It's a tradition at Indian Creek, and due to the extremely large number of the same size cams typically used on some routes, it makes sense to mention that you need 8 each of 2 and 3 inch pieces.

On the other hand, they haven't gotten their act together on cam sizes, especially since no one knows Friend sizes anymore. But even when you carefully standardize the cam sizes and use the actual crack size as the gauge (like we do with Supertopo guidebooks), people still ignore the intro cam chart and mess it up (like a couple of my friends did, seeing 0.4" pro on the Freeblast topo, and bringing down to a #0.4 Camalot - which is 0.75" pro).

And when the new extended range cams come into the picture, those charts are going to be a nightmare to make and even worse to read. It will probably have to go to actual crack size as the only way to figure out what you want...

If the guidebook says "bring x number of 0.4"...what the hell does that mean? To my knowledge, there is not 0.4 Friend.

And if the stupid chart only includes every other BD Camalot size...what the hell does that mean?

As far as rack specific beta, you haven't spent much time there or you wouldn't complain about it.

I want to be lazy like the rest of you, but I'm too much of a gumby to figure out the stupid chart...please help me!

I wish they never would have made a guidebook to the place. Here I am showing my age and fondness for times gone by, but I can't begin to describe how cool it was to climb there in the early 80's exploring some of the less travelled walls looking for new routes, climbing a route only to find a lone machine bolt anchor from SH....Pretty pictures are nice but the age of exploration of crags is swiftly dissapearing. Yes there are miles of cliffs in southern Utah but it definitely is a finite resource. Think I will sink back to my rocking chair...

I don't mean to be rude, but maybe you're over reacting a bit though.

I guess I agree with you, but I've never had a problem figuring out the pro.

I don't have a problem figuring out the pro either, I just look at the crack. My point is, since I've written a guidebook myself, why include a chart that is worthless and gear beta that recommends cams that don't exist?

Quick note on the Supertopo chart - whats up with the "pink" .5 camalot - its purple and everyone knows that. It's been in the cart FOREVER and in all the new updates as well.

Sorry about that, my guess is Chris bootied some old sun-bleached .5 and it looks pink, and he never fixed it the chart.

Good guess Greg and for what it's worth we're sticking with pink. I just took a look at the proof(sitting on my desk) for the BigWalls edition2 which went to the printer last week. Still pink. ;)

Valid question but why not ask the author instead of the RC.com population at large. Surely, you knew you were going to get these kind of responses.

Besides, if you've written a guidbook you already know the answer. Rockclimbing guidebook authors can be very lazy and who can blame them. There's not much money in it and ultimateley they'd rather be climbing.

I have my book with me today, so I can be more specific, here's the gear list for "Death of a Cowboy":

(1)0.4 (4)0.5 (1)0.75 (1)1.0 (1)2.0 (2)2.5 (2)2.5 (4)3.0 (3)3.5

...I want to see what you guys come up with from that list, and I'll tell you if that's what I ended up using.

i'm sorry, i know this has nothing to do with anything, but could all those in this thread who insist on calling rockprodigy "gumby", or asserting that he is not a "real climber" (tm), please go free an aid line up el cap or somewhere in zion, and get back to me.

please.

thank you.

Yeah, I want to see one of these guys climb a crack at Indian Creek that is anywhere near .3-.4 inches. You can then call rockprodigy whatever you want. I

[



And then there is the person who thinks a .4 friend is a 00 tcu!!!

Gumbieville it is.

I got it, somebody wrote a new guidebook and that changed the size of the crack. That doesn't make much sense.

Hey that's me and I'm not a gumby. The 0.4 Friend which we have already established does not exist is somewhere in the range of of a #0 TCU. If I was climbing a crack that required multiple units of that size then I would also take a couple #00 because they may fit better in certain spots (even IC cracks vary sizes a little). I never made the statement that a 0.4 Friend is equal to a #00 TCU. This previously helpful thread is turning into a bunch of insults and elitism. I'm out.

Most prominently, Incredible Hand Crack has been eroded to to a solid-wide #2 Camalot size, from a snug 2.5 Friend size.

For myself that makes a .4 friend = a green alien

Well that's the exact problem, what do you base that on?

The published range of a green alien is 0.5-.86, where does 0.4 fit into that?

