How many people leave the racking biner on the sling?

slimwrote:

i remember climbing a few times with a guy who insisted on removing the extra biner each time because it was a waste to leave it there.  at the end of a pitch he would always have random biners clipped all over the place.  it kind of drove me crazy.

I had a partner who would do the same. Either that or take one of the biners from an alpine draw and triple up the sling on the racking biner of the cam. The amount of time lost at each belay on a multi-pitch route reorganizing the rack was annoying AF

Yuri Rodeawrote:

For any piece bigger than a #2 I place the biner on the thumb loop so it doesnt dangle on the harness as much anyways. I never use it

YOLO

I do the same as well. For the same reason and I call it safe for the same reason.

I don't like clipping straight into bigger piece anyways - seems to me that larger cracks, at least here, more rarely have great opportunities & nooks & cranies to sit the cam well so I'm confident it wont walk. Therefore I'm rarely comfortable not extending them anyways.

How does taking off the racking draw and putting it back on your harness "save weight?"

This thread is reminding me why I only rope solo...

My favorite way of extending is to clip a draw right to the racking krab, metal-on-metal. I do this when I deem the likelihood of a torsional load on the krabs to be low, coupled with a lowish likelihood of falling on the placement. The big advantage is that it is easier and faster to clip and unclip the draw/runner-- placing and removing the runner only requires a single hand motion. Another advantage is that it can give you a lot of insight into the mental faculties of your climbing partners.

1&2

any other method is chuff

James Warnickwrote:

“I don’t have a lot of gear, but here is a pic of my oddly organized gear collection”
flex

Dude, you should have seen my gear collection when I actually climbed a lot...no flex intended. I just put this pegboard up due to COVID induced insanity. Mostly reside in bins during the season.

I like the 30cm slings, they seem to work well where I mostly climb. They take up less space than an alpine or QD, and with the cam sling are about 45-50cm, and use the racking biner. 

Every cam I rack already has a six inch or so sling pre-attached, negating the need to reach down a second time for a draw. I carry enough alpine draws for the nuts I estimate I will use. I've found this to be far more efficient than fumbling for a draw every time I place a cam.

Glen Priorwrote: Every cam I rack already has a six inch or so sling pre-attached, negating the need to reach down a second time for a draw. I carry enough alpine draws for the nuts I estimate I will use. I've found this to be far more efficient than fumbling for a draw every time I place a cam.

What brand of cam has a 6" draw already on it?  BD is like 3-4" and only works when on a straight up and down route. I guess I would prefer that as well, but doesn't really exist where I climb. The Dragon cams have an extendable sling, but really aren't any quicker to place, and extend, than a BD with a sling. 

I remove the racking biner from a placed cam in two circumstances:

a) If I discover I'm running low on gear (slings/biners) mid-pitch and I can still see a long ways to go before the next belay stop.

b) If the placements are sparse or I feel one piece of gear is really critical to keeping me alive, I move the racking biner from the cam and put it on the rope-side of the draw (opposite and opposed to the existing one).

I have tried the single-biner over-the-shoulder draws to reduce weight, but I've found it quite messy. Maybe this old dog can't learn new tricks.

Bruh Brah wrote:

So....there seems to be a good portion of climbers that place a biner on a cam for the sole purpose of using it for racking? Why? Isn't it much easier, quicker, and cleaner to just rack the thing with a draw?

Another problem with this is if you are using tripled runners it would be a tangled mess.  every time you grab a cam the trigger, lobes, etc would be hung up in some other runner. 

slimwrote:

Another problem with this is if you are using tripled runners it would be a tangled mess.  every time you grab a cam the trigger, lobes, etc would be hung up in some other runner. 

If you rack your gear on a sling, and runners/draws on your waist, this is not a problem. Long routes that require lots of gear are often better off done with a gear sling that you can clip en masse to the anchor.  Most times I just carry stuff on my waist, but it comes in handy for long alpine routes where I may have doubles up to #3, a #4 & #5. Kor's Flake comes to mind.  

Removing the racking biner is very annoying because you have to find the racking biner to rerack.

All the other options are fine.

If you remove the racking biner, the follower has to convert all the alpines to shoulder slings.  Then you have to put them back together at the belay, or just finish the climb with a bunch of shoulder slings.  But I like using only a few shoulder slings, and like mostly alpines on the harness.  So, just one more reason to leave the racking biner on the cam.

Gloweringwrote:

This.

I start with about 2 30 cm, 2 QDs, 6 60cm, 2 120cm and add or take away as needed depending on how much the climb wanders. I have slings for every situation and I rarely get bad rope drag or introduce more fall distance than necessary.

The 30s almost always get used. Super light. No extra Biner for cams. Don’t make the cam wander. I’ve used them for years. 

Out of curiosity how do you carry the 30cm? Tripled as an alpine draw, clip one biner and let it dangle or clip both biners? I like the 30cm myself but never sure how best to rack them.

Buck Riowrote:

What brand of cam has a 6" draw already on it?  BD is like 3-4" and only works when on a straight up and down route. I guess I would prefer that as well, but doesn't really exist where I climb. The Dragon cams have an extendable sling, but really aren't any quicker to place, and extend, than a BD with a sling. 

I bought enough 6 inch color-coded slings to put one on each cam. Racking 'biner is clipped to color-coded 6 inch sling, plus another color-coded rope-end 'biner.

#2 most of the time. 

#5 on alpine routes where I didn't bring a lot of extra biners.

Pierre Proulxwrote:

Out of curiosity how do you carry the 30cm? Tripled as an alpine draw, clip one biner and let it dangle or clip both biners? I like the 30cm myself but never sure how best to rack them.

I carry them with one biner, and capture it with a rubber binder to make it easier to clip.  They don't dangle that far down for me. Then all you need to do is clip to the racking biner on a cam, and to the rope. 

Patrikwrote:

I remove the racking biner from a placed cam in two circumstances:

a) If I discover I'm running low on gear (slings/biners) mid-pitch and I can still see a long ways to go before the next belay stop.

b) If the placements are sparse or I feel one piece of gear is really critical to keeping me alive, I move the racking biner from the cam and put it on the rope-side of the draw (opposite and opposed to the existing one).

I have tried the single-biner over-the-shoulder draws to reduce weight, but I've found it quite messy. Maybe this old dog can't learn new tricks.

A faster/easier way to do this is to just clip the sling directly into the racking biner, and use both the biners from the draw on the rope end. No need to unclip and move any biners. Easier to clean and rerack too. 

Glen Priorwrote: I bought enough 6 inch color-coded slings to put one on each cam. Racking 'biner is clipped to color-coded 6 inch sling, plus another color-coded rope-end 'biner.

Not sure where you climb or what you carry but this seems to result in more weight and tangle than the problem it solves. I typically climb with a double rack. So 14-15 cams, plus two carabiners of nuts (probably 10-15 nuts in total depending on what I take. I also carry a long 240 CM sling if I'm leading everything to build anchors. Typically I carry 10-12 alpine draws or long over-shoulder double lengths with a single carabiner.

If I put 6 inch slings on every one of 14 cams that's 14 slings. But I still need some kind of slings/draws for stoppers. Plus any anchor building gear unless I just use the rope. How many draws, total do you end up carrying? 

Andrew Ricewrote:

Not sure where you climb or what you carry but this seems to result in more weight and tangle than the problem it solves. I typically climb with a double rack. So 14-15 cams, plus two carabiners of nuts (probably 10-15 nuts in total depending on what I take. I also carry a long 240 CM sling if I'm leading everything to build anchors. Typically I carry 10-12 alpine draws or long over-shoulder double lengths with a single carabiner.

If I put 6 inch slings on every one of 14 cams that's 14 slings. But I still need some kind of slings/draws for stoppers. Plus any anchor building gear unless I just use the rope. How many draws, total do you end up carrying? 

Most of my climbing is single-pitch trad or sport, with some trips to the Eastern Sierra for multi-pitch every year. I generally carry a double rack up to BD #2, maybe a couple offsets, and maybe 8-10 stoppers on two 'biners. I carry 4-6 alpine draws at most. I think the weight issue is irrelevant, compared to the ease of placement... No fiddling with an alpine draw. I'm leading 5.7-5.10, and almost never clip the rope into the racking 'biner. The 6 inch sling on each piece of gear is perfect. If I need to extend further, I'll grab an alpine draw.