Will I need a double rack?

Hi all,
I'm going to be visiting a friend in Colorado for a couple of weeks. We'll hopefully be climbing all over the place, Eldorado, Lumpy, and probably a short trip to Utah (Moab probably) and/or Black Canyon. I'd like to do mostly multi-pitch outings up to 5.10bish My friend has a single rack of cams and double rack of nuts. Would you recommend I bring my rack as well? For me this is part of a trip from New Zealand, and it would be a stretch for me to fit my rack in with my luggage.

Will we just be frustrated without a double rack of cams or will be able to get by fine with doubles of nuts?
Any advice would be appreciated!

Is your real name Henry Barber?

Based on the places you're interested in you'll probably want doubles. Have fun! 

Bring the doubles homie, you won’t regret it.  Make some friends so you can match on cams if you do hit Moab.

Have fun and be safe.

Probably want doubles, at least .75-2 size. Leave the rest if you can place your small passive stuff and don’t mind a bit of runout on splitters

Unless 10bish is easy for you, multipitch would seem to call for doubles... hard to make an anchor with leftover of a single rack... or make more pitches or run it out. TBD if you'll still agree with the choice above your gear with nothing left that fits!

Double is always a good idea especially if your going to be making your own anchors......

Dan Cooksey wrote: Bring the doubles homie, you won’t regret it.  Make some friends so you can match on cams if you do hit Moab.

Have fun and be safe.

Some splitter cracks in Moab require 4-6 cams of the same size, so read the guide book/MP description before committing to them, even with a double rack

You will want doubles in the .3-#3 C4 range for sure on the Front Range. Go to Little Cottonwood Canyon for multipitch trad in Utah.

Tom Owain wrote: Hi all,
I'm going to be visiting a friend in Colorado for a couple of weeks. We'll hopefully be climbing all over the place, Eldorado, Lumpy, and probably a short trip to Utah (Moab probably) and/or Black Canyon. I'd like to do mostly multi-pitch outings up to 5.10bish My friend has a single rack of cams and double rack of nuts. Would you recommend I bring my rack as well? For me this is part of a trip from New Zealand, and it would be a stretch for me to fit my rack in with my luggage.

First of all, the guidebooks will generally tell you what to bring.  Does your friend have the book for each area?

Eldo and Lumpy cracks eat nuts, so you can carry fewer cams.  Moab, on the other hand, generally only takes cams.  For Indian Creek you'll often want 8(!) cams of each size, although if you do any of the towers, you'll need some nuts, too.   In the Black I placed mostly nuts, but then nut-placement is a lost art for so many climbers these days.

I'd say just bring your "favorite" cams.

You can put most of your gear into your carry-on to save up some weight. Usually they don‘t have a weight limit but check with your airline (be careful with carabiners, supposedly you can use them as brass knuckles). If you want, you can even take a loptop-bag as a personal item and put all your cams in there.

Leave the 2s at home. That's where your hands go

Thanks for all the advice everyone, sounds like a pretty resounding yes to bringing extra cams! In NZ we have barely a splitter crack in the whole country, so I'm looking forward to this, and getting completely skanked...

Tom Owain wrote: Thanks for all the advice everyone, sounds like a pretty resounding yes to bringing extra cams! In NZ we have barely a splitter crack in the whole country, so I'm looking forward to this, and getting completely skanked...

What does "skank" mean in NZ? Because I think it means something different than it does here...

For Eldo and Lumpy extra TCU's and RP's will probably be more helpful than doubles in the larger sizes.

If you guys are set on The Black you'll definitely want doubles there. Pitches tend to be long and/or it's super helpful to combine pitches to make the day go faster. 

Andrew Krajnik wrote:

What does "skank" mean in NZ? Because I think it means something different than it does here...

Ha, oops... Worked over, owned, wasted? Note to self to not use that word while over there...

Todd the Tangler wrote: For Eldo and Lumpy extra TCU's and RP's will probably be more helpful than doubles in the larger sizes.

+1   DMM offsets work pretty well in a lot of the cracks in Eldo/Lumpy as well.