If it was a hypothetical size following the convention of Friend sizing, where the size roughly equates to the cam fully expanded, than a 00 TCU can make sense (published range of .35-.53). If anything it's too big.

Now if you are to factor in the the .5 friend doesn't really folowing that convention and has a range of .67-.94, it gets a tad confusing.

Perhaps a .4 friend size is meant to be = to a 0 friend. But than why not just say so. If this is the case than green alien may make more sense...

So why ramble on like that? To illustrate that Rockprodigy's point is valid, the chart can lead to confusion. And it is reasonable to expect that if you are going to go through the effort, than why not do it right? Even if the Author is a good guy, I'm sure he is, the point is still valid.

I lean towards the idea that the block has shifted, more so then just being due to wear and tear.

Well, so much for my hope that this forum could be helpful....

Dude, for someone that can write well, you don't communicate well. But you do seem to have a knack for confusing things.

My suggestion would be to actually place the cams in a crack and that should clear up most of your confusion.

Dude, for someone that can write well, you don't communicate well. But you do seem to have a knack for confusing things.
My suggestion would be to actually place the cams in a crack and that should clear up most of your confusion.

Let's see, a .5 friend is a little to large. What should I do? Where's my cam chart?

You are hopeless if you do not even know your own rack. There have been any number of cam charts over the years. None of them have been very accurate, why should his be any different? The climbing mags have access to all the gear out there yet they haven't done it. One person actually sat down and measured all the cams, then skewed the data to suit his own prejudices.

Cracks do not lie. Either the cam fits or it doesn't. Simple.

The guy put his heart and sole into the book; cut him some slack.

So the bottom line is that you guys consider this to be inadequate gear beta.

Death of a cowboy:
(1)0.4 (4)0.5 (1)0.75 (1)1.0 (1)2.0 (2)2.5 (2)2.5 (4)3.0 (3)3.5

The best gear beta of any crag that I have ever heard of and you guys find it lacking.

This is the first time I have ever heard of an experienced climber being confused about what a .4 friend is.

This is the first time I have ever heard of an experienced climber being confused about what a .4 friend is.

Are you f'ing kidding me? You're joking right?

Not at all.

.4 friend size as a descriptive term, is at least ten years old. Another commonly used term was a "tips crack."

And for the last time since many of you seem stuck on this problem. The .5 in .5 friend has nothing to do with inches. You would think that people would have figured that out when they came out with a zero.

i've never seen a good cam chart.

Ok, since you seem to be so in the know, where does a .75 friend fit into it all, say relative to a .5 and a 1 friend?

And is that "0.4 friend" a descriptive term for a 0 friend?

Please enlighten me.

Ok, since you seem to be so in the know, where does a .75 friend fit into it all, say relative to a .5 and a 1 friend?

I think it would have been much more useful to use size (inches or centimeters) rather
than refer to one specific manufacturer's camming units.

Then there were TCU's and climbers were so happy because then they didnt get the shit scared out of them and have to try and stick a stopper in the crack.

You have to be responsible and tell me when you need to go potty so I can stop the car and you have to be responsible for picking the right cam because the grownups might be wrong....in fact, many other grownups have been wrong because they are learning too...So sorry.... :cry:

Bachelor Party at the Cat wall is a .3-.4" crack (at the crux) I used borrowed aliens.
If the guide said .4 I'd try a purple metolious and go from there.
go climbing

Do you have the measurements(open, closed, and usable open and closed) of all your cams memorized?

So you want the guidebook to provide cam placements in inches. Then you are going to use a chart to figure out which cams to bring.

What do you do with a #2 friend sized crack and a rack of camalots. Would that be a gold or a red, either could work by the numbers. As a matter of fact most likely it wouldn't be either at a place like the creek.

Like I said before. You have to understand your tools in order to use them properly. Most places you can get away with being sloppy. IC is not most places.

That's why I think the whole enterprise of giving exact gear beta is hopeless. Just go climb the thing and figure it out for yourself, why submit yourself to teh possibility of an error?

If the guidebook says "bring x number of 0.4"...what the hell does that mean? To my knowledge, there is not 0.4 Friend.

For example, when it tells me to bring 4 #0.4's on "Death of a Cowboy", I don't really know what means.

Maybe the only reason I have this problem is because I'm the only person to be climbing the 0.4 Friend sized cracks? Who knows?

