Passive Camalot whips!

Tell us your harrowing tales of whipping on passively placed cams! How long was the fall? Did it hold? What did your cam look like afterwards? Rock and placement type? Extra points for foul weather and grossly run out, life or death embellishments and, of course, the obligatory engineering dork discussion. Obviously this discussion is geared towards Camalots and other double-axle knockoffs, but bonus bonus points for spicey single cam storytime.

Not a particularly harrowing tale, but it still makes my palms a wee sweaty to recall. In my 24 years of climbing I've only whipped once on a passively placed cam, a #2 BD C4. This was in granite in an odd triangular pod that had complex tapering edges, located at the top of a hard stemming corner where it merged into steep face. It didn't look like it would hold, and I didn't expect it to, but it was all I could tease out of the stone at that point. There was decent finger sized gear maybe a body length below this placement. Deep breath, I committed to stemming out the head of the corner, smearing a high foot outside it so I could rock onto the face. Eye to eye with a shiny bolt just out of reach, I weighted my foot, and I was off. I flew past the cam, noticing a loud noise and something whizzing by head. I fell farther than I wanted to, ending up below the smaller cams, the #2 dangling at my harness. Amazingly, it was basically unharmed with just some rounding of the lobe tips. I screwed my head back on straight and managed to find a whack nut placement in the same pod, now a bit wider from the #2 breaking the edges of part of it (I'm guessing that it was rock fragments that whizzed by my head). I tried reallllly hard not to fall this time and managed to finish the pitch without much more added excitement. I've been extra wary of passive cam placements ever since.

Rob Dillon wrote:

Thankfully, this wasn’t me.

These photos, from the page for Disney Point at the Gunks, are one of the most classic things on mountain project. The captions tell the whole story, if you can sort out the order.

I also think about them frequently when I try to stand up from a belay seat and am yanked back on my ass because a cam lobe gets caught. 

Not a Camalot...97 or 98 on Longs about 2/3 of the way up and weather moved in. Was moving fast on easy terrain when I popped off the wall and a yellow metoulius held a +40 footer. Sheath was cut and was swinging way above the glacier then looked up and wondered why my rope was white. Had huge harness hematomas a day later.

I’ve fallen twice on a cam that seemed normal, but when I climbed back to it the lobes were all the way open in a passive configuration.  The first was a .75 camalot jr teetering perfectly on two included blobs.  That was probably the largest fall I have taken (maybe 60’?).The second was a .4 with only two lobes holding.  One of the other lobes was mangled and both were in open air.  Also a lobber at 35’+.  Plenty of air below me on the .4, but I would have decked if the .75 had blown.

Both cams looked fine when I placed them.  I think they both lifted.

I would never place it that way on purpose... I had two cams rip over the years but not from trying to use them as passive pro.. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

I would never place it that way on purpose... I had two cams rip over the years but not from trying to use them as passive pro.. 

Sometimes it's all you've got that will fit a really odd weakness in the rock

When I started trad climbing I bought a couple of sets of rock empire cams up to #3. I was leading Spiderman in Joshua Tree and at the top it is an open flare that takes #4’s. I didnt have a #4. I was at my limit and sketching out and I had a #3 so I put it in even though I was well aware it didn’t fit. It was completely open with only the back lobes making contact with the rock. I promptly slipped and fell and watched in horror as the now passive cam caught 2 crystals on each of the rear lobes and was swinging back and forth as I was hanging on my rope, the front lobes were just spread eagle to the air. I was a new climber so I was sure I was going to die. It all worked out, I jammed back into the crack and I punched it to the top knowing there was no way the cam would hold another fall. Now I think back and I’m sure there was another bomber placement 5 feet below it but at the time…eek. 

Andy, climbing for 43 years and never had to make a passive cam placement. I have had a few shitty cam placements but tried not to test them. We have choices. The most obvious one being to bail before it gets that bad. 

Andy Bennettwrote:

Sometimes it's all you've got that will fit a really odd weakness in the rock

The pockets on Whitehorse eat passive cam placements, luckily I've never had to test em. Feels good to place though!

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Andy, climbing for 43 years and never had to make a passive cam placement. I have had a few shitty cam placements but tried not to test them. We have choices. The most obvious one being to bail before it gets that bad. 

Not even in a solution pocket?

Boreal Strutwrote:

Not even in a solution pocket?

Tricams are usually the best solution

Never with critical gear that I am likely to fall on. 

A perfectly placed passive cam in bomber rock will break past the MBS of that cam (scroll down a bit in the link below)

https://blackdiamondequipment.com/blogs/stories/qc-lab-strength-testing-of-the-gear-youve-always-wondered-about

I’ve definitely “nutted” cams before and felt very confident on them

Note*** totem specifically says their cams cannot be placed passively 

I feel like a passive cam placement is much more likely to move.