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Branscomb
Trad climber
Lander, WY
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Nuts and pins were all we had to work with before Friends and I don't remember thinking about it a lot, I just did it. If I couldn't get something in a flare, I sucked it up and continued hoping I could, or backed off if I didn't feel good about it.
I've observed lately the huge (and expensive) double racks of cams that esp a lot of younger people take on climbs. Looks heavy as hell and I agree with Mister Hartouni that I feel I can climb better without all that gear hanging on me. Maybe that's just my failing mind though, there's too many pretty choices on the rack and my diminished mental status can't deal with it any more.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Maybe that's just my failing mind though, there's too many pretty choices on the rack and my diminished mental status can't deal with it any more
+1
John
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jstan
climber
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What little I have seen of late in climbing areas plus photos on ST suggest new people are having the same difficulty we all had when strange pieces of gear were thrown our way for the first time. We had little information with which to make apparently life and death decisions. It is exciting.
Any change in the amount of gear carried has to evolve over a period of time. You may go up with only one nut of a size for which you usually carry two. Very quickly you get in the habit of trying very hard not to use that particular piece. Lo and behold you get to the top and you still have not used it. When this happens you know there is a lot more you can do along these lines.
You gain confidence in yourself.
Weight is even more important in climbing than in backpacking. In backpacking you eliminate every fraction of an ounce you can. Jardine had a good attitude on this. When you are out 100 miles and you don't have a certain piece of gear - you don't need it do you?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Maybe I'm just young at heart. Nowadays I climb in the Gunks with one of those racks y'all are dumping on, a set of nuts, doubles in cams from smallest C3 up to green camalot, a red, a yellow, and sometimes a blue camalot, sometimes some ball nuts, twelve quick draws with super light biners and some over-the-shoulder slings. I've seen worse (e.g. the girl in Ed's picture), but that rack ain't small.
It is true that I often end up at the top of a pitch without having placed any of my fancy cams, which, using the Stannard metric, suggests that I'm lugging a whole bunch of stuff I don't need. But then there are pitches with almost every piece a cam. How did I do these BITD? With a lot less protection and a lot more effort to get in those opposed placements Pat mentions. I'm not nostalgic for those experiences. Placing small cams in shallow irregular cracks takes enough fiddling, thank you very much.
On multipitch climbs with trad anchors, you're gonna be using six pieces off your rack for belay stances (unless you're Donini and your blue Camalot is handy). That's going to leave a pretty big hole in a small rack.
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jstan
climber
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"They probably went on to say, ohh- look at that old "mountaineer" doood, how cute he can still get up here"
Ron you don't say what they were thinking next.
"Once he gets up there we can sling him off and cruise!"
BITD we'd use anything for pro.
Edit:
I'll take Rich's correction to heart. The strategy I described was what I used when trying to get my weight down. I am not saying anyone needs to cut down. If a person wants to reduce the burden what I did worked for me.
I still remember the time Rich was 70 feet out on loose rock, nothing in, while merrily humming. For the life of me I could not come up with a belay strategy. If I threw off the waist belay, lengthened my tie-in,yarded as fast as possible and successfully body tackled him beyond the ledge I was on, it still would not have worked.
The ground was only another 30 feet down.
I calculated I had only 2 seconds to yard in sixty feet and return to belay.
Nothing computed.
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Avajane
Trad climber
Seattle
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Learning to trust cams took me a long time. There was just something about a perfectly placed old number 7 stopper. You "knew" it could never come out. I never felt that secure with cams. That being said, when we got to include a number 4 friend on our "Nose" rack in 1979 it sure felt good. Almost like cheating. Just having that one piece gave us a psychological edge.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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At one time - I started climbing long after some here, although p'terodactyls were still nesting on the Chief - we were sometimes defeated by simple lack of equipment. Not enough, not the right kind, or both. Or had to make an effort to get whatever was needed. Or got creative. Apart from the wydefetishists and their esoterica, that doesn't often seem a problem any more - our society generally and climbers particularly are much wealthier.
Which is a problem in its own way, in that there's often too much consumer choice. Almost all the stuff is well made and will do whatever the job is. There are differences when it comes to the details, but they're rarely significant.
The spring that Friends became commonly available in BC, we all bought a few - our secret weapons, held in reserve.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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When I first led Supremacy Crack, fall 1966, with three pitons,
they were really difficult to get in. The quartizite crack doesn't
taper the way sandstone does, or granite, and it wasn't simply a matter
of whapping a nice piton in. They all stuck out half way and were
pretty dubious. It was ten times more exhausting getting in those
pitons than doing the climb. That day, Royal tried to get me to use
nuts he had brought with him from England. Whillans was with us,
and I assume he thought I should use nuts. Anyway, they were still too
foreign for me, on such severely overhanging rock. But soon
we started using nuts and then hexes, and it was much easier to do
Supremacy with nuts than with pitons. I recall Ed Webster leading
the crack one day, and I belayed him, and he easily flopped in
about ten nuts, one after another, about two or three feet apart.
He was in good shape. Then I did the climb with Lynn Hill, and
her hands... well they were like Friends. Where I had rattly knuckles
she sank her whole hand and forearm almost to the elbow. Totally
bomber. But she protected with a couple of Friends, easily shoved
in, almost anywhere. I then led it a few times with only Friends,
and it was so very much easier that way, just to slide in protection
anywhere the mood dictated. Rarely have I ever found R.P.s, nuts,
hexes, cams, Friends to make things harder. Usually they make things
easier than when we had only pitons. Webster did a lot of climbing
in the Gunks and was proficient with all kinds of natural
gear. I know Rich and John were masters of any kind of natural gear,
including of course nuts and cams.... Those two kind of act as though
they were mere beginners, but not so...
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