Worst Rack Possible

This is a question I’ll occasionally probe with friends, but I’m curious to see what the wider MP population has to say. We see all the reviews and forum posts about best cams, nuts, whatever and there seems to be an increasing focus on the “best” gear now that there are so many options.

My question is this: if money and availability wasn’t a concern, what’s the worst fully-functional rack you could build? Cams, nuts, draws, biners, however detailed you wanna go. Maybe it’s pieces of gear that are notoriously unreliable. Maybe it’s straight sided nuts. Maybe it’s the single-axel Z4s. Just a standard kit regardless of where it would be used. And it can’t be the random, one-off stuff that comes out of some janky, home-build setup; only pieces of gear that are or were commercially available. Think standard rack. I’ll let you define “worst”. Go

 You may not like it, but the fact remains that this is the optimal rack for NIAD parties

Alex Honnold brought probably the worst rack I’ve ever seen up it in that movie of his…

8mm 30' long cordelette 

Full set of hexes

Alpine draws made of 10mm or thicker nylon runners with Edelrid 19g carabiners on both ends

BD Z4 micro cams

Metolius and DMM cams with no thumb loops

Nobody wants to climb with my rack 

Cosmic Hotdog wrote:

8mm 30' long cordelette 

Full set of hexes

Alpine draws made of 10mm or thicker nylon runners with Edelrid 19g carabiners on both ends

BD Z4 micro cams

Metolius and DMM cams with no thumb loops

You forgot Metolius curve nuts

Cosmic Hotdog wrote:

8mm 30' long cordelette 

Full set of hexes

Alpine draws made of 10mm or thicker nylon runners with Edelrid 19g carabiners on both ends

BD Z4 micro cams

Metolius and DMM cams with no thumb loops

I’d take those over the Metolius mini biners

Link cams and tri cams( pink excluded)

A rack of trango cams and hexes, 

steel locking quickdraws with cable dogbones

One Maddaloni Anticam

One ring angle

one skyhook

One rocknrolla

one Forrest Titon

and whatever the fuck this is: instagram.com/p/DBQkBsxupM1…;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Cosmic Hotdog wrote:

Metolius and DMM cams with no thumb loops

Can someone explain to me why the thumb loop is so essential? I see the same comment pop up again and again, and I never felt it was anything really worth even having an opinion on. My first rack was all BD Camalots from the pre-thumb loop era. I never dropped one, I climbed plenty of wall routes and was never bummed that I couldn’t clip in shorter. Never felt that I needed a loop. I’ve tried thumb loops, and have come back around to believing that a pommel against my palm feels more secure than the loop, and I’ve gone back to all cams loop-free. DMM’s, Metolius ULMC’s, and still plenty of my 20+ yr old re-slung Camalots.

And just curious, i think we all see it as common safety procedure to not put fingers into bolt hangers, and to grab the dogbone and not the biner, in case you were to fall with a digit stuck in a piece of metal. How is this different than having your thumb through the loop of a cam at the moment of a fall?

Teton Tom wrote:

Can someone explain to me why the thumb loop is so essential? I see the same comment pop up again and again, and I never felt it was anything really worth even having an opinion on. My first rack was all BD Camalots from the pre-thumb loop era. I never dropped one, I climbed plenty of wall routes and was never bummed that I couldn’t clip in shorter. Never felt that I needed a loop. I’ve tried thumb loops, and have come back around to believing that a pommel against my palm feels more secure than the loop, and I’ve gone back to all cams loop-free. DMM’s, Metolius ULMC’s, and still plenty of my 20+ yr old re-slung Camalots.

And just curious, i think we all see it as common safety procedure to not put fingers into bolt hangers, and to grab the dogbone and not the biner, in case you were to fall with a digit stuck in a piece of metal. How is this different than having your thumb through the loop of a cam at the moment of a fall?

Thumb loops are about handling options for me. I find TL cams to be easier to manipulate whether I'm using my palm, the tip of my thumb, or the crotch (?) of my thumb/hand while placing. When I'm using somebody else's potato mashers, I am comfortable using my palm against the end of the cam, but when in a pumpy placement, end up fumbling around if I feel the need to use my thumb. I'm sure I would get better if I used them more. Also, if a cam needs to be placed deep in a crack, using my thumb adds reach and gets my hand out of the way as much as possible.

Plus thumb loop cams objectively look cooler.

As for potential degloving concerns with a thumb-in-loop during a fall, I feel as though cam loops are smooth, wide, and flexible enough to allow egress. A sharp metal hanger? Done deal.

