Trad draws: what to choose on a budget

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy quickdraws for trad climbing and I'm wondering whether or not I should buy alpine draws, I know my friends climb with these extensible draws which are great, but expensive... Whst should I buy if I'm on a budget?

Thanks, 

Will

Trad draws aren't expensive if you make them your self, find some cheap but decent wire gate dogbones deconstruct and buy a dyneema sling. You can often find draws like the BD oz on sale so it's pretty easy to get a good deal.

Look around for cheap "rack packs" of biners. Trango Phase are great and cheap. CAMP Nano 22 or Photon are great too. And any 8-12mm x 60cm dyneema sling will do the job.

Get some sale carabiners ($4-5 each) or a donor quickdraw ( $10.46 freewire at backcountry) and some 60cm / 24" nylon slings ($4). Bonus, nylon lasts longer in service than skinny dynema.

In this way you can build them up a little at a time... for $12-15 each... or just get the pack of 4 alpine draws for $58 which are nicer. https://www.backcountry.com/trango-phase-alpine-draw-5-pack?skid=TRG001J-ONECOL-ONESIZ&ti=U2VhcmNoIFJlc3VsdHM6QWxwaW5lIGRyYXdzOjE6MTpBbHBpbmUgZHJhd3M=

William - I would recommend you use the carabiner you are thinking of standardizing on prior to getting a bunch of them.  Zach recommends the Camp nano 22 but I hate them.  They are too small for my hands and there are several other things I dislike about that biner.  

You don't need expensive.  You just need functional.  Sling length also depends on where you climb.  I carry 4 to 5 60 cm slings and 2 120 cm slings in the Gunks.  I've climbed other places with vertical cracks where draws worked fine.  Also,i built all my alpine draws from loose biners and loose slings.  A friend of mine buys tubular webbing, cuts it where he wants it, and ties his own slings.  I know - he's gonna die - but he's whipped all over those and never had an issue. 

I have a few nylon, a few dyneema, and I use carabiners off my draws for the alpine slings.  Saves money and converts for sport.

The Trango Phase is surely the cheapest alpine draw out there, you can find the 4-pack for $60. I have 8 of the Phase alpine draws and 6 of the Phase quickdraws, like them so far and they see a pretty good amount of use. The Black Diamond Oz quickdraws and alpine draws are a bit nicer IMO cause of the hoodwire feature and they're just as light as the Phase but definitely a bit pricier. 

Yeah the Trango Phase are a good choice. Backcountry has em for $60 right now. I've got twelve of them. 

The price difference between going for the oz quick draw and adding your own slings vs the trango phase pack is like $15 for 4, you get much nicer biners and the extra expense really isn't that much, and that's taking literally a minute of looking at backcountry, who knows what deals you might find at other stores.

You also don't necessarily need all your draws to have two biners.  I usually have 6 or 7 slings over the shoulder with one biner on them.  Then about 5 or six trad draws on the harness for nuts/bolts/fixed pro or when I run out of shoulder slings for cams I use those next.  Having too many draws on the harness also leads to a lot of cluster

As said above, get the Trango phase pack: https://www.backcountry.com/trango-phase-quickdraw-5-pack?skid=TRG001I-ONECOL-S12CM&ti=U2VhcmNoIFJlc3VsdHM6cXVpY2tkcmF3OjI6Mjk6cXVpY2tkcmF3

Keep 3 as normal sport draws for your trad climbing, which are good for clipping the occasional bolt, fixed gear, or not extended placements. These rack less bulky than having only extendable draws. Then you can cannibalize the remaining sport draws for the 'biners and add a shoulder length nylon slings to make 3 extendable draws. If you end up heading to sport climbing crag, you still have the dogbones to swap out. Depending what you climb, 3 light sport draws, 3 extendable, and 3 1-'biner+slings over the shoulder is usually a good-enough start. 

Edited to add: If you can't afford a $5 runner over webbing, you probably can't afford to drive to a crag or climb at all. Don't bother with waterknots and webbing. Sure they work, but its bulkier, requires checking the knots, and is essentially an obsolete option with cheap nylon slings.