stopper only climbing

I've been wanting to build a trad rack for while now and I've decided that this is the year i'll get started, i was wondering if you can lead with only stoppers, I've heard its good practice for placing pro but i was wondering if its really safe to do? i don't know much about trad so i hope this isn't a stupid question

What did you think they did before cams came along? Find yourself a person with lots of stopper leading experience, a mentor if you will, follow them up routes and clean their stoppers and learn how to place them. Put em in cracks at ground level and check their strength. When confident, go lead with stoppers.

I'd say a set of regular stoppers and a set of offsets would do you well on most single pitch stuff at the least

It's safe if you pick your routes. Some climbs climbs are fine without any cams, some climbs are all cams.

Solo aid top roping is the best practice I've ever had.

If the goal is to save money, I've spent far more in injury rehab than I have on cams - and I've only had the most minor climbing induced injury. I cringe to think of the damage even a low ground fall could do...

"I cringe to think of the damage even a low ground fall could do"

Seven pieces of metal in my left wrist to fix a nasty fall.  Thank God I received world class care.    Anyway, as for the OP question, I think it's a fine idea but not all that much fun.   Passive placement as your only option is a pretty advanced science.   You will have to stay on very easy terrain, and at times it will be scary.   If you are a very good and confident climber, sure no problem.  But believe me, when push comes to shove, a cam is your best friend.   My advice is to get the trad rack as complete as possible before launching onto the sharp end.

Russ Keane and "r m" speak the truth...and IMO ground-falls, even from a few feet up, can be much more serious than "whippers" with good pro.  However, the question was "Are Stoppers Alone Enough?"

You'd probably want a few hexes for the wider cracks, but yes "nuts" alone do work.  As said above GET A MENTOR, I don't think there's much available on "How to place" passive gear, although I'm sure an internet search would find stuff. If you can find a tattered copy of Royal Robbin's "Advanced Rockcraft" that is a good starting point.

One issue not frequently mentioned is that, to keep the lower nut(s) in their placement(s) when the highest nut takes the climber's weight and the rope goes taught between the highest nut and the belayer, you have to have slings, usually 1-2 ft slings, in the nuts.  The steeper the pitch, the longer the slings.  Overhanging corners are the worst.  I once caught a 20-30 foot fall on P1 of Bonnie's Roof, all but the top nut (about the size of the tip of your little finger) popped.  The lower P1 corner has so many holds that you don't even know it really overhangs quite a bit.  One "trick" is to put a cam in as the first piece at the bottom of the corner, that keeps the rope "in" the corner in case of a fall. Alternately, "opposed nuts" can be used. (see your MENTOR) and such "opposed nuts" also work in horizontal cracks...although cams are much better.

 

Every year I do at least one "passive only" lead.  Stoppers, hexes and, of course, tri-cams.  I find that it makes me look more carefully at placement options, rather than just plugging another cam. Oh, almost forgot, slinging chicken heads, etc. is part of the exercise.  

Robert Hall wrote: "opposed nuts" also work in horizontal cracks...although cams are much better.

I'm extremely skeptical of this. I know this shows up in some older books, but my guess is that is more a testament to the fact that the old-school hardmen didn't fall often than to the efficacy of such placements.

Opposed nuts in vertical placements work because only one nut is loaded at a time, and when the nut is loaded, it's loaded in its intended direction of pull. As the leader climbs, the lower nut is loaded upward, and if the leader falls, the upper nut is loaded downward. The function of the lower nut is not to catch any part of the force of the fall. The function of the lower nut is to keep the upper nut properly aligned.

In a horizontal placement of opposed nuts, the direction of load is going to be down, perpendicular to the direction of pull of either nut. You can hope that both nuts hold and keep each other aligned, but that's highly unlikely, because you're creating a close-to-180-degree angle between the two legs of your anchor, so the forces on each nut are immense (see here for some physics explanation). If by some miracle even one of the nuts manages to hold despite these immense forces, it will be pulled out of alignment when the other nut fails.

Just to be clear: nuts which are not opposed can totally work in horizontal placements, for example in Arnaud Petit's retrotrad ascent of Black Bean at 4:30 in this video. Or another example from this past Saturday: my climbing partner fell not once, but twice on a micro nut placed in a horizontal at the crux of Raubenheimer Special (and it held). But neither of these cases is using opposed nuts. I'm specifically saying that I don't think opposed nuts in horizontals work.

