Anyone trad climb without cams?

Will Anglin wrote: Let's be honest, hexes? They don't make you cool, they make you slow. More secure? No way. When I started climbing I was almost brainwashed into the "olds cool"-"The leader must not fall"-"hexes are bad ass"-"look out for those new fangled springy things" mentality. This is 2010 guys. Sure, everyone should be competent when it comes to passive pro, has that ever really been up for discussion? If you like to lead on all passive pro just for the hell of it, thats great, just don't get all 'holier than thou'. If you lead on passive pro only because you think cams are 'unsafe' or 'inferior' you are foolish. "I was stupid and placed it behind a loose block, so I don't really trust all of them as much as a great stopper." -Jim Gloeckler It wasn't the cam's fault it was yours,

I'm with you Will- I can go weeks of climbing without carrying passive gear and falling on trad is cool (seriously). Passive works great and is often the necessary piece, but well placed cams are sweet and FWIW I've done 75% of the routes at Lumpy, and all without the need for an offset cam...haven't carried a hex since '94 (left them all as rap anchors in patagonia and never replaced any). Cow bells are for cows. If I want a challenge I'll climb something near my limit, not bring inferior gear...we're not still using Macintoch 64's or whatever those were called back in the 80's?
And I've placed (and replaced) more than a few bolts, so take it easy on me Jon:)

Hey all. I have definitely evolved: going from using almost all passive gear to placing passive stuff only when there is ABSOLUTELY no other option. Would much rather climb harder and farther than to prove that I am old school.

Funny. I lived in England in 2006 and my buddies there and most climbers I saw were all about hexes and nuts. They drove me a bit bonkers with trying to remove all that stuff, and I was reminded why I was cured. I climb a little slow to begin with, but nuts and hexes just KILL your speed on long routes. I think those first climbing days, when I started placing 150-200 pieces in a day, is when I saw the light.

CAM me BABY!

Cheers from Osaka,
john

One lost arrow pulled from my dead grandfather's rectum upon autopsy was all I had for 10 years of climbing. During WW2 when climbing was prohibited, my grandfather swallowed the piton, which killed him. We used bowlines around each waist and simul-climbed with my mother's clothesline. we brought my father's sledge to drive the LA in every once in a while, which we linked with a piece of wire we found by the Baldpate. We couldn't afford slippers either, so we climbed barefoot.

In the era of 'go light' sport routes where a 4 gram difference on your 'biners gets people all upset, just think of all the weight you save if you can dump 15 cams and carry various stoppers instead. Agree they work best in certain cracks, and you just can't beat the quickness of a cam when in a tight jam. Mix up that rack with an assortment of gear, but don't ditch the oldies' because you want to look 2010 climbing fashionable.

When I first started i learned on nuts and hexes. That was it. Now I've left the nuts and hexes and pretty much use lowe tri-cams and active cams.

I find that not only is my climbing enhanced through rigid adherence to arbitrary and absolutist declarations, but my sense of personal superiority is reinforced as well!

I used passive pro 100% of the time... until Ray Jardine invented Friends. Never leave home without'em now.

I still place chocks whenever the situation allows, I trust'em as much as cams, it just usually takes a little longer to set'em.

Pro is pro as long as it's good.

Rob Dillon wrote:I find that not only is my climbing enhanced through rigid adherence to arbitrary and absolutist declarations, but my sense of personal superiority is reinforced as well!

haha

I think the argument that "this is 2010 get with the program" is about as silly as it gets. Its safe, it still works, so what is your problem with it?

I think using mostly passive makes me a better climber, and is far more mentally demanding then just slotting cams.

besides there is something to be said about the aestetic of passive gear.

On a slightly different note, I'm not so sure I trust those skinny new nylon ropes. A bright orange 9.5 mm rope just doesn't give me the confidence that a 11 mm hemp rope does. And besides, all that fancy fall testing that they do on these new ropes just takes some of the excitement out of climbing. Am I wrong?

I think if you're gonna climb half-rope routes in, say, Wisconsin, the careful crafting of artful nut placements might contribute to a satisfying day.

When dusk finds you halfway up a 1500-foot wall in the Black, yanking on your partner's artful stopper work, it might be time to seek other methods of getting the job done.

I started climbing in the 70's with a rack of stoppers and hexes including the small-wire sizes below. When Friends came out I thought, "What is this junk? To many moving parts".
That thought lasted about a week. I bought my first set of Friends and my grade jumped two levels. I still have stoppers on my rack, along with a set of Camalots, but the hexes are in the bottom of an old Forrest Haul Bag. Don't get any ideas; they're not for sale.

Wired Hexes

I think that passive pro can only make you a stronger climber. everyone's arguments against it seem only to be arguments for it.

