Here I rigged his exact setup including how he racks at the very bottom. If you look at the two above his rack the Camalot 4 and 5 there's no noticeable difference. One is a 12" sling doubled the other is a regular length BD draw.

His rack looks like it' has two Camalots and a draw. He clips one of the two re-racks the other clips in and he's gone.

Pardon me for challenging the neo-canon of rock climbing, but the reason you extend a placement is to minimize rope drag, but by extending, you increase the length of any fall. Thus, if you know you need to extend, it makes sense to have many options for how much you extend by. Unless your quickdraws magically stiffen the cam sling or so completely fail to extend the placement that the nut is walked out by the stiff sling, they are certainly sufficient for extending a placement. The reason most trad climbers don't carry them has NOTHING to do with the stiffness of the sling. It is because such short slings are relatively specialized when you get a multi-use tool with a long sling that you can shorten. Why carry a heavier single-use tool when you could carry a multi-use tool for the same weight, right?

Just like it bugs me that we have an entire generation of climbers chanting "trad-draw!" when its just a sling, it bugs me that we have an entire generation of climbers convinced that if they clip their quickdraws to anything but bolts, western civilization will fall. Use your brains for a second and really think about what it is you're saying.

As far as pre-racking slings on pieces, I do it all the time on routes whose sling length I know very well. Hell, climbing in the Flatirons above Boulder, CO, its worthwhile to put everything on a shoulder length sling before you leave the ground.

There isn't a problem using sport draws in place of extendable runners IN THE RIGHT SITUATION. You obviously don't understand why you extend slings on gear in the first place, otherwise you would understand the situation where using a stiffer draw would be okay.

There's nothing "wrong" with this. It looks like it would become a clusterfuck to me, but if you really want to try it then knock yourself out.

Why carry a heavier single-use tool when you could carry a multi-use tool for the same weight, right?

Climbing isn't religion

Ah! I see where you went wrong now....

DMT

Hallelujah! I should take a "religious holiday" whenever the weather is as perfect as today!

Yes you should do that... right now. GO!

Tell em your Spiritual Advisor issued a prescription.

DMT

There are plenty of times where clipping into gear with a quickdraw is fine, but I can't think of a time where it would be optimal unless you were clipping a bolt.

I've found that clipping nuts with a quickdraw on relatively rope-drag free pitches meant that I had to carry less weight to ensure that the nut didn't get wiggled out by regular rope drag.

In that case, a doubled or tripled sling would increase the cluster-fuck probabilities (somebody once called this your coefficient of wank, but I dare not summon him) whereas the simple quickdraw would not.

Now I'll drop my secret. He explained that sometimes he will rack up that way to lure people into conversation.

I've found that clipping nuts with a quickdraw on relatively rope-drag free pitches meant that I had to carry less weight to ensure that the nut didn't get wiggled out by regular rope drag.

Sometimes I clip all my draws, sport, trad and even my bouldering draws, together end to end as a chain. Then I wrap that chain around my waist.

As I climb I simply take the end draw off the chain and clip it to the piece.

Now sometimes the next draw isn't suitable for the placement, in which case I TOSS the useless sonofabitch and peel off the next one, like terlit paper.

DMT

So yesterday I was out doing some trad work

Need to re rack the unused piece, resulting in gear racked in a couple of ways (on draw or re racked without one) and forcing you to fiddle around getting it back in order.

That is absolutely true... in principle. In fact, I did that for years, and when climbing, I pretty much always took between one and three quickdraws in place the same number of standard tripled draws.

But after a while I noticed that the sport draws were often the last draw left on my harness as I finished the pitch (because there happened to be no such "perfect" nut placements with zero chance of rope drag on that pitch), and I needed a real draw, and didn't have any.

So I ditched the QDs in favor of regular tripled draws that were more useful.

It ways a few grams more, but want a tip? You can (and I do!) save far more weight by leaving behind a few biners. I carry three draws over my shoulder with only one biner on each. Those go on cams. Much better way to save a few ounces.

To the OP - sounds like you would have been a sucker for snake-oil salesmen back in the day. Did this guy have a glint in his eye that seemed irresistable? His system obviously sucks. Don't listen to the rest of us - even he told you he just does it just for yuks. But nevertheless, you like it.

I don't think all of the rest of us are moonies who have drunk the "we must all think the same" cool-aid. I think you have a man-crush.

GO

My point was that dogmatically saying "DRAWS ARE BAD!" and then using faulty reasoning to justify not carrying perfectly good climbing gear is a tactic one typically associates with utter neophytes, but I see otherwise very experienced climbers chanting precisely that.

I am, however, not denying that short draws as such remain a specialty piece, and in general, I only carry a few and typically wind up using them on any nuts I put in an anchor. However, there is one route at Vedauwoo that I consistently prerig a cam on a quickdraw so that I won't hit a ledge if I blow it before my next piece (its close enough that a full length sling would cause a ground fall), because a tripled sling takes just a little bit more time to fiddle with, and its kind of a pumpy position.

Not all the time, and not even that often, but it still happens.

My point was that dogmatically saying "DRAWS ARE BAD!" and then using faulty reasoning to justify not carrying perfectly good climbing gear is a tactic one typically associates with utter neophytes, but I see otherwise very experienced climbers chanting precisely that.