That said, I've never set one of these and fallen on it, because it seemed like a really bad idea, but there's always the possibility there's something I didn't account for. I'd be happy to hear if my understanding of the physics is wrong, or if there's experimental evidence showing opposed nuts in horizontals working in practice.

If your goal is to save money then that’s understandable. Best to pair up with someone who has a set of cams and learn to place both of them well. Save up and buy them when you can afford to buy them.

If you’re doing this because some crusty old guy told you that “nutcraft is a dying art” and he didn’t have those springy things when he started climbing, then just buy a full set of cams and stoppers because that guy is a douche.

I prefer the solid feeling a good stopper placement gives you. You may not get them back out again, but I don't mind climbing well above a bomber stopper. I wold say start with Cams at #2 and above for size, as most stoppers will cover everything smaller..and grab some RP's too..

Jack, it is great practice for trad climbing. Placing a good stopper is an art and being able to do it is a very valuable skill. If you are confident in you stopper placing abilities then this would be a good thing for you to do. You should look out for zippering, but don't let that stop you just place some gear to prevent that.

I agree with Robert Hall, zippering is a real risk of passive-only climbing.  "Opposed nuts" means that your (first) placement is bidirectional: one nut placed to prevent an outward pull, another to protect the climber in case of a fall.

But to the original question: yes it is certainly feasible to climb exclusively on passive pro.  Unless you've got big hexes, you'll likely be climbing finger-cracks, which can get friggin hard, and then you'll get plenty of practice aiding ;-)

If expense is the concern, buy rigid stem friends.

Jack main wrote: I've been wanting to build a trad rack for while now and I've decided that this is the year i'll get started, i was wondering if you can lead with only stoppers, I've heard its good practice for placing pro but i was wondering if its really safe to do? i don't know much about trad so i hope this isn't a stupid question

Jack: The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. Now that you know that, I have to say that your question is the stupidest one I have ever heard. But seriously. If you learn to lead with stoppers, you will know how to place pro. Pay attention to direction of pull and the rope drag lifting them out. We didn't have mechanical cams when we learned to lead. Old school nuts like Titons, Cogs , and Hexes can be cammed, but it's an acquired skill. Later, when mechanical cams came out, I could get good placements when others  who learned to lead with mechanical cams couldn't. Start with vertical cracks that have lots of irregularities and are well below your limit.When at the base of crags, place pieces and weight them. Of course, static body weight is nothing compared to a serious leader fall, but you will start learning how to place stuff. Aid easy routes. Have fun. Good luck. B.T.W. ... I was leading Harpoon At Shiprock one day and fell. Every piece ripped except the one that caught me. My belayer lowered me and cackled fiendishly while he told me I had to hike to the top, rappel down, get my gear, finish rappelling down, then hike back up to get my rope and anchors. I said "Watch this". I grabbed the rope and snapped it. My piece popped out. Why did everything below that pop? I didn't place a directional at the bottom.

Jack main wrote: I've been wanting to build a trad rack for while now and I've decided that this is the year i'll get started, i was wondering if you can lead with only stoppers, I've heard its good practice for placing pro but i was wondering if its really safe to do? i don't know much about trad so i hope this isn't a stupid question

Jack, are you really only 14-years-old, like your profile says?

I'm going to try to answer your question both from a literal standpoint and a practical one:

Yes, you can lead only on stoppers. People lead only on knots tied in pieces of rope. That doesn't make it the best idea or fun. Fun is why I climb.

More importantly, WHY do you want to lead only on stoppers? If it's money, don't. Find someone else with a full rack and partner with them. Or get a summer job and save up a few hundred bucks to buy some decent cams to go with your stoppers. Hit up the MP forums and say that you're a 14-year-old kid looking to buy used cams and you'll get all kinds of good stuff.

Don't go out and break your body doing something ill-considered just because it's possible. 

David Kerkeslager wrote: ...., because you're creating a close-to-180-degree angle between the two legs of your anchor, so the forces on each nut are immense (see here for some physics explanation). If by some miracle even one of the nuts manages to hold despite these immense forces, it will be pulled out of alignment when the other nut fails.

.. to hear if my understanding of the physics is wrong, or if there's experimental evidence showing opposed nuts in horizontals working in practice.

Yes your understanding is wrong.   There are at least two ways to rig horizontal opposed nuts so that the 'close to 180 degree' thing doesnt happen.  I keep meaning to write something explaining the whole myth of the 180 degree angle because I keep seeing people miss-interpret it.  Maybe I'll find some time this week to finish it.