1. It takes longer to place. Seems to me that this will only make you stronger/give you greater stamina when you're climbing with active(speedy) pro.

2. It's old school get with the program. HAHA,I think this is funny for a lot of reasons but still i think it's good to pay tribute and realize how far climbing technology has come and to appreciate the FAers of some of these routes that we climb.

3. It's inferior. This too is fairly laughable, anyone who as taken a fall onto passive pro will tell you that a catch is a catch. I'm just has happy to have been caught by a stopper in dakota as i was to be caught by a .3 in granite. If it works it works is my opinion.

I like to use what works best for what I'm doing. As i like to say, exceptions make the rule.

First rack

____

jon vandub wrote: this is a little off the subject i find it hard to listen to somebody who can challenge other people to do things while they themselves put bolts next to cracks and good placements, and cant even man up to it! It bothers me to know that people do things like this for MONEY!!! Sorry BG but discretion with bolts is JUST AS important as leading with p\p !!! You should not have given your two cents towards this subject after bolting the hell out of the december wall up hwy 7!!! there is a walk-off therefore rap anchors are an eyesore and a waste of metal and rock. I dont care about your guide, i refuse to buy it for the above reasons!

YIKES! My apologies, Jon, if my post upset you. I'm not sure it will help, but here are some responses to your observations.

1) The challenge I suggested was not meant to be interpreted as "hey, check out what I've done; let's see if you can do it, punk" (by your tone, that seems to be the way you have taken it). Rather, a guy from WI (my home state) asked whether people out there still used nothing but passive protection. Because I play that game now and again, I thought I'd share an experience I had on the Naked Edge. I enjoyed my day up there (very much so, in fact), and I figured others who like to use passive protection would appreciate hearing the story. If it came across as pompous, you may have read more into it than I intended. If you would prefer that I remove my post, let me know; I can delete it as easily as I posted it.

2) I'm not sure what you mean when you say I should "man up to it." Does this mean that you'd like me to confess that I've placed a bunch of bolts (despite the fact that I enjoy climbing with passive protection)? I think it's pretty clear I've placed bolts over the years -- I did, after all, publish several guide books that have my name attached to all routes where bolts were part of the picture. It's not as though I'm hiding that fact. If you find the bolts on December Wall offensive, walk to the top of the cliff, bring a wrench, and remove the bolts (please patch the holes). I don't claim to own that cliff, and if you and other members of the community would prefer to return Dec. Wall to its state before I added some bolts, I don't have a problem with that. Heck, if you can convince me that my bolts have crossed the lines of good taste, I may even be willing to help you with the task of removing them.

I like passive protection, I like cams (read my post and you'll see I said "It's all good"), I like clipping bolts, I like ice climbing (don't do much of it these days), I like mixed climbing (ditto), I like hiking in the woods with my kids, and scrambling up mountains... Again, I don't think this is a secret; people know this about me. All facets of the climbing game have intrigued me for many years, and I don't have a problem with living in both worlds (climbing the Naked Edge on passive pro one day, and clipping/rappelling from bolts you deem objectionable when spending the day at Dec. Wall). I'm not sure what it is about me that seems to be confusing you -- I've never claimed to be a purist (though I'll admit I was bothered by the whole bolting issue in my youth when the debates about their merit raged; I've gotten over it for the most part).

3) Yes, I do make money from the sales of my guide books. However, I can assure you that this has never been the prime motivation for writing them. For me, it's always been a creative outlet, and I like sharing my knowledge with the rest of the community. I think there's a perception out there that guide book authors make a lot of money -- they don't. When you buy a guide book for, say, $30, most of that goes to the retailer (on the order of $13-14), some of it goes to the distributor (about $5), and the rest goes to the publisher and author (depends on the contract, but trust me when I tell you that the author is ALWAYS at the bottom of the totem pole). The author's cut on a paper back is roughly 7% to 18% of retail; I make about $3 per book on my RMNP guides, and more on my St Vrain guides (because I put up the money to publish the St Vrain guide). I suppose you might find someone very successful authors (e.g. Stephen King) who can command a bigger cut, but most authors make a very small percentage of the retail money that you spend at the cash register. The only way authors can make a lot of money is to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a single book, or have several titles selling at the same time. The climbing market is very small: I just received on Friday a check from my RMNP publisher for $570, along with my year total statement for tax purposes (about $1600). I'm still in the hole with my St Vrain guides, and may find that my investment will not pay off -- it'll probably take another two years before I break even (knock on wood). The Internet (sites like this one) has cut into book sales, and I'm not sure how that will all pan out. I'm not too worried about it; I wrote my St Vrain guide because I like to write, not out of any desire to make money. In any case, my message: if you think I am hauling in tons of cash from my guide books, you are sadly mistaken. On a good year, with three books on the market, I might make $3000. I've got my wife and 5 kids to support, and the only thing $3000 does for me is support my climbing habit. For comparison: someone making $60K per year with 3-4 wks vacation brings in $3000 in about 2 weeks of work; I'll be keeping my day job for a while. (And if you took all the money -- it's not much -- that I've made over the years on guide books, and divided it by the countless hours it takes to produce one, you'd realize I've been working for ... I don't know ... maybe $1/hr??? Probably less than that. It's a joke; writing a guide is a labor of love).