Teton Tom wrote:

Can someone explain to me why the thumb loop is so essential? I see the same comment pop up again and again, and I never felt it was anything really worth even having an opinion on. My first rack was all BD Camalots from the pre-thumb loop era. I never dropped one, I climbed plenty of wall routes and was never bummed that I couldn’t clip in shorter. Never felt that I needed a loop. I’ve tried thumb loops, and have come back around to believing that a pommel against my palm feels more secure than the loop, and I’ve gone back to all cams loop-free. DMM’s, Metolius ULMC’s, and still plenty of my 20+ yr old re-slung Camalots.

And just curious, i think we all see it as common safety procedure to not put fingers into bolt hangers, and to grab the dogbone and not the biner, in case you were to fall with a digit stuck in a piece of metal. How is this different than having your thumb through the loop of a cam at the moment of a fall?

It's personal preference, not essential unless you're aid climbing. 

Thumb loop-less cams feel like shit to me. That doesn't mean they're shit, but it does mean that I refuse to use them or buy them. 

The most unpleasant possible rack using all modern gear that isn't straight trolling--every piece of gear here is either on my rack or on a rack I've climbed with regularly:

• Large cams: Metolius super cams. These things are packed with good ideas that come together into a terrible cam. They rack like crap and walk like crazy.
• Hand sized cams: red and orange totems. Totems rock! These rock slightly less, and again rack like crap if mixed with other cams. Plus in this size they don't offer a ton of advantages. Including the worst of the totems convinces people this is a serious rack rather than a jigsaw puzzle from hell.
• Thin hands: Green X4. Floppy.\
• Fingers: Trango Flexcams. Ew.
• Nuts: the biggest nuts are replaced with small hexes--nothing inherently wrong with them, but more finicky than large nuts and rarely opening up new options. Small nuts are plain gray BD standard nuts--again, nothing wrong with it, but the lack of color will annoy a few people and not quite as flexible as offsets or other nut designs.
• Slings: those tiny 30cm slings. IDK where you get them, I have one I bootied and it's awkwardly long to carry long, and awkwardly short and clumpy to carry folded into an alpine.
• All carabiners--racking cams and on slings--are Metolius FS minis, so that clipping the rope is an extra step in frustration.

A friend for the longest time had a bizarre mishmash of ancient gear that he picked up over the years from the bishop gear exchange. I lovingly referred to it as "the museum." And I loved it as long as I didn't have to climb on it. But genuinely a really fascinating rack of 70s, 80s, and 90s gear, much of which I had never seen before. 

But yeah the worst rack I've ever seen by quite a large margin. 

Make all dogbones, alpine draws, and slings with one color of webbing tied into loops with water knots. Not only is it commercially available, you save quite a bit by buying in bulk.

All carabiners are steel lockers, preferably screw locks with the old notched nose.

All pro is BD hexes. Belay and rappel with a figure 8. $100 vintage Ushba titanium nut tool without a leash.

Rich Romano’s rack

Jack Shroeders rack. Michael you know this.

Anything with tricams, camlocks, or hexes

Garrett Hopkins wrote:

Jack Shroeders rack. Michael you know this.

Anything with tricams, camlocks, or hexes

And oval carabiners. I have fat fingers 

And if you have wiregates with a hook nose carabiner on your extendable draws, were using mine instead. Smooth nose is the way. Same for racking nuts

Jack Kelly wrote:

The most unpleasant possible rack using all modern gear that isn't straight trolling--every piece of gear here is either on my rack or on a rack I've climbed with regularly:

• Large cams: Metolius super cams. These things are packed with good ideas that come together into a terrible cam. They rack like crap and walk like crazy.
• Hand sized cams: red and orange totems. Totems rock! These rock slightly less, and again rack like crap if mixed with other cams. Plus in this size they don't offer a ton of advantages. Including the worst of the totems convinces people this is a serious rack rather than a jigsaw puzzle from hell.
• Thin hands: Green X4. Floppy.\
• Fingers: Trango Flexcams. Ew.
• Nuts: the biggest nuts are replaced with small hexes--nothing inherently wrong with them, but more finicky than large nuts and rarely opening up new options. Small nuts are plain gray BD standard nuts--again, nothing wrong with it, but the lack of color will annoy a few people and not quite as flexible as offsets or other nut designs.
• Slings: those tiny 30cm slings. IDK where you get them, I have one I bootied and it's awkwardly long to carry long, and awkwardly short and clumpy to carry folded into an alpine.
• All carabiners--racking cams and on slings--are Metolius FS minis, so that clipping the rope is an extra step in frustration.

This is quality right here, I hate it. Give me 30ft of 8mm cord for building my quad anchors (sarcasm) and I agree with the rest