I advise you get a set of BD and a set of wild country... and get extra smaller ones like 2,3,4 and file those down to make Half sizes... off sets are good also.
Get 4 or 5 really light weight beners that do not have notches in the nose, rack them by size.
When you wish to place just grab a cluster of the size you want- place it ... come back with a draw.

Some my po-po this practice and tell ya to get some tiny cams... go blow your $$ if you wish.
You will want some in the future.

I have climbed hundreds/thousand of pitches and the wires alway get used and you pack a whole
lot of lightweight protection for not a lot of $$.
Another thing to consider- If you go real climbing, you might need to make a bunch of escape raps.
Leaving behind a #3 stopper is less painful than a $60 cam.

Have fun, Climb on.

Ģnöfudør Ðrænk wrote:

Yes your understanding is wrong.   There are at least two ways to rig horizontal opposed nuts so that the 'close to 180 degree' thing doesnt happen.  I keep meaning to write something explaining the whole myth of the 180 degree angle because I keep seeing people miss-interpret it.  Maybe I'll find some time this week to finish it.

Please do..... 

David Kerkeslager wrote:

I'm extremely skeptical of this. I know this shows up in some older books, but my guess is that is more a testament to the fact that the old-school hardmen didn't fall often than to the efficacy of such placements.

Opposed nuts in vertical placements work because only one nut is loaded at a time, and when the nut is loaded, it's loaded in its intended direction of pull. As the leader climbs, the lower nut is loaded upward, and if the leader falls, the upper nut is loaded downward. The function of the lower nut is not to catch any part of the force of the fall. The function of the lower nut is to keep the upper nut properly aligned.

In a horizontal placement of opposed nuts, the direction of load is going to be down, perpendicular to the direction of pull of either nut. You can hope that both nuts hold and keep each other aligned, but that's highly unlikely, because you're creating a close-to-180-degree angle between the two legs of your anchor, so the forces on each nut are immense (see here for some physics explanation). If by some miracle even one of the nuts manages to hold despite these immense forces, it will be pulled out of alignment when the other nut fails.

Just to be clear: nuts which are not opposed can totally work in horizontal placements, for example in Arnaud Petit's retrotrad ascent of Black Bean at 4:30 in this video. Or another example from this past Saturday: my climbing partner fell not once, but twice on a micro nut placed in a horizontal at the crux of Raubenheimer Special (and it held). But neither of these cases is using opposed nuts. I'm specifically saying that I don't think opposed nuts in horizontals work.

That said, I've never  I'd be happy to hear if my understanding of the physics is wrong, or if there's experimental evidence showing opposed nuts in horizontals working in practice.

I've used plenty of opposed nuts in horizontal placements and had a bunch hold both leader and second falls.  There is no question that the system can work, but the placements require careful inspection and industrious fiddling.  The main goal is to get the nuts into opposing constrictions in a way that will take some outward load, in other words not slotted entirely for horizontal loads.  It turns out, in practice, that you can manage this most of the time.  With the nuts slotted to resists a bit of outward loading, they can be connected in a way that doesn't create an extremely large angle, and so the potential for very high loads imposed by the rigging geometry is reduced.  It is true, and in a way the entire point, that if one of the opposed placements fails, the other one will too, otherwide you didn't really need the opposition.

Of course, I learned to do this when there was no choice and so the motivation was very high!  Nowadays I usually use a cam instead of opposed nuts, but not always, especially when the placements get small.  I also use vertical opposition with moderate frequency for certain belay anchors and nuts placed as the first piece off the ground when the belayer can't get right up against the cliff face.

Leaders and belayers should strive to visualize the straight line between belayer and leader, as every piece off this line is going to be pulled toward the line.  One either needs slings to bring the protection carabiners to that line or else take measures to keep the gear in place.  If a bombproof directional anchor is in place, then the straight line should be visualized from the directional to the leader, not from the belayer to the leader.

As an addenum, I've noticed that folks without much experience placing nuts have a way of putting them in vertical cracks so that the nuts are oriented for only straight-down pulls. The situation isn't helped by pictures in quite a few instructional materials, which mostly seem to recommend suboptimal positioning, for example,

 
Whenever possible (and it usually is possible), nuts should be placed in vertical cracks in a slightly rotated position that will provide at least a little resistance to outward loading. I had trouble finding a picture of this on the internet, but here are two:
Sometimes you can't do this, but such situations are relatively rare and usually involve small gear in very shallow placements. Mostly it's a matter of a slight adjustment that doesn't impair the originally-selected wedging properties.  If you can only get a nut in a straight-down pull orientation, it is a candidate for opposition from a nut placed for an upward load below.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

I'm extremely skeptical of this. I know this shows up in some older books, but my guess is that is more a testament to the fact that the old-school hardmen didn't fall often than to the efficacy of such placements.