4) I'm sorry to hear you are so pissed off at me that you won't consider buying my guide (not because of the lost sale, which means nothing to me, but because I've pissed you off; I don't want to be the guy who takes away the enjoyment of life from another person). In the interest of patching things up, allow me to wish you a fine day.

5) Finally, I'm not sure what you meant by "...JUST AS important as leading with p\p !!!" -- can't figure out what p\p means. If you'd like to fill me in, go for it.

I may delete these posts after you've had the time to read them; don't want to upset anybody else out there who shares your opinion.

Bernard Gillett wrote: 5) Finally, I'm not sure what you meant by "...JUST AS important as leading with p\p !!!" -- can't figure out what p\p means.

I think he's saying passive protection.

Well worded retort. Bummer you don't make more per book man.

Bernard,
Thanks for being the man I know you are and responding that way. Some day, on my better days, I hope to develop that level of patience and objectivity.

It's an old fart opinion but, "the less parts something has, the less things there are to fail".

It was so much easier working on my old 63 Chevy pickup, I could actually open the hood and fix things. Nowadays, I open the hood and I might as well be looking into the Engineering Section of the Enterprise.

I leave the active cams at home when I climb on east face slabs in The Flatirons.
Stoppers and Tricams only.
I am an advocate for all sizes of the Tricams, not just the pink and reds.
Even the #7 works where nothing else will and you can stack the three largest sizes (5,6 and 7).

My main climbing partner learned on Pins. There was even a day before nuts. In the history of it all nuts had a very short reign despite what the "Back in the Seventies" crowd would have you think - not even 10 years. There was a back in the day before back in the day and people from then are still climbing. My partner admits to not having trusted nuts at first and then cams seemed scary to him. Now he is happy to slam cams all the way up a route, which is great for me since he really sets his passive pro with resolve.

He has told me that gear improvements have upped his climbing abilities every step of the way. Imagine slamming pins on a steep climb in which you cannot let go with both hands - impossible. Imagine climbing Indian Creek on hexes - even the FA of those routes admit their safety was questionable.

I think deep in his mind he is dreaming of the security of slamming a pin home every time he tries to slot a questionable modern gear placement.

Tradster wrote:'When in doubt, run it out' saved my ass from flaming out while trying to get in a manky piece of pro. I'm glad to reach down and have a nice selection of cams to use these days. I wouldn't really recommend the old school approach now. However, like Saxfiend and Jack Roberts, you should be trying to place stoppers, tricams and hexes when possible. You'll be a smarter, craftier leader.

Although I haven't been climbing as long as some, "When in doubt, run it out" was my mantra many a time for me.

I began in the early 90's in Australia, when forged friends were the standard cam, hexes were almost always racked and most people harnessed a figure 8. Sure it wasn't long until the flexible cams were popular, but being the young, poor student that I was, my frankenrack only grew at snails pace with cams being added at one every six months or so. I welcomed the new cams as they came but also enjoyed those experiences without them just as much.

I gained much experience early on with using passive pro and, as a few have already mentioned, used cams mainly higher up the climb and in cracks too wide for my stoppers and where hexes were too tricky to place on shitty stances.

I think most will agree that gaining passive pro-placing abilities earlier on in ones climbing days (and even at all) is conducive to increased confidence in some situations.

A big part of the confidence I have these days is due to the frankenrack that I had early on, where I was forced to place stoppers, keeping my one, two or three only cams for later, and in some instances "when in doubt, run it out" to where the stance was better and the gear placements (I had gear for) existed.

The leads I do these days, where I craft more passive placements instead of a cams, subsequently give me more of a kick after completing them. It's a little like being able to make the same meal with simple ingredients rather than making the gourmet version, except that the taste it leaves afterwards is much better.

I also believe that if you have the time to practice and experience predominantly passive pro leads then later it won't slow you down as a couple have suggested. In fact, it should take the same time. Choose size, place, inspect, clip... go!

Looking back, I am grateful for my frankenrack of cheaper wires, hexes and a few forged friends. It gave me confidence today I don't think I would have without it. It's nice to have the cam selection there these days but just out of instinct I find myself looking for a stopper first more often than not.