Starting an NC Trad rack

Jim,

Do you have a link to this study that you are referencing? I would like to read it.

The nut vs. cam vs. tricam debate is dumb. I don't fully trust a person's trad climbing ability that sucks at placing nuts/tricams and  it probably isnt worth trying to convince said person to change how they climb but i'll take a stab. It also depends on style of climbing and goals.

1. Projecting a route or beta flashing a route. eg. at the crux you can place a bomber #9 stopper in a constriction or a bomber #1 cam just above it or below. What's quicker a cam or a nut? What's lighter the cam or the nut? answer to both is the nut.

2. Alpine multipitch. eg. I can carry additional finger size pieces because i know that i will use cams on the pitches and need the same size for the anchor or i can carry a set of tricams and save on weight for the anchor and dont have to sacrifice cams. 

3. Specif route. eg. I can either run it out 15ft at the redpoint crux on filet of fish at moores wall or i can take a brown tricam (likely the only gear possible in that spot, if there is other gear it would take more fiddling than the brown which places super easy) and not face a 30ft fall. The fall is clean and you don't need the tricam to be safe but it sure is nice to have when you are pulling the final buldge. 

4. Finally but maybe less convincing and harder to back up with data: safety in placing for a new climber. eg. What is easier to inspect a cam placement or a nut placement? In my experience its very intuitive to see a nut placement and no if it is good or not. All you have to do is evaluate if the nut has good contact and is it big enough to stay in place. You can easily just place with a long 24 inch sling and take the worry of it popping out of the equation without any real knowledge. Margin for error is greater with a cam. I doubt there is truly good data about falls on cams vs nuts and lots of variables affecting both. 

Gear placements tend to vary quite a bit based on the crag. In my experience, lots more nuts and tricams on the quartz of Linville and Moores. Nutcraft and tricams arent as widely needed at places like the bald and north face of looking glass. 

grog m aka Greg McKee wrote:

No.

black diamond. both sets.

sounds like you are giving him your final universal climb it all rack, not a starter rack.  carry on.

Austin Goff wrote:

The nut vs. cam vs. tricam debate is dumb. I don't fully trust a person's trad climbing ability that sucks at placing nuts/tricams and  it probably isnt worth trying to convince said person to change how they climb but i'll take a stab. It also depends on style of climbing and goals.

1. Projecting a route or beta flashing a route. eg. at the crux you can place a bomber #9 stopper in a constriction or a bomber #1 cam just above it or below. What's quicker a cam or a nut? What's lighter the cam or the nut? answer to both is the nut.

2. Alpine multipitch. eg. I can carry additional finger size pieces because i know that i will use cams on the pitches and need the same size for the anchor or i can carry a set of tricams and save on weight for the anchor and dont have to sacrifice cams. 

3. Specif route. eg. I can either run it out 15ft at the redpoint crux on filet of fish at moores wall or i can take a brown tricam (likely the only gear possible in that spot, if there is other gear it would take more fiddling than the brown which places super easy) and not face a 30ft fall. The fall is clean and you don't need the tricam to be safe but it sure is nice to have when you are pulling the final buldge. 

4. Finally but maybe less convincing and harder to back up with data: safety in placing for a new climber. eg. What is easier to inspect a cam placement or a nut placement? In my experience its very intuitive to see a nut placement and no if it is good or not. All you have to do is evaluate if the nut has good contact and is it big enough to stay in place. You can easily just place with a long 24 inch sling and take the worry of it popping out of the equation without any real knowledge. Margin for error is greater with a cam. I doubt there is truly good data about falls on cams vs nuts and lots of variables affecting both. 

Gear placements tend to vary quite a bit based on the crag. In my experience, lots more nuts and tricams on the quartz of Linville and Moores. Nutcraft and tricams arent as widely needed at places like the bald and north face of looking glass. 

