Obsolete aid hardware

With gear such as totems and offset cams ,  is there any aid hardware rarley used or even considered obsolete unless you're far away from everything and trying out a new wall?

Thanks 

Beaks have pretty much made rurps obsolete, and maybe knife blades too.

Rurps still have their place, just like so many other pieces.  Just less obsolete.  But keep them close if your out doing your thing. There is always that one hole or seam that can except something.  Move on :)

Soft steel pitons definitely fall into this category, it used to be thought that they were good for limestone but petzl testing showed them to be awful compared to chromoly. Begs the question why petzl still sell them. 

Rurps (std, vertical) have been obsolete for 30 years since deucy came out w beaks. The clog horizontal have their use.

I once had a large arrow/kb/angle rack but now beaks and maybe 10 other la/angles.  

Still find places for rurps they punch into almost blank seams well. Still find places for kb like in corners way easier  to place and clean.

Interestingly, outside of putting up first ascents, binoculars probably fall into this. Well written guide books, photos, and even videos make the need of inspecting thin crack seams from a km away mostly obsolete. 

Im pretty fond of the blurps.

Even more niche. But still work wonders.

What about bongs? Is there anywhere you might use one that you wouldn’t be able to place a cam?

Nate A wrote:

What about bongs? Is there anywhere you might use one that you wouldn’t be able to place a cam?

I'm sure there might be but I'm not going to run out and buy any just in case.

Nate A wrote:

What about bongs? Is there anywhere you might use one that you wouldn’t be able to place a cam?

We’re working on a route that passes through a dirty crack. You could nail a bong straight into the dirt, whereas you’d have to clean the crack out to place a cam. Unfortunately, neither I nor my buddy have any bongs. I would carry them for that section if we had them though.

I just sold my bongs, on Ebay. They sold in about an hour. or two. I am sure I never used one after about 1982. The 4 incher got used a few times on free climbs, set as a chock. I felt it was superior to tube chocks. But I didn't climb any hard offwidths from about 1976 until about 1993.

I believe knifeblades are still essential, depending on where you are climbing. 

• Aluminum bongs never.
  Steel (ala longware, smc etc) could be used in very rotten rock but cams have made them basically obsolete. 

Eric Craig wrote:

I believe knifeblades are still essential, depending on where you are climbing. 

We used them a ton on the Heart Route. That route never sees any traffic and the outside edges of all the cracks were a bit crumbly. Places where you could place a nut, would just pull out with a vigorous bounce test. The longer, hmm, insertion length of the KBs and angles and such got the metal past the weaker bits of rock into deeper more solid rock. I suppose that if the route were climbed another dozen times more of that crumbly stuff would drop off and you could start using nuts and maybe even small cans there.

Charles means Lost Arrows, not KBs.  We didn't bring any KBs on Heart Route.  We actually could have used a few more arrows than we had - especially short/thick #2, #3 and #4 - but I think I gave most of mine away because I hardly ever used them anymore!  Good ol Ryan LaRocque's #4 peckers got us through places where we didn't have the right size arrow.  

I haven't placed a KB in years! Seriously. At least on El Cap. I'm sure there are plenty of alpine situations where you'd need them, though.

Charles brought a bunch of decrepit stiffy Metolius TCU's - you know the ones with the parallel stiff wires on the outside.  I told them they were junk, but they actually did work ... sort of.  They are nowhere near as solid as a Metolius Master Cam or especially a Totem.  Totems bite into anything anywhere, and are one of the four great aid climbing innovations of the last twenty years. If you are going aid climbing in Yosemite, don't waste your money on any other type of cam except Totems! 

Peter Zabrok wrote:

Charles means Lost Arrows, not KBs.  We didn't bring any KBs on Heart Route.  We actually could have used a few more arrows than we had - especially short/thick #2, #3 and #4 - but I think I gave most of mine away because I hardly ever used them anymore!  Good ol Ryan LaRocque's #4 peckers got us through places where we didn't have the right size arrow.  

I haven't placed a KB in years! Seriously. At least on El Cap. I'm sure there are plenty of alpine situations where you'd need them, though.

Charles brought a bunch of decrepit stiffy Metolius TCU's - you know the ones with the parallel stiff wires on the outside.  I told them they were junk, but they actually did work ... sort of.  They are nowhere near as solid as a Metolius Master Cam or especially a Totem.  Totems bite into anything anywhere, and are one of the four great aid climbing innovations of the last twenty years. If you are going aid climbing in Yosemite, don't waste your money on any other type of cam except Totems! 

Even the larger totems?  I find the BD #2 #3 more stable because it's wider 

Hi Mr. Pass the pitons Pete, a question: since beaks have seemingly mostly replaced KBs, how do they work in horizontal placements? Especially were a roof or a ledge is part of the equation. I don't recall any such place on the El Cap routes of my long ago past, but a couple other spots in the Valley yes, and definitely recall a few such places in the Canadian Rockies. 

I hope to be in the Valley come fall. Might even climb something. Eric. 

P.S. the four great innovations? Let me guess, Totems, alfifi, not sure about the other 2. Beaks were around 30 years ago. Before that we modified crack'n'ups.

RWPT wrote:

Even the larger totems?  I find the BD #2 #3 more stable because it's wider 

When I first bought my Totems, I bought them all the way up to red, about the size of the #1 red BD Camalot.  We were in the Adirondacks, and we made the first ascent of a long-standing aid route they called The Holy Grail. It went at real A4, which was good.  Anyway, there was this horizontal placement, and no way was the gold #2 Camalot going to stick. Fortunately my partner had an orange Totem, which amazingly and perfectly stuck in the placement.  They don't make Totems as big as the blue #3 Camalot.  Anyway, I immediately went out and bought my own orange Totem! 

Eric Craig wrote:

Hi Mr. Pass the pitons Pete, a question: since beaks have seemingly mostly replaced KBs, how do they work in horizontal placements? Especially were a roof or a ledge is part of the equation. I don't recall any such place on the El Cap routes of my long ago past, but a couple other spots in the Valley yes, and definitely recall a few such places in the Canadian Rockies. 

I hope to be in the Valley come fall. Might even climb something. Eric. 

P.S. the four great innovations? Let me guess, Totems, alfifi, not sure about the other 2. Beaks were around 30 years ago. Before that we modified crack'n'ups.

The other two are the BIG beaks, and the D4 Ledge.  [in my opinion]  

The big beaks work very well in horizontal placements!  You just have to tie a secure piece of webbing through the top hole - the racking/cleaning loop - and then you clip into that when you are weighting a horizontal placement.  Or you can get Skot Richards to sew it on for you.  

Peter Zabrok wrote:

When I first bought my Totems, I bought them all the way up to red, about the size of the #1 red BD Camalot.  We were in the Adirondacks, and we made the first ascent of a long-standing aid route they called The Holy Grail. It went at real A4, which was good.  Anyway, there was this horizontal placement, and no way was the gold #2 Camalot going to stick. Fortunately my partner had an orange Totem, which amazingly and perfectly stuck in the placement.  They don't make Totems as big as the blue #3 Camalot.  Anyway, I immediately went out and bought my own orange Totem! 

My bad, meant the bd 1 and 2