Building My Rack. For a beginner.

So I am now officially getting started with rock climbing. I have been an avid hiker my whole life and love bouldering.

I am working on getting a rack setup. So far this is what I have:

6 SMC Chromoly pitons
3 Stubai CMV maleable pitons
- These were grouped in with a purchase. As of now, I do not plan on using them.

Nuts
------
7 Un-known aluminum nuts sizes OO thru #3
9 Black Diamond sizes 1-9
4 Wild Country small, sizes 00-1
4 Wild Country medium, sizes 7-10
5 Metolius curved nuts sizes 1-5
6 DMM curved nuts, mediums sizes 3-7

Black Diamond Hex Set (12)
Black diamond figure 8

I am also in the process of getting:

harness
rope(s)
quick draws
carabiners

I am not planning on climbing 200 ft faces for now. My main question is what am I missing as far as cams go?

All the above wasn't extremely expensive, but I am "gun shy" on buying cams. Seems they can be a huge investment. I am planning on climbing mainly in the NC, VA, and TN mountains. What sizes would fit in with this equipment the best?

I might just have to find some cheap old friends/cams until I get a good feel for what I need. Any help appreciated. Thanks!

Kevin

If you're climbing trad make sure you have some 24" slings/trad draws and a couple 48" are nice too.

For cams the starter set of BD .5 to 2 will get you a long way. You don't have to get BD, just the equivalent to that. That being said, you're better off spending your money on 3 or 4 quality cams vs something cheap (rock empire etc) that you will hate and never use down the line when you have good stuff. BD cams are regularly 20% off, sometimes 25%. Shop smart and you can avoid paying full price on pretty much everything.

Please God...not another "what rack should I buy thread"!! It's only been a week!!

Quick search will get you pages and pages of rack info. This is one of our most popular topics! Good luck

I'll assist...
mountainproject.com/v/climb…

and another...

rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo…;post=166950;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

BD #.75 and #2 would be a wise choice

Scott McMahon wrote:Please God...not another "what rack should I buy thread"!! It's only been a week!!

Maybe we need an official MP page for this. It could go something like:

Set of nuts
Runners
Pink and Red Tricam
Bd C4 camalot from .5 to 3
For smaller cams than .5: aliens or metolius tcus or c3s or master cams or zeros. Recommending smaller cams is like recommending Johovah's vs Scientology, try them first because once the investment has been made, it is hard to get out.

I say get a dozen 24" slings, double that in biners and stay with nuts, hexes and tricams. I climb moderate multi pitch with only passive gear. Don't own a cam. My 1st few routes I used cams of friends, didn't like all the bulk. Have fun!

Your gonna die with a rack like that! You need at least 5 sets of c4 cams 3 sets of c3s plus like 10 more sets of nuts. Then get aleast 200 bieners and 50 or so slings of various sizes. A belay partner is also good to have but not required. Dont forget a chalk bag and some quick links for bailing off sport routes. A realy big hammer is good for those pitons or just drive them in with your fist like real men. Then you need some rock to put the stuff into because the gym dosent like it when you put them in their cracks. Oh and dont forget a binnie for cool days when you wanna take your shirt off or a helmet depending how manly you are.

......and don't forget to pack a way off beat sense of humor. You will need it for the "funny" guys. (Lead 5.4! REALLY? LOL)

Double Set of Big Bros is really good for building your rack!

Thanks for all the replies. I also just picked up the following Black Diamond cams with biners:

2 - .5
2 -.75

... getting closer.

personally I love my big #7 tricam. Great for fending off bear attacks at the Red these days.

Find a couple different partners who have been climbing for a bunch of years.
Climb with them using their racks.
Figure out what you like and dislike about their respective racks and select accordingly spending a shit load of money and
GO climbing.

Climbing on only passive gear can be be a little more dangerous. If you are an inexperienced trad leader cams make good/easy multi-directional first placements.

Multi-directional placements can be pulled in multiple directions. Thus if you take a fall the rope from your belayer won't pop your first piece of pro, and zipper pop all of the pieces going up. ;)

Joshua J. Williams wrote:Climbing on only passive gear can be be a little more dangerous. If you are an inexperienced trad leader cams make good/easy multi-directional first placements. Multi-directional placements can be pulled in Bold TextmultipleBold Text directions. Thus if you take a fall the rope from your belayer won't pop your first piece of pro, and zipper pop all of the pieces going up. ;)

Of your first sentence exactly the opposite could be argued. I've seen far more poor cam placements by novices than passive gear placements. Passive placements force people to examine the shape of the rock and hopefully consider direction of pull. Some people treat cam placements as no brainers and just plug away when examining the rock may be just as important in cam placements.

Another reason to have a few cams starting out.

I started out on all passive pro. My cam placements sort of sucked at first because of it. If a new leader has a good mentor to follow and check their placements, it will help to be able to place passive and active pro to get feedback. And yes I think it's easier to prevent a zipper with a good first medium to large cam placement.

a good rope bag helps.

helmets are kinda nice also

x2 million on the tri-cams -- light, cheap, work everywhere, and they're cool. The pink one, trouble is I'm always having to go to bathroom when I use it.

for those less than 200' cliffs, a case of beer makes a good belay anchor; though be aware, this anchor loses resistance the longer you are at the crag, it's called budweisneric-ascent degradation, the scary thing it's not subject to half-life and could also be an exponential decay. But then the good thing is, with the arrival of fellow climbers, you could experience an exponential increase; but then it plateaus, then a rapid decline normally ensues, rendering your anchor completely worthless. Sorry, it's a climbing by Dorf lesson

Greg D wrote: Of your first sentence exactly the opposite could be argued. I've seen far more poor cam placements by novices than passive gear placements. Passive placements force people to examine the shape of the rock and hopefully consider direction of pull. Some people treat cam placements as no brainers and just plug away when examining the rock may be just as important in cam placements.

I agree

....another suggestion. Educate yourself on fall forces. Each piece of gear is rated to handle different forces and you would be surprised at the force developed in different fall situations. Pay little attention to fall factors as they relate poorly to fall forces. Also do not believe everything you read regarding this topic on the internet. There is a calculator floating around that is WRONG. I have put together one in Excell that is very accurate. I will email it to you if you like.

Is this a troll? SMC pins? Stubai malleagle pins? Those have to be, what, 50 yrs. old?

Really?

Fat Dad wrote:Is this a troll? SMC pins? Stubai malleagle pins? Those have to be, what, 50 yrs. old? Really?

They still sell Stubai malleable pitons

TheCrux wrote:....another suggestion. Educate yourself on fall forces. Each piece of gear is rated to handle different forces and you would be surprised at the force developed in different fall situations. Pay little attention to fall factors as they relate poorly to fall forces. Also do not believe everything you read regarding this topic on the internet. There is a calculator floating around that is WRONG. I have put together one in Excell that is very accurate. I will email it to you if you like.

Thanks, you make a very good point there. Glad you mentioned this. I will pm you my email address.