Indian Creek Rack?

I am sure this gets asked quite a bit and I did search, but it's difficult to to discern a complete answer. My partners and I will be heading up to Indian Creek for a few weeks of climbing. Listed below is the current rack of cams we have between all of us.

1 Full set of Mastercam Offsets.
2 Full sets of Mastercams 00-6

Camalots
.3 x 5
.4 x 5
.5 x 10
.75 x 10
1 x 10
2 x 10
3 x 8
4 x 2
5 x 1
6 x 1

Many racks of nuts!

What I want to know is: if this rack is sufficient to get us up pretty much anything we want to do less off-widths. If not what should we further supplement?

Haha, looks like you'll be all set. Climb in the shade, leave the nuts and offsets at home.

Jesus... that's plenty dude. But it kind of depends on how many of you there are and what you want to do.

Usually, a group of 4 or 6 of us would go to the same wall, and we'd all bring a single rack, some of us had doubles. We all had routes that we wanted to lead, and we'd lead those. Then we'd all go around TRing the routes that others had led. That's kind of how it works at IC. You get more climbing in, and you get more practice on the sizes that you suck at. There are so many areas there, and most people congregate to a select few. Go to the less popular areas and you'll likely have it to yourselves. Leave the popular stuff until you've got your sizes dialed, go to those areas on a week day and crush all the classics before they get any wider!

As far as gear, you are much better off having a mix of different brands. There are a lot of routes where WC Friends or Metolius cams fit better than BDs. If you can get your hands on some Friends, even ridged stemmed, then take them instead of some of the BDs.

PS, the guidebook sucks donkey balls. Don't bother reading the gear beta... just look up and decide.

Thanks for the feedback so far. We weren't really relying on the guidebook deciding what to take, but rather feedback from others stating the need for a pretty massive rack with lots in the 1"-3" range. I am sure we can dig up some friends and mix the rack up a little more.

Gaugeing on what you guys have said, I am guessing we have more than enough cams in relevant sizes?

Yea, you'll be fine. You should be able to put up two or three routes at a time with that rack, which occupies 4 to 6 people and allows every to get one lead and two TR burns in (or pull the ropes and lead all of them). Pull the ropes, repeat.

The old BD #3, 3.5 and #4 are good to have. As I said, a set or two of friends rock as they usually fall between C4's, and any old Metolius or DMM 4CU's you have laying around are worth taking. Reason being, a lot of the cracks GRADUALLY change in size. So once a gold Camalot starts being too small, you can use a #3 friend before you start plugging in #3 Camalots.

Get good at #1... there is a TON. And don't expect to do a lot of #2, they are always crowded and there aren't as many as you might think.

Take BIG COMFY shoes.

Over-cammed gear is not good at IC.

Don't climb if the rock is even a little bit wet.

JLP wrote:You are too light on fingers, IMO. Way more Blue and Yellow Mastercam sizes, maybe a few more Purples and a couple sets of C3's in the smaller 2-3 sizes as well. You have 2 each Blue Metolius. That won't get you up quite a few classics. I like to have at least 5 each available in that size.

So the doubles in mastercams purple, blue, yellow plus five each of .3-.5 in camalots making about 7ish in each range isn't a good count for fingers? or you're just saying that mastercams work better for tips?

Everyone will have their own things to say about the guidebook. I found that at least once a day it recommended cams that I never even used and said nothing about sizes that I needed two or three of. I do agree w/ JLP though that the numbers usually assume someone who is solid in all sizes, and most people aren't. I'd usually take extra 1's, A LOT of extra .75's and didn't mind taking one less 2 or 3 than the book recommended.

And depending on what you want to climb, JLP could be right on the finger sized pieces too. But most stuff that takes a lot of gear that small is at least 5.12-. I guess I was assuming the OP wasn't climbing that hard. I shouldn't have.

OP, I think it's pretty common for an average sized male to be best at #2, then #3 and/or #1 depending on a lot of things. .4-.5 seems to be harder since you can't always get your feet in, and .75 can feel impossible until you get a lot of practice. Like I said, I found that anything smaller than .4 tended to be very difficult, and the realm of the seasoned crack/corner climber. If you have aspirations to do those kind of routes, you'll need more small stuff.

Not A LOT more, but for the longer routes yea, you'll need more. In sizes that small, people tend to sew it up (and I think you should).

The guide book is exactly that. A guide. The info in there is fairly accurate for a guide as expansive as it is but does not replace personal judgement. I don't use it but have in the past. I seemed to almost always beef of my rack based on what the book suggests. It is helpful for an IC noobie.

Ryan Williams wrote:If you have aspirations to do those kind of routes, you'll need more small stuff.

Our general plan since we'll be in area for about three weeks is to start out moderate and as you suggested, do the popular stuff on the weekdays. Depending on how things go, work our way up to harder stuff towards the end of the trip.

Basically we want to make sure we have the right rack to be able to jump on any route within our ability without worrying about having enough pro for it. Obviously we have a few classics in mind, but generally we're just going get on whatever we can. We are all strong 5.11 climbers and one partner does lower 5.12s. I probably should have stated that in the first post.

Not sure how hard you climb, but I doubt you'll be on any route that would require 5 .3 or .4 camalots. You'll be fine just taking 2 of each in that size. Same goes for the 10 .5 camalots.

One of the best things about the Creek is the ablity to borrow gear from complete strangers, so don't feel like you need to bring tons of gear in sizes that you are unlikely to climb.

I would recomend you identify your climbing ablity and on what crags you hope to spend most of your time at. This will help others give you better advice.

Sergio P wrote:I would recomend you identify your climbing ablity and on what crags you hope to spend most of your time at. This will help others give you better advice.

We're all at least mid 5.11 climbers and one partner who does 5.12. I think we'll be spending most of our time around Donnelly, Supercrack and The Bulge areas.

Anthony Wilde wrote: We're all at least mid 5.11 climbers and one partner who does 5.12. I think we'll be spending most of our time around Donnelly, Supercrack and The Bulge areas.

HA. Good luck! Lines on EVERYTHING! Even on a Wednesday morning when it's about to snow.

Seriously, there are DOZENS upon DOZENS of crags at IC. Look around!

leave the rack at home, bring lawn chairs and a cooler. you will have just as much of a chance of climbing those routes with all the crowds gang banging the classics

Neither of your responses is very surprising. Obviously if we're making the trip we want to do some of those climbs. I guess we figured that they would be somewhat cleared out during the weekdays. That's also why I asked if the rack we have is generally good enough to be able to hop on whatever. We're flexible. Which crags do you recommend that will be pretty wide open that are worth investing a lot of time around?

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

Shumin Wu wrote:So if the OP was intending to show off his large rack... well TAKE THAT! heh.

It's not just my rack. It's mine and two other guys combined and few borrowed pieces. :)

Anthony - I disagree with advice from two posters:

Sergio says you only need two sets of cams below a 0.5. Not necessarily true - there are many fine Indian Creek climbs in the 5.10 to 5.11 range where you want more than two sets of small cams.

JLP doesn't like Supercrack to the Battle of the Bulge. Hmmm. Most of the rest of the world does - there are some absolutely stellar lines in there, traffic or no traffic.

Your rack looks great - rest of the comment seem spot on.

Hot this time of year! Seek shade. Climb ohn. Wally

For the creek?!? Your rack needs to be at least ... three times this big!

youtube.com/watch?v=8u9UWw5…