts? I guess that invalidates all their sends, oh mighty lord tradiban.

If you are trolling me by playing dumb, well played.

The question is, What's a safer bet for a noob trad leader, nuts or cams, aka, what is more simple to place with a better likelyhood of a solid placement. The game is would you hand a noob a set of nuts or cams NOT BOTH. The obvious answer proves my point.

WHAT DO YOU DO?!

Tradiban wrote:

If you are trolling me by playing dumb, well played.

The question is, What's a safer bet for a noob trad leader, nuts or cams, aka, what is more simple to place with a better likelyhood of a solid placement. The game is would you hand a noob a set of nuts or cams NOT BOTH. The obvious answer proves my point.

WHAT DO YOU DO?!

Ignoring the kinda silly premise that you have 2 sets of nuts and 2 sets of cams but can't just take one set of each...

As a noob trad leader, I have more faith in my nut placements than my cam placements. Feel free to tell me why I'm dumb but at this stage of tradding I feel better 10' above a nut than 5' above a cam. 

Tradiban wrote:

If you are trolling me by playing dumb, well played.

The question is, What's a safer bet for a noob trad leader, nuts or cams, aka, what is more simple to place with a better likelyhood of a solid placement. The game is would you hand a noob a set of nuts or cams NOT BOTH. The obvious answer proves my point.

WHAT DO YOU DO?!

I'd hand them a set of nuts. I'd bet that most people who have been trad climbing for decades upon decades would rather hand a noob a set of nuts than a set of cams. Any of y'all old timers wanna weigh in on this? Rich? Tut?

Jared Chrysostom wrote:

Ignoring the kinda silly premise that you have 2 sets of nuts and 2 sets of cams but can't just take one set of each...

As a noob trad leader, I have more faith in my nut placements than my cam placements. Feel free to tell me why I'm dumb but at this stage of tradding I feel better 10' above a nut than 5' above a cam. 

It is a stupid premise. For the simple reason that nuts and cams, in general, don't overlap that much. So a route with a bunch of awesome small constricting nut placements would be better with nuts. A route with a bunch of larger parallel crack placements would be useless with nuts. But if you give me the choice of carrying a .5 BD cam vs. a size 11 or 12 BD nut, I'll take the cam all day long. 

Thinking over this question again and answering the op directly, I have a set of metolius 00-10, mastercams 1-6 + sm supercam, and then what I would classify as my triples:
.4 bd c4
1.5 friend

black metolius

Señor Arroz wrote:

It is a stupid premise. For the simple reason that nuts and cams, in general, don't overlap that much. So a route with a bunch of awesome small constricting nut placements would be better with nuts. A route with a bunch of larger parallel crack placements would be useless with nuts. But if you give me the choice of carrying a .5 BD cam vs. a size 11 or 12 BD nut, I'll take the cam all day long. 

So you don't want my WC Rocks in 11-14? I still haven't figured out what to do with those. 

Jared Chrysostom wrote:

So you don't want my WC Rocks in 11-14? I still haven't figured out what to do with those. 

You can ship me those. I hear they make great boat anchors. 

Jared Chrysostom wrote:

Ignoring the kinda silly premise that you have 2 sets of nuts and 2 sets of cams but can't just take one set of each...

As a noob trad leader, I have more faith in my nut placements than my cam placements. Feel free to tell me why I'm dumb but at this stage of tradding I feel better 10' above a nut than 5' above a cam. 

No problem.

A well placed nut will have roughly the same safety as a well placed cam, you should feel safe above either, the difference is that a noob will have a harder time determining a good nut than determining a good cam.

Noobs often fail to consider the outward and sometimes upward action on a piece when falling. Nuts have a much stronger tendency to reverse zipper than a cam because the cam can rotate in its placement. Cams are much more forgiving to lack of experience.

Mr Poss et al fail to consider the issue in a realistic sense. The key here are the factors that surround placing good gear. Abundance of placements available, how pumped the leader is, how the gear will be pulled when they fall, etc.

Dont get me wrong, nuts shouldn't be overlooked, they have a place on the rack but it definitely takes more experience to place them well. Therefore, focus on racking with cams and supplement with nuts.

Tradiban wrote:

No problem.

A well placed nut will have roughly the same safety as a well placed cam, you should feel safe above either, the difference is that a noob will have a harder time determining a good nut than determining a good cam.