A lot of this is written as if someone had said nuts suck, and no one has said anything like that. As mentioned earlier, they definitely have a place, but for me personally they are most often used on moderates which for me means from 5.9 to 5.11-. I don't use them very much on easy stuff I'm willing to run out. On routes that are hard for me, they get placed, but usually the placement will be a super obvious constriction that will take a bomber slot---something any moron could place that I wouldn't classify as "nutcraft". Nutcraft to me means trickery like multiple opposing placements acting as one. As for nuts being good for alpine multipitch, I think that's outside the scope of a beginner rack in North Carolina

You are absolutely right the Linville is way better for passive gear than RB or the North Side of LG. I don't really climb at Moores

Brian Abram wrote:

A lot of this is written as if someone had said nuts suck, and no one has said anything like that. As mentioned earlier, they definitely have a place, but for me personally they are most often used on moderates which for me means from 5.9 to 5.11-. I don't use them very much on easy stuff I'm willing to run out. On routes that are hard for me, they get placed, but usually the placement will be a super obvious constriction that will take a bomber slot---something any moron could place that I wouldn't classify as "nutcraft". Nutcraft to me means trickery like multiple opposing placements acting as one. As for nuts being good for alpine multipitch, I think that's outside the scope of a beginner rack in North Carolina

You are absolutely right the Linville is way better for passive gear than RB or the North Side of LG. I don't really climb at Moores

Not my intention. I was just pointing out what, I think, are obvious reasons to learn how to place nuts and tricams and to have them on your rack. 

Jim Corbett wrote:

Nuts are the foundation and backbone of any trad rack, especially for a beginner. They are superior pro and will help you learn what actually works for any piece, including cams. I simply wouldn’t climb with someone who didn’t get that.

This I cannot agree with more. Especially since the OP specifically mentioned a rack for Moore's and Linville, both of which are generally very nut-friendly places.

"any poor placement will blow some percentage of the time"

Right, but I think it's easier to know when a passive piece wasn't set optimally.  In other words, when they are golden, it's totally obvious.  Whereas, maybe with cams, you have more subtlety to the placement.  They seem to lull you into a sense of bomber, when maybe the situation is less optimal than you think (and is not clear to the eye).   What do you all think?   I guess the point is, passive pro utilizes a simpler set of physical principles, and is therefore a good foundation for leading.

Russ Keane wrote:

"any poor placement will blow some percentage of the time"

Right, but I think it's easier to know when a passive piece wasn't set optimally.  In other words, when they are golden, it's totally obvious.  Whereas, maybe with cams, you have more subtlety to the placement.  They seem to lull you into a sense of bomber, when maybe the situation is less optimal than you think (and is not clear to the eye).   What do you all think?   I guess the point is, passive pro utilizes a simpler set of physical principles, and is therefore a good foundation for leading.

Agree completely.  Bailing off a nut or cam I'd take a nut any day.

Metolius did some pull testing on solid can placements and found that one in roughly 20 good placements failed for unobvious reasons.  I think they speculated lubrication/powder/dust functionally eliminating friction for the initial grab to actuate the outward cam.

www.gripped.com/grippedemag/005/index.html

http://www.rockclimbing.com/forum/Climbing_Information_C2/Gear_Heads_F40/cam_placement_article_P1647322/

Better Beta
Cam placement rules
As the founder and head designer of Metolius, Doug Philips has spent an immense amount of time testing and improving cams over the last twenty years. Here are some tips on cam safety based on his vast experience.

Doug Phillips
1. No matter how good a placement looks, you can never be sure it will hold.
During my tests, about one in twenty good-looking placements pulled out when loaded. The challenge is to figure out why the cam pulled, and what could have been done to prevent this from happening.

To understand why cams fail, we classify pullouts into six basic categories:

Lubricants (water, dirt, dust, moss, ice)
Poor rock quality
Cam movement (walking, misaligned)
Poor placement
Cam design
Poor maintenance
Lubricants
Anything that gets between the aluminum cam lobe and the solid rock wall can act as a lubricant reducing the friction. Water is an obvious lubricant as is dirt or fine dust. A dirty seeping crack with a thin layer of moss can cause an otherwise good placement to consistently pull out.