I have my book with me today, so I can be more specific, here's the gear list for "Death of a Cowboy":

(1)0.4 (4)0.5 (1)0.75 (1)1.0 (1)2.0 (2)2.5 (2)2.5 (4)3.0 (3)3.5

I do not own an equivalent to a .75 friend size cam.

If I was interested in getting one I would buy a grey alien as that was what it was made for.

Interesting... lets see, the published range for a .5 friend is .67-.94 and the published range for a 1 friend is .75-1.14. Sounds good, nice overlap, no need for another piece in there.

But wait, as you suggest, I could slip in a grey alien, which has a range of... drum roll please... .78-1.12.

Idiot! God! (ala Napolian Dynamite)

Sorry to say but you illustrate the point perfectly. The sizing provided in the guide book for below a 1 friend, if viewed in the context of friend sizing, is inaccurate. Period, end of story.

Now according to your apples and oranges numbers; A grey alien, red alien and a number 1 friend are all the same size. Sure thing.

It is amazing how much trouble people are having with a simple problem of which cams are larger then which.

I guess the bottom line is that the descriptive term .4 friend size is beyond your intelectual capibilities.

To me, a .4 friend means a 3/8 inch piece, or a blue alien, or a .4 wired bliss tcu.

To you, it means a green alien. And in the context of this guidebook, you are wrong.

Do you have the measurements(open, closed, and usable open and closed) of all your cams memorized?

So you want the guidebook to provide cam placements in inches. Then you are going to use a chart to figure out which cams to bring.

What do you do with a #2 friend sized crack and a rack of camalots. Would that be a gold or a red, either could work by the numbers. As a matter of fact most likely it wouldn't be either at a place like the creek.

Like I said before. You have to understand your tools in order to use them properly. Most places you can get away with being sloppy. IC is not most places.

Unless the crack is so tight you worry about fixing the piece, a red BD is fully interchangable with a #2 friend. Use a green BD if it is truly that tight. A 1.5 friend is disappointingly smaller than a #2 friend. An orange alien fixes this problem. With more than 1 day in the desert, you'd know this.

re: rockies problem. It seems that he doesn't just not know what a .4 friend is, he doesn't know how big a #3 friend is either. The from a 5.13 climber that has climbed all over the place, in all styles, since the 7th grade.

OK, if you've seen the new Indian Creek guidebook from Sharpend, the introduction states that all gear beta will be reported in Wild Country "Friend" sizes, because of traditions. Then, there is this completely hoakey chart which supposedly compares the different sizes.

Can anyone please explain this to me? The chart is missing numerous sizes, then occasionally, the book will reccomend a cam size that doesn't exist in WC sizes, i.e., a "#0.4". What does all this mean?

I kinda think giving out specific beta, as in "bring 7 2.5 friends" is pretty stupid in the first place...what's wrong with saying "gear to 3", extra 2.5's"? But, if you're going to try to do it, at least have it make sense!

rockprodigy is right on, and possibly the most accomplished alpine climber on this site. i often don't like his attitude, but i sure as hell listen to whatever he says. you should too.

I want YOU to tell me what a 3.0 friend is based on the chart, since you think it's so freaking simple, a monkey could do it.

Weight and bulk should be considered. It makes a huge difference when you are carrying 10+ units. I just sold my Camalots to buy some "cheaper" cams, mainly for size and weight. I'm glad I did.

I am just curious to see if you dumped your camalots?

Alpnclmr1, read it again. Jacka$$.

You've really turned the heat up on this one. So I'm going to bow out. :lol: :roll: Not to mention it is just getting plain strange.

Actually, I think you are a rather odd fellow and you are starting to creep me out. Pouring over my posts from years ago. Next you'll google my name, perhaps dig up some real dirt. And then I'll come home to rabbit boiling on my stove.

Friggin' waco!

did you free the rainbow wall? if so, did you need a .4 friend on it?

I have decided that if you post idiotic crap on this site, I am going to call you on it. I will make an effort to be as polite as possible when I am calling someone an idiot, but that can be difficult. The authority I am basing that on is a vested interest in a site that chooses to call itself rockclimbing.com Even if i do not have any legal rights in that regard, I still feel that i have somewhat of a moral obligation to do what i can.

Guess what, most people use aliens for the smaller sized cams and the beta reflects that. ,5 friend = yellow, .4 = green, .3 = blue.
Duh. It's not that complicated.