In a horizontal placement of opposed nuts, the direction of load is going to be down, perpendicular to the direction of pull of either nut. You can hope that both nuts hold and keep each other aligned, but that's highly unlikely, because you're creating a close-to-180-degree angle between the two legs of your anchor, so the forces on each nut are immense (see here for some physics explanation). If by some miracle even one of the nuts manages to hold despite these immense forces, it will be pulled out of alignment when the other nut fails.

Just to be clear: nuts which are not opposed can totally work in horizontal placements, for example in Arnaud Petit's retrotrad ascent of Black Bean at 4:30 in this video. Or another example from this past Saturday: my climbing partner fell not once, but twice on a micro nut placed in a horizontal at the crux of Raubenheimer Special (and it held). But neither of these cases is using opposed nuts. I'm specifically saying that I don't think opposed nuts in horizontals work.

That said, I've never  I'd be happy to hear if my understanding of the physics is wrong, or if there's experimental evidence showing opposed nuts in horizontals working in practice.

First, to the OP, it's not a stupid question, it can be done and was done all the time with nuts and hexes (and pitons) before Wild Country Friends came on the market in the late 70s.  But as others have said, it's far safer for the leader to also have cams on a rack.  When I first started climbing, it was routine practice to climb with a swami belt tied only around your waist - shudder!  Gear improves!

As to David's statement, the way I was taught to place opposing nuts in horizontal placements seems totally bomber to me, but you need a specific configuration of rock.  Where I have placed them, it's in horizontals where the constriction allows you to feed the wires or sling through a place kind of slot, where the rock is narrower in the front than the back, and of course wider on the outside edges and narrows where the cam sits. The two pieces are looped together and one is clipped to a sling or draw.  When you pull down on this to set it, you can see that there is absolutely no way for the piece to fail short of the piece or the rock breaking.
Now, how often do I see a place where this will work better than a cam?  Maybe once every five years?

You are from New Paltz?  My husband, who taught me to climb, started climbing at the Gunks around 1970, and because of all the horizontals there, opposed nuts was a frequent way to protect there in the pre-cam days.  When he gets back from his bike ride, I'll ask him specifically about how often they were used and what people had to say about them.

rgold wrote:

...

  Nuts should be placed in vertical cracks in a slightly rotated position that will provide at least a little resistance to outward loading. ...

climbing friend,

yassssss!!! bath yourself in wisdom of this holy man!

you must seek as much as you are able find the constrictions that let your nuts drop in good for outward pulling and downward pulling as well! you do not want someone pulling out on your nuts! only to have them rip out at modest outward pull and you are falling, falling, far, far ...  for probable every falling you are taking you would be exerting some outward force as your sweaty meat sack hurtles downward through space and time!

"Every man must make his own choices. Every man must climb his own mountain."
- Herman Buhl
- John Long
- Aleks Zebastian

phylp wrote: As to David's statement, the way I was taught to place opposing nuts in horizontal placements seems totally bomber to me, but you need a specific configuration of rock.  Where I have placed them, it's in horizontals where the constriction allows you to feed the wires or sling through a place kind of slot, where the rock is narrower in the front than the back, and of course wider on the outside edges and narrows where the cam sits. The two pieces are looped together and one is clipped to a sling or draw.  When you pull down on this to set it, you can see that there is absolutely no way for the piece to fail short of the piece or the rock breaking.

This sounds a lot more like two nuts that are set up for outward pull, no? Like in the Arnaud Petit video I linked.

RG nailed (sans hammer, natch) it - the horizontal crack must allow the nuts to align themselves a least somewhat outwards. Otherwise you're going to get something close to David's 180* angle (no bueno). I think we all understood this BITD, even if we didn't map out the geometry of the vectors, as some do nowadays. As has been pointed out, that was back pre-cams, and it's not surprising that many budding leaders never dared lead anything close to their limit, at least compared to the willing flyers that populate the sport nowadays.

BUT it was not always so. If you look at Doug Robinson's original Clean Climbing treatise, you'll see he suggests a way of opposing vertical nuts that DOUBLES what we now call "the pulley effect" on the top piece. And being the good disciples that we were, we did it that way. (Shudder again).

And a random observation - that last pic in RG's post is a poor nut. The crack IMO is far too parallel. It may hold a fall, but I'd expect the nut to grind well down into the crack and be stuck forever.