Mysteriously lost a cam.

Has anyone ever had a biner unclip itself when racking like this? Cam mysteriously vanished after climbing today, I want to say it was from racking like this. I was trying to recreate what I think happened after we discovered the missing cam, trying to get it to unclip itself, I could get it to happen semi easily. 

wondering how common this is (if at all) and if I should reconsider racking like this. 

That sucks. I think clipping extra cams to the previous ones sling is the better option. 

I rack doubles that way and have never had a problem.  Big question.....were you gate in or gate out on the harness?

I just had cams racked like this in my bag last week.  pulled out the rack and looked in my bag and there was one .4 x4 loose in the bottom of the bag without it's racking carabiner.  no idea how it got free.  But i've never had the same thing happen with the cams racked on a sling.

The same as Todd, I rack doubles that way (gates out for me) and have never had a problem.

But, I *have* had inexperienced trad followers just unclip the rope from gear and then forget to take the gear with them. Thankfully, I have (almost always, but not always) noticed and was able to rap down to retrieve the gear.

I've seen this happen before, mostly with alpine draws as I don't double stack cams but do with draws.  It's caused by the hollow wire gate getting snagged by cam triggers and other things as you're pulling items off your gear loops.   They can also 'twist' themselves open against other gear.  I only seem to have this happen when I'm pulling a piece from the back of my gear loop across my body, with the opposite side hand.  Having gear loops that are overloaded also exacerbates the issue.  FWIW, I rack gates out.  

I imagine something like the Petzl Ange biners or a non-wire snap gate would have less of these issues. Or, better yet, having some more finesse with my gear.

I watched a guy dump a cam like this from 3 pitches up. I think he got into a tough position and needed gear fast, so he grabbed the top carabiner rather than the bottom one in the heat of the moment. He didn't even see it happen. Before racking like this I'd either 1. get a harness with bigger gear loops, 2. rack some gear on a shoulder sling, or 3. carry less gear. 

yep had cams unclip themselves when hip scumming 

Hence the adge ”hard to soft” never ”hard to hard” or soft to soft.”

When the explanation seems improbable, check your partner’s rack before launching investigation. 

Ed Oak wrote:

Hence the adge ”hard to soft” never ”hard to hard” or soft to soft.”

There's always exceptions, especially when it comes to aid climbing.

Which might bring up a good point, (at least how I was taught) in aid climbing we generally like to clip things like daisies/carabiners/etc. to the spine side rather than the gate side (see diagrams below). The reason for this is the item can potentially unclip itself if you attach to the gate side. Flyin G's cams are racked together on the gate side, maybe makes them more prone to unclipping? I rack doubles together but always have clipped the second cam to the spine side (and admittedly rack gates in), and I've never had a cam unclip itself. Curious to hear what others do too.

Thanks for all the responses. 

I'm on team gates out. Gates in + racking on the spine side, racking to the cams sling (although making the second cam sit much lower,) or just being more mindful overall seems like great ideas. Might have to do a gear check after every pitch with new partners from now on. 

For reference, my partner I was climbing with was relatively new and wanted to bring a triple and a half rack to sew up their pitches, my double rack and their single and a half rack. They had a ton of gear on them, looked like they were aid climbing lol. The cluttered gear loops makes sense especially if you're trying to pull a piece from a bird nest of gear. 

I used a small double rack when climbing, but I racked it like in the pic i posted. I didn't hip scum anything but I did lay down and take a break on a few ledges at the top. I do remember shuffling gear around while laying. I've done this many times while stacking cams and never had a problem, but it's never a problem until it is. Amaright?

 Because we had no idea how the cam was lost we decided to split the cost of the lost cam. If anyone finds a green wild country .75 at lovers leap please lmk where you found it, I'm super curious to know where it separated from us. 

Wow. This just got me thinking. I have absolutely no way to know for sure but I do double rack this exact exact way and 100% had a cam fall off my loop and hit the belay ledge below. The piece wasn’t in my hand. I didn’t unrack the piece. I couldn’t even use that size cam in that section of climbing. It was on my harness and then at some point it fell. I didn’t notice it at all. My belayer told me after I got through the crux (I was focused - good on him for not bothering to tell me during the climbing).

FWIW - I was doing an offwidth squeeze - entire body inside the crack. The side in the crack was…my cam rack side.

Again - no idea if that racking method is to blame but for the life of me I was completely perplexed as to how the cam fell to the belay…

Maybe??? Hmmmmmmm. 

Non-locking carabiners DO unclip themselves sometimes.

This can happen in a backpack where densely packed hard gear pushes a gate open. Or a myriad of other situations.

It happens infrequently enough that we all use a ton of non-lockers.

Did you sit down with gear on? Or did you do a chimney? I find sometimes when I do either, the wall or ground can push the gates open, and gear can unclip. 

Learned this the hard way after sitting down after leading a pitch on a long alpine climb. My approach shoes unclipped and one tumbled down. By sheer luck, there was another party behind us, the only other party that day on the whole formation, who picked it up and handed it to us when passing us. That dude was running out every pitch, basically soloing to be as fast as possible, probably to impress his lady on follow. Thank God for that!

Every time before I sit down on a ledge, I flick it all out to make sure there is no gear under me. I’m also careful how I rack before I do a chimney or offwidth, sometimes racking the gear on a shoulder sling.

I have a rated chalk bag belt of 1" flat webbing and harness manual double back buckle. I can't remember if it was sewn by Fish or Yates. I clip shoes, water bottle, and sometimes wind shell separately to it, each with their own auto / twist / 2L locking carabiner. Nice to be able to swivel it all around in chimneys and the lockers give me piece of mind to not drop something critical.

Similar experience, years ago. I was climbing the last pitch of Angel’s Crest; a chimney pitch. Was missing a #1 when sorting gear up top.. it most definitely unclipped itself in the shuffle.

My other theory is that my partner forgot to clean it, which is a compelling case because it makes it not my fault…