Trad climbing on pockety Limestone?

Hey guys,

So I led a route on limestone at Mississippi Palisades in IL recently. Luckily, it was easier than sin and short, because the protection was absolutely garbage. No parallel cracks for cams, best I could find was the occasional splitter that (marginally) accepted nuts, and LOTS of pockets. Most of the limestone areas I've been to (Austin area) are sport...have any of you led trad successfully on limestone, and it so, what the hell do you use? I spotted a few flakes/flukes that I could have hitched, but nothing that I felt would hold with upward force...

For pockets tricams might work. Apart from that nuts are your best options. Cams are often no good, because the cracks aren't parallel and even if they are, limestone does have not much friction so cam placement have to be very good to hold.

Totem cams are as good as it's going to get in funky limestone pockets.

Ted Pinson wrote:Hey guys, So I led a route on limestone at Mississippi Palisades in IL recently. Luckily, it was easier than sin and short, because the protection was absolutely garbage. No parallel cracks for cams, best I could find was the occasional splitter that (marginally) accepted nuts, and LOTS of pockets. Most of the limestone areas I've been to (Austin area) are sport...have any of you led trad successfully on limestone, and it so, what the hell do you use? I spotted a few flakes/flukes that I could have hitched, but nothing that I felt would hold with upward force...

MalcolmX wrote:For pockets tricams might work. Apart from that nuts are your best options. Cams are often no good, because the cracks aren't parallel and even if they are, limestone does have not much friction so cam placement have to be very good to hold.

Get a set of tricams, but also you're gonna need a Sylvester Stallone signature bolt gun.

Lol! As long as I can bring it up on my free solo climbs with some pro there to look cool. Yeah, I was thinking tricams might work, but unfortunately, nobody had a set. I can definitely see why people bolt limestone...

Monkey's fists work good. They are the softest passive pro and won't break out that chossy limestone. Heck, The Czechs do it.

^^
That is sandstone, not limestone. However, threads are used often on both. Dolomites are full of limestone trad...so is the Verdon, Peklenica, etc.

Climbing on Pocketed basalt and limestone in the Northstate of California you quickly learn the value of tricams. They look weird, they can be hard to place, but when you are running out on pocketed face, they scream 'YES'!
The one thing we learn to look for, is the wall thickness of the hole. I have blown a couple of pieces through the outer wall when too thin, but hey, live and.... live.Luckly!

the schmuck wrote:^^ That is sandstone, not limestone. However, threads are used often on both. Dolomites are full of limestone trad...so is the Verdon, Peklenica, etc.

Tri-cams are definitely the way to go. Here in CO there are a number of "historic" routes at Shelf Road that were originally climbed with tricams. The only concerns I have with them is that some of the pockets have some insanely sharp edges and I worry they will get cut.

A lot of limestone appears to be fairly weak rock, at least what I've climbed on. I large bands of discoloration that at most 1 bolt is placed just because of the rock quality. I was climbing on of the few trad climbs at shelf, a huge handcrack. A foothold broke and I pitched off the route. I ended up pulling a .4 and a .3 before a #2 caught me. The rock around the 2 smaller cams was blown out and showered both my belayer and I with rocks.

Yikes!

the schmuck wrote:Dolomites are full of limestone trad

Cant believe this hasn't been posted yet on this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=-TeTejh…

I just put up a new trad climb at Reimers Ranch. I named it Baby Roof. It follows 3 bolts of Ship of Fool's then breaks right following horizontal cracks for 20 feet to a vertical flake. The limestone on this route
takes great gear. I fell on 2 separate yellow power cams both of which held like champs. There is a great .75 Camelot placement in a pocket that would hold the biggest falls. It's a great route that is better for being gear protected.

I've found that the local limestone protects best with tri-cams in pockets, sometimes offset nuts in a vertical fracture, and also C4s placed passively. There's a lot of pockets that have a smaller opening but then get hollow on the inside. In these I can retract a C4 to get through the opening and then let it umbrella. That way the cam won't come get through the opening unless the cam stops break. Only do this on double axel cams, though.

And don't fall.

Round here, the local limestone has a very short weird chimney/ow feature that supposedly can be led on passive pro.

Ted Pinson wrote:And don't fall.

Haha, really. Dude has balls of steel. He did take a big whipper at the end of the video, though.