Noobs often fail to consider the outward and sometimes upward action on a piece when falling. Nuts have a much stronger tendency to reverse zipper than a cam because the cam can rotate in its placement. Cams are much more forgiving to lack of experience.

Mr Poss et al fail to consider the issue in a realistic sense. The key here are the factors that surround placing good gear. Abundance of placements available, how pumped the leader is, how the gear will be pulled when they fall, etc.

Dont get me wrong, nuts shouldn't be overlooked, they have a place on the rack but it definitely takes more experience to place them well. Therefore, focus on racking with cams and supplement with nuts.

It's true that cams may rotate in the placement when pulled in different directions, but this doesn't make them more stable than nuts. Once cams start rotating, they may walk in to poor placements and they may not be good for the direction of pull you initially placed it for. Plus, rotation changes the nature of friction from static to dynamic, which makes it easier for them to pull.

Cams may be more forgiving when it comes to poor placements, but this also makes it much harder to distinguish a good placement from a bad placement. This can allow seemingly "experienced" climbers to develop bad habits with cams, which will eventually cause injury or death if tested frequently enough. On the other hand, the difference between a good nut and a bad nut is usually blaringly obvious.

Cams are much less predictable and the actual physics of understand how and why they work is far less developed and understood than that of nuts. 

eli poss wrote:.
Cams are much less predictable and the actual physics of understand how and why they work is far less developed and understood than that of nuts. 

Lol, you kill me dude. Watch a noob fumble their nuts and you might understand what I'm talking about some day. In the meantime don't quit your day job, nawmean?

Tradiban wrote:

Lol, you kill me dude. Watch a noob fumble their nuts and you might understand what I'm talking about some day. In the meantime don't quit your day job, nawmean?

First of all, in my experience teaching this stuff in a school setting, my students nut placements tend to be a lot better than their cam placements. For their cam placements, usually around 30% are bomber while 70% are less than ideal or complete shit. Their nuts placements tend to be around 50/50.

Secondly, I don't have a day job because I'm a full time student.

Don't get my wrong, I love cams, and I'm not trying to hate on them. I'm just saying that it is foolish to exclusively use cams and that they are not inherently "safer" than nuts, as you originally claimed.

I’ll sometimes bring doubles as well as a green and yellow link cam to make a quasi triple rack.

Never done all out tripples yet. 

Hand me the DMM offset wallnuts and some brass!  #teamEliPoss

i wouldn't sell anything unless your out of room or looking for cash? used climbing gear is worth dimes on the dollar and eventually u'll retire stuff and bring in the newer. unless you acquired big shit like 3+ in trips that shits an acquired taste and borrowable for specific routes... my 2 cents

eli poss wrote:

I'd hand them a set of nuts. I'd bet that most people who have been trad climbing for decades upon decades would rather hand a noob a set of nuts than a set of cams. Any of y'all old timers wanna weigh in on this? Rich? Tut?

As an old timer, been climbing trad for well over 30 years, I would urge you to stop dispensing advice like an expert, and stick to learning.

eli poss wrote:

First of all, in my experience teaching this stuff in a school setting, my students nut placements tend to be a lot better than their cam placements. For their cam placements, usually around 30% are bomber while 70% are less than ideal or complete shit. Their nuts placements tend to be around 50/50.

Ok, I think I figured this out. You yourself have a hard time determining a good cam or nut placement.

Secondly, I don't have a day job because I'm a full time student.

That must be how you know so much!

Don't get my wrong, I love cams, and I'm not trying to hate on them. I'm just saying that it is foolish to exclusively use cams and that they are not inherently "safer" than nuts, as you originally claimed.

You yourself said you dont understand how cams work.

"the actual physics of understand how and why they (cams) work is far less developed and understood than that of nuts"

​Why should we trust you?

Old lady H wrote: A friend sent this yesterday! A truly beautiful line!
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105815743/slow-children
The comments make it clear why you want those extras.

We have a lot of that at Index. If you're not very solid in thin hands it's pretty typical to tell people to bring 4 .75s on P2 of Davis Holland (once you know the line you can lead it safely with doubles, it's just easy to miss the smaller pro chances onsight). Rattletale P2 you absolutely need 3qty of #2 to lead safely without back cleaning.

On the finger sizes, if you're up at squish and linking P1&2 of exasperator would be very handy.