Skull queen gear

Wondering if someone who has done skull queen recently can comment on the gear recommendations from supertopo. Here is the list:

I’ve read that you don’t need keyhole river hanger. How important is 2 sets of offset brass nuts? Currently only have one. Also read copper heads are unnecessary. Also, how are the small totems on this route? Thank you. 

We did the route without any copper heads or beaks. We only had one set of totems to blue (more small ones would be nice). You can also get by with one set of offset nuts, its not bad. I felt that 2 narrow camhooks and the #5 are necessary. We also did it with fewer rivet hangers and just leap frogged between button heads. Have fun, its a great route.

Did this last winter. I don't remember the exact rack, but I think we used the sloan beta and were fine. You definitely have enough gear with that list. We started calling this thing Rivet Quest, because it was. I was pretty stoked on having key holes to protect the end of the rivet ladders. Cinched nuts work to of course. As far as heads go they were all fixed in January but we skipped some of them and just reached through to the next rivet. Have fun.

This is a great route.  You are going to have fun!

You only need a single set of brass offsets as long as you are comfortable using some of those thin seams as cam hook placements.  Personally, I find the cam hooks faster and in many case more secure so I didn't place very many brassies.  There are long rivet ladders on the route, which you can protect with either keyhole or wire hangers.  Pick one style and have 6 to 10 and you will be fine.  In April of this year, all heads were fixed, but some of the cables were rather frayed so be ready for one of them to be snapped.  This does not mean you have to install a new head, a small pecker sitting on top of the pasted copper is likely to work just fine.

Jake wander wrote:
I’ve read that you don’t need keyhole river hanger. How important is 2 sets of offset brass nuts? Currently only have one. Also read copper heads are unnecessary. Also, how are the small totems on this route? Thank you. 

It's not unreasonable that my keyhole hangers comment was because of the wrong size.

We used doubles in Totems instead of offset cams and had no problems.

Thanks for all the replies. Super helpful. 

Everett, what size totems did you go up to? Hoping I don’t need beyond yellow. 

Jake wander wrote: Thanks for all the replies. Super helpful. 

Everett, what size totems did you go up to? Hoping I don’t need beyond yellow. 

We were using Totems in place of larger, non-offset C4s (and we didn't keep track of placements,) so I'm unfortunately useless here. :|

Jake wander wrote: Thanks for all the replies. Super helpful. 

Everett, what size totems did you go up to? Hoping I don’t need beyond yellow. 

When are you going, Jake? I have a set (no black) you can borrow. They're not being used... 

Hey Jason, Thanks. I have 2 blacks, 2 blues and a yellow. Planning for the spring of 2019.

Sorry this isn't a gear question but can you rap the route without leaving gear on the bolted anchors? All the recommendations I saw were to finish and rap down south face

Tim Maas wrote: Sorry this isn't a gear question but can you rap the route without leaving gear on the bolted anchors? All the recommendations I saw were to finish and rap down south face

There are definitely anchors that were hangers only. Some had tat.

We went down the South Face rap route in the dark. It was straight forward.

Can any of you recommend the top of a specific pitch that would be good for a portaledge? We would like to do the route over two nights. Looks like maybe the top of pitch 8 has a small ledge?

Jake wander wrote: Can any of you recommend the top of a specific pitch that would be good for a portaledge? We would like to do the route over two nights. Looks like maybe the top of pitch 8 has a small ledge?

Why are you looking for a small ledge on the topo if you're using a portaledge?

Pitch 4: Not a good portaledge spot
Pitch 5: Good for a portaledge because it's a shear face
Pitch 6: Not a good portaledge spot
Pitch 7: Good portaledge spot with a smallish ledge
Pitch 8: Good portaledge spot with I think I remember a smallish ledge
Pitch 9: Not a good portaledge spot
Pitch 10: I think this is a good portaledge spot but can't remember exactly, doesn't matter anyways because the next pitch goes super face on free or aid
Pitch 11: Not a good portaledge spot because you're done with the climb at this point.

Yannick Gingras wrote: This is a great route.  You are going to have fun!

Pfffffft. You know he’s going aid climbing, right?

Marc H wrote:

Pfffffft. You know he’s going aid climbing, right?

You know that the conversation with OP is from a year ago right?

kevin deweese wrote:

You know that the conversation with OP is from a year ago right?

Yