Wild Country Helium Friends

Been climbing on these for a few weeks, you can see the review here:

http://cruxn.com/2011/10/13/wild-country-helium-friends-review/

Also see my review on Link Cams, on the same site.

EDIT: The link is not working for me... you will have to copy and paste. Sorry.

Nice write up! Next time I'm in the market for cams I'll have to take a look at these.

I also saw your post on Crack of Doom. Glad to hear everyone came away from that in one piece! I had the chance to goof around on there on TR a few weeks back, and it was rough! My two friends got up it but I only made it up about halfway before I was totally done. I don't even want to think about leading it on gear! I guess they call it Crack of Doom for a reason, eh? :)

Ryan Williams wrote:EDIT: The link is not working for me... you will have to copy and paste. Sorry.

Here is a link to the article.

Ryan, try using some text other than the address in the "link text" box. That's what I did here and it seems to work.

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EDIT (having now read the review): Good review. I like that you gave specific examples of where the longer stem came in handy. But this sentence strikes me as a little strange: "They are the lightest cams on the market without sacrificing durability."

They aren't the lightest cams on the market. They aren't even the lightest single stem cams on the market. Metolius Powercams and Mastercams are lighter. So, are you saying the the WC cams are more durable than Metolius? I find that hard to believe, as both companies make a bomber product.

To get specific, the #2 Friend weighs 111 g, the #5 Mastercam is 99 g, and the #5 Powercam is 86 g. The Friend is 30% heavier than the Powercam.

Weight isn't the only feature of a cam, and I'm not trying to say that Metolius is necessarily better than Friends. A lot of folks don't seem to like the floppy stem on the bigger Mastercams. And I find the bigger Powercams are fairly prone to walking when you clip them without a quickdraw (I wish they didn't sew the sling so tight to the cable -- I think this is a big contributor). Your review does a good job of highlighting the good points about Friends, but calling them "the lightest" when they aren't detracts from the quality of the review.

Nice review. Anything you didn't like about them? How do you think the smaller Heliums would compare to other small cams?

So helium friends took up BD sizing? Bummer. I was going to get a couple of these in #2 friend size for the creek. Guess I'll just find some old rigid stems or black powercams.

Clayton Laramie wrote:So helium friends took up BD sizing? Bummer. I was going to get a couple of these in #2 friend size for the creek. Guess I'll just find some old rigid stems or black powercams.

Buy Tech Friends gearx.com/wild-country-tech… or gearexpress.biz/Merchant2/m…
w/ a free 'biner still.

Rich Farnham wrote: Here is a link to the article. Ryan, try using some text other than the address in the "link text" box. That's what I did here and it seems to work. ----------------- EDIT (having now read the review): Good review. I like that you gave specific examples of where the longer stem came in handy. But this sentence strikes me as a little strange: "They are the lightest cams on the market without sacrificing durability." They aren't the lightest cams on the market. They aren't even the lightest single stem cams on the market. Metolius Powercams and Mastercams are lighter. So, are you saying the the WC cams are more durable than Metolius? I find that hard to believe, as both companies make a bomber product. To get specific, the #2 Friend weighs 111 g, the #5 Mastercam is 99 g, and the #5 Powercam is 86 g. The Friend is 30% heavier than the Powercam. Weight isn't the only feature of a cam, and I'm not trying to say that Metolius is necessarily better than Friends. A lot of folks don't seem to like the floppy stem on the bigger Mastercams. And I find the bigger Powercams are fairly prone to walking when you clip them without a quickdraw (I wish they didn't sew the sling so tight to the cable -- I think this is a big contributor). Your review does a good job of highlighting the good points about Friends, but calling them "the lightest" when they aren't detracts from the quality of the review.

Rich, thanks for providing a link and thank you for the stats on the weight of the cams.

I admittedly wrote that without doing much research, and even thought to myself that I might be wrong about them being the "lightest." If I had remembered/realized how light the Powercams are, I wouldn't have written what I did.

Anyways, I have edited the post because I agree with you that such a mis-statement takes away from the quality of the review. Let me know what you think.

Evan Sanders wrote:Nice review. Anything you didn't like about them? How do you think the smaller Heliums would compare to other small cams?

Thanks Even.

There isn't really much I don't like about them, but like I said in a comment below the review, I probably won't be buying any small ones. Metolius pretty much has the small cam market locked up if you ask me, and I have a few Aliens as well.

Clayton Laramie wrote:So helium friends took up BD sizing? Bummer. I was going to get a couple of these in #2 friend size for the creek. Guess I'll just find some old rigid stems or black powercams.

Noooo Clayton, the Helium Friends DID NOT take BD sizing... they are still basically the same size as the old friends with a bit more consistency in the overlap. So a 2.0 Helium is a bit smaller than a #1 BD, a 2.5 is in between #1 and #2 BD, and a 3.0 is a big larger than a #2 BD. If you have friends, you will feel comfortable with the sizing of the Heliums.