RRC Archives

The best option is the competency to use as many different tools available to you, and the experience to know what to take with you for each route.

Around the red both nuts and cams make me nervous unless they are ideal. I like tcu's and have discovered a newfound love of aliens. Good nut placements are fine, but not so common around here when compared to other areas I've visited.

rhunt, Maybe, but remember that cams place a whole lotta outward force on the rock around them as the are weighted in a fall, and with such small margin for error with the smallest cams, it could be enough to crush the soft rock around the placement, allowing it to fail. That said, I have fallen on the blue tcu many times, and the 0 and even 00 a couple times, though those were not very big falls, and there was a back up piece. I did explode an orange tcu placement at Indian Creek UT a year ago, but it wasn't a very good placement to begin with.

Heres the thing... If you're competent at placing passive gear... it can become nearly as fast as placing a cam.

As Wes said, Synchronicity and Jack the Ripper go easier on nuts. Period. Can they be done with all cams? Sure. They can also be done with knotted slings or slung machine bolts if you want. The fact is, passive gear, when placed properly, is as safe or safer than the best cam placement.

But if you don't take the time to learn the art, then its your loss...

TradMike wrote:

512OW wrote:

TradMike wrote: Everything will go all cams in the Red much faster and easier.

Not a chance. You obviously haven't led too terribly many trad routes in the Red...

Name a couple that can't. We will see.

Sweet. How about this. You said faster and easier. Name ANY trad route in the Red and I'll see if I can't climb it faster and easier, on all passive pro, than you can with all cams.

Please, please.... name something.

That project at the surf.

Andrew wrote:That project at the surf.

I'll supply the stopwatch and play referee if you will help me carry them out.

Project at the surf? I did that thing after warmin up on your 11. The quality of your route left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had to do Ricks project to cleanse my pallete.

Kris: not true-- it is a well-known fact that passive pro requires 47.8% more jerk testing than active pro, and is thus not faster to place.

You jerk test active pro?

I don't know how much force your excerting but its probably not enough to keep a cam from working. Or something like that.