RRC Archives

The steel biners at the top of Chainsaw have been ther about 2 years and show signs of wear but still have some life left.

So a steel biner on the crux of Chainsaw might last 3-4 years while and aluminum might last 3 months during peak season.

Removing the draws I bet will be an endless cycle. Someone else will put them up and leave them and people will climb on them. And that's the reality.

I think that would be a good thing, from the respect that gear would not be left on routes long enough to deteriorate. Don't get me wrong, I think what you're trying to do is noble. It's a huge undertaking too. But from a safety standpoint, the safest thing is to use your own gear.

Having said that, I gave Dave money for biners.

When will you start equipping routes with ropes, too?

piggie as we know its the webbing that is the real issue not so much the metal. Once again we are confusing project draws with fixed draws...big difference. IMO the undertow wall does not warrent fixed draws and given the traffic that wall gets, fixed draws will have to be maintain seaonally(spring and fall).

I think we have to be careful with this subject. Putting better gear on routes with fixed gear can be precieved that "we" are responsible for the safety of others and we clearly are not. It must always be obvious that you assume all risk when trusting any fixed gear including bolts. I say just leave things the way they are. Every route I projected with fixed gear, I updated the gear if I felt it was necessary.

We only had enough ropes for the Infinity crag. You'll have to go there.

rhunt wrote: Putting better gear on routes with fixed gear can be precieved that "we" are responsible for the safety of others and we clearly are not.

"We" are taking responsibility for our own safety and fulfilling the requests of others who've paid for biners. Every person is still to assume that all gear pre-placed is abandoned gear and must take precautions.

I like fixed draws just like I like fixed biners at the top of a route. With both, I examine what I'm using and replace if necessary.

The RRG is a sport climbing mecca with steep, hard routes that are a pain to clean. "Permanently" equipping these routes is what the Red has become whether we like it or not. How we contribute to and work towards maintaining this is what we need to figure out and Meadows is tossing out a good option.

Thanks for the offer Meadows. Let me know if you can get Ray and me some. I can think of several routes I'd like to equip, such as Super Best Friends at the Solarium. That route is almost dangerous to clean.

I got stuck trying to clean a route this past weekend. The belayer was feeding me slack and it just made a big loop. I was bouncing in mid air trying to get the rope unstuck. Luckily I was able to pull in enough to clip into a bolt and deal with the rope. The same thing happened to a guy before me when he cleaned it. It has a big roof on it which creates hell on the rope going over the lip and up to the chains. Routes like that can really benefit from fixed draws.

Yo, good discussion.
Of course you are all wrong and I am right... heh

I think we are all on the same page here. (Although as I said, I don't think the undertow needs to be fixed, in the past it had project draws all over it during peak season.) And I do think that newbie climbers coming out of the gym these days do not make a connection that these draws are not fixed by the land owner and thus safe...this is just my opinion though. If there are truly some high traffic routes out there that need to be fixed, there are none webbing steel binner options.

So maybe a new standard for route developers is to fix a route with metal whenever clean is not reasonable.