Tricams....A thing of the past?

Another day, another Tricam in a weird pocket that wouldn't take anything else.

Haha...I love how tricam placements can look super sketchy and yef be super bomber.

Here's my "glad I had a tri-cam photo

And here's my "I wish we'd brought tri-cams instead of cams" photo

Living in Western North Carolina, Tricams are used often. We use them so often they are my kids favorite protection to place.

Mind you he's only 6ft up.

J. Serpico wrote:You'd be surprised how many routes don't need cams to be safely led.

You'd be amazed at how many routes were safely led before cams - like all of them.

I truly hope that this thread inspires a few people to pick up a couple of tricams and give them a go. I learned trad when living in the midwest from an east coast climber and learned the beautiful ways the tricam. When I moved west with a black-blue (with dbls of pink) rack of tricams on my rack, I was either greeted with curiosity or repugnance from my western partners. I immediately learned to ignore their advice and never leave my tricams on the ground.

Yosemite - eats them like a midwestern family in a china buffet on crab leg night.

Zion - if a tricam were a dinosaur, it'd be clutch-isaurus rex (horizontals, rotten rock, iron bands, aid pieces, and anchors. My arse was saved by a red on Vernal Equinox)

Jtree - the flared or jagged granite funkness sections gobble a tricam faster than [edited for adult content].
Desert towers - where they can truly shine in my opinion. Dirty soft choss or where one size crack meets a horizontal and transitions into a different size. Toss one in there, after all you aren't planning on falling.

Ibex - wanna venture off the beautiful bolted lines for some quartzite cracks? Having a set of TCs on the irregular nature of quartzite cracks made me happier than a [edited] billy goat with a bucket full of quarters on nickel night at the [edited].

Indian Creek - well...ok...I'll give you that one...sometimes!

Basically, don't confuse the fact that no one you know uses them with opinion that this must mean they aren't useful in [insert destination]. With a little practice, they are easy to place one-handed on lead and possible to clean one handed. If you are having trouble cleaning tricams, then you should have led the pitch or embraced the dark side.

finding a little mental pro in red rocks with a magic sliding X

They were excellent this weekend in the gunks

BSU_Zac wrote: finding a little mental pro in red rocks with a magic sliding X

While the tri-cam may indeed be "mental pro" I am not sure why you even placed that cam and hope you had limiting knots on that sling.

Rick Blair wrote: ...I am not sure why you even placed that cam and hope you had limiting knots on that sling.

No kidding. The tricam looks as if it might be good---if the rock is up to the task. The cam appears very nearly tipped out. "Equalizing" pieces of substantially different holding powers is a bad idea, as it subjects the "good" piece to extra loading from the extension that occurs when the bad piece fails. This is a situation in which a sliding X, even with limiter knots, is not the right call. The two slings on the pro are very nearly the same length and the placements are right next to each other. It would have been better to clip both slings to a single draw.

youtube.com/watch?v=xfBWM6L…
1:25
bomber, possibly..

Wilson On The Drums wrote:, possibly..

Wiggled a little space, set the fulcrum point..... definitely. On a side note I always thought my cam wiggling after placing was doable because i climb easy stuff. Glad to see a badass like this does.

I carry them on wandering ice routes in thin conditions. Lightweight way to have some decent rock pro suitable for icy cracks. Also, anything alpine where I'm using a light rack - save the cams for the next pitch by using tricams at anchors.

Or yeah, for novelty at the Gunks / Seneca. But rarely.

If you look closely you will see a "Brown Tricam" supporting a nut in VERY soft rock.

Roy Suggett wrote:I you look closely you will see a "Brown Tricam" supporting a nut in VERY soft rock.

What kind of rock is that?!?! Looks like chalk! Looks ridiculous.

Roy Suggett wrote:I you look closely you will see a "Brown Tricam" supporting a nut in VERY soft rock.

I see biner-to-biner. Yer Gonna Die!!!

Rick, you are right! Chalk with a mix of sand. Mike, you are right! This was an FA aid tower and I was begging to add more while I took the pic.

BSU_Zac wrote: finding a little mental pro in red rocks with a magic sliding X

Yeah, the sliding-x isn't going to help that placement. Both pieces are undersized. It looks like you'd want the larger green on the tricam and you'd want it inverted from the one in the pic.

The two pieces fit well and were the best options at the time. Recall that they were stood on prior to moving left.

I don't doubt you could stand on it, but the tricam in that config at RR may or may not rip out the rock in a significant fall, I'd bet 50/50 at best. The cam could overexpand and end up a passive placement or way tipped out but, given it's a camalot, it probably would have better odds than the tricam.

If that's all I had I'd go with it no doubt, but not with the sliding-x because if the tricam did blow, the extension drop on the cam would be significant.

It was just a nut and a tricam that could have the webbing and wires respectively fit through the seam below allowing for a downward pull and movement left. And, the further that you can place gear into this NOT ROCK the better. The edges of that crack you can see in the picture can be snapped off with a child's hand. Yeah...I know...why was I there?