Trad Tips and tricks

I'm curious in experimenting by marking my cam stems how far I need to pull the trigger to make the angle at least 45°. This is for laybackin and placing blind had anyone ever done that before? Does it work well? I'll plan to mark two at 45 and at overcamming

This is a novel idea and I applaud you for thinking outside the box.

I also would strongly encourage you to get more solid at jamming so that you don't need to make blind placements.

In addition to camming issues, the hazards of blind placements include irregularities in rock quality, flares and walking. Speaking from near-deck experience here.

But your idea will be a good learning tool, so go for it, just don't rely on it as an absolute measure of safety.

As the sages would remind us: "Keep two pieces between you and the hospital!"

I would disagree with Fritz, I think it’s a bad idea. Like Fritz said, the cam could be cammed at 45 degrees and placed blind into a flaring pocket with no hope of actually arresting a fall. And many other variables.

I only rely on blind placements when I’ve practiced the “feel” of placing them well into my muscle memory for dangerous headpoints. That’s few and far between. Otherwise you’d be way better served learning to evaluate gear on route, change your body position to evaluate gear, and deal with the stress of placing gear properly on route.

Yeah, I should have been a bit more clear with the critical meat in the middle of my compliment sandwich. OP's idea is useful for having a visual reference point, but it shouldn't be taken as a guarantee of a good placement.

Interesting idea. I see zero downside in having an indicator of trigger pull depth, given it's not overly relied on.

If you really have to make a blind placement, you should probably be aiming for over-camming instead of trying to hit an ideal angle. Much more likely that you'll get a decent placement instead of risking undercamming some lobes.

Metolius kind of did this already but they put the indicators on the cam lobes.

Worth noting optimal angle between cam lobes is 90 degrees or less, not 45 degrees or more. 

When I make blind placements I’ll reach into the crack and I’ll stack however many fingers in the placement beforehand to be able to judge the cam size after. When making blind placements I always overcam just to be safe. 

Jon Hartmannwrote:

When I make blind placements I’ll reach into the crack and I’ll stack however many fingers in the placement beforehand to be able to judge the cam size after. When making blind placements I always overcam just to be safe. 

This is a good and useful tactic.

Jon Hartmannwrote:

When I make blind placements I’ll reach into the crack and I’ll stack however many fingers in the placement beforehand to be able to judge the cam size after. When making blind placements I always overcam just to be safe. 

I am also a fan of the crack tickle. I have a pretty good idea of the piece based on how the crack feels on my fingers. Even with this technique I still usually take a quick peek at it or I’m not going to feel very good by the time I get to my next piece.

Crack tickle indeed! Sure beats leaning in to take a look and your feet dumping.

Yeah totally this would be used in combo with the other tactics, was wondering if anyones tried it, i see definte downfalls in just relaying on it versus skill but maybe nice to know and yeah 90 not 45 !

Crack tickle and you should be familiar enough with your cams to know how cammed it is when releasing the trigger. Then you don't need to look at it at all.