Poor rock quality
There are three categories of rock to avoid: soft, smooth, and weak:

Soft rock tends to crush under the load of a fall. The crushed particles act as a lubricant causing the cam to slip. After this type of failure, the cam lobes will often be coated with a thin film of pulverized rock.
Smooth or polished rock will not allow the cams to grip. Smooth stone can be found in water polished cracks as well as glacier polished stone. It is very unnerving to watch a cam consistently pull out of a super smooth crack that would otherwise be a perfect placement.
Weak or fractured rock will break, causing the cam to loose traction. When a cam pulls out of seemingly solid stone, I often find a small piece of fractured rock near one of the cam lobes. Occasionally a larger chunk of stone gets blown out of the crack due to an existing fracture or weakness in the rock.
Cam movement
Cams will move from the motion of a passing climber, rope action and impact from a fall. This movement can lead to pullout failures, as the cam is no longer positioned to hold a fall. To prevent this, place the cam so it has room to move and still remain in a good camming position. A long sling will reduce unwanted movement and allow you to fall on the next piece without putting any outward tension on the lower cam. Cam pullout failures commonly occur with a sharp outward or sideways pull rather than the downward pull you had intended.

Poor placement
Wide flares, bottoming cracks and irregular rock features make it difficult to get solid cam placements. Help optimize the security of a placement by maximizing cam-to-rock contact. Place good gear before and after difficult-to-protect sections. In my tests, I have occasionally been surprised by a bad looking placements that hold when drop tested. Most of the time however, if a cam looks bad, it will pull out.

Cam Design
The brand of cam makes a difference. Metolius cams are made with holding power as the primary design criteria. The main variables are cam angle, aluminum alloy, surface contact area, and cam alignment.

Cam angle
The cam angle we use is 13.25 degrees. This sacrifices range, but increases outward force, making the cams harder to pull out.
Aluminum alloy
Our aluminum alloy is 7075 for small and midrange cams and 6061 for larger sizes. The 7075 is stronger, maintaining cam shape under load in the small sizes. This is less of an issue in the large cams, so we switch to the lighter weight, less expensive, 6061.
Surface contact area
Surface contact area is important. More surface area will create more friction increasing the cam’s security. Also, more surface area spreads the load more, improving holding power in soft or weak stone. Our Fat Cams were designed with this in mind.
Cam alignment
Maximize holding power by lining up the cam lobes with the direction of pull. The original Friends did this by using a rigid stem. The Metolius cam’s relatively stiff “U” shaped body aligns the cam lobes with the direction of pull.
Poor maintenance
Like all technical equipment, cams require maintenance. This includes cleaning, lubrication, replacing old or worn slings and repairing frayed trigger wires. Be sure to retire worn out cams.

2. Place two good cams at critical spots
Because one in 20 cams pull, reduce cam pullout by putting in a second good piece. This gives you a 99.75% chance that one placements will hold. Equalize them if possible.

3. Place the cam in as fully retracted a position as possible without getting it stuck. This is the green zone on our Range Finder system.
Tight placements help to guard against the following types of pullout:

Pullout due to cam movement
Rope movement shifts cams. Long slings help, but you can increase security by placing the largest cam possible. If the cam moves to a wider crack section it will still have good contact with all four cams.

Pullout due to poor rock quality
If the rock on one side of the crack fails the cam lobes on that side will begin to slip. A cam with a tight placement (green zone) has a better chance of holding. If the rock on both sides of the crack fails, the lobes dig into the rock. The tighter the placement, the more the cam can expand before failure.

Pullout due to lubrication
When the cam pulls because of wet or dirty conditions it will move through several inches of crack before failure. If only one side of the crack is wet or dirty, the cam lobes on the wet side will tend to slip first. If the cam is in an open position the cams on the dry side will tip out and the placement will fail. In a tight placement the cams on the dry side will not tip out, greatly increasing the chance the placement will hold. I’ve observed a tight cam placement jamming just below the original placement.

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Beginning Trad Rack