jrathfon
Jun 4, 2008, 2:32 PM
Views: 1412
Registered: Jun 5, 2006
Posts: 494
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The first things I would add are a blue and green alien (one's that you feel comfortable with, i got like 02's). Some people love ball-nuts, but I think they are more of a specialty item, like a black alien, or an offset alien, or a #4 big-bro. You can get by without them on almost anything, and I'd only buy one for a specific route. Never never land at the gunks takes a ball-nut, but then again that section is 5.8 and you can do some nut jiggery in a horizontal, then blast up to the bolt before the 10a crux, so if you NEED the ball-nut, you shouldnt be on the route anyways. Definetly double up your stoppers from like 4-8. i.e. the sizes just below regular cams (green alien, .3 C4), those are the ones I find I use several times in a pitch. Brassies are nice (the free ones not the aid ones), though don't get placed often, but I feel would come more in handy than ball nuts or a #4 big bro. Getting a 2nd shape is good, but I got very familiar with BD stoppers, so I just carry doubles in those. After you get 2 small cams and 4 or 5 double nuts, get doubles for your .4 and .5 C4's! I place multiple purples and greys on most routes. It's all preference: in the east you don't need much big gear cause the OW's are usually short or have horizontals or fractures for small gear. I rarely leave the ground with a #3 C4 or bigger unless I know a route calls for it. When onsighting long multi-pitches I take a double rack of C4's from 0.4 to 2, a 0.3 C4, either/or a blue and green alien or a 0 and 1 C3 (same sizes), the same 4 tricams you got, and nuts: 3 brassies (smallest free), singles from 3-11 and doubles from 4-9. I'll add one or two #3's a #4, drop the small gear, leave the tricams depending. Tricams and nuts are awesome for belays, it allows you to save your real cams for those tough spots. When you carry a blue/green or 0/1 small cam combo, you've already doubled your 0.3 C4. I don't use nuts often (cams are much easier, more secure (can take outward pull), and quicker, especially for your 2nd, most of the time), when I do, its a perfect nut placement, or sh!t's to small to take a good cam. As far as aliens or C3's: C3's are bomber in granite or good rock. We have this crap gneiss around here that is sandy and is soft, trusting a 0 or even worse a 00 C3 is pretty bad. Blue (and in the worst case black) aliens are 4 lobed, which means you have 2 points of failure instead of 1. Last month I landed on a blue alien and 2 lobes pulled, but it still caught me, and was no worse for wear. Try that with a C3 and you'll go splat. But man I've put some bomber C3's in super tiny holes in granite and the gunks quartzite, so they have their place, I don't even take the aliens up granite any more. For slings on long multi-pitches with long pitches I'll take 10 trad draws and 2 double lengths, triple them like a trad draw, then twist it up and clip the one biner to the other. That way if you run out of singles, you can just clip the double on and unclip the one biner, instant single length, to super-extend from there, just pull out the tripling. That's me on 150ft pitches with no idea what to take, save that I'm not hitting OW. I will pear down considerably for shorter single pitches, things I'm red-pointing, knowingly thin routes, etc.
(This post was edited by jrathfon on Jun 4, 2008, 2:39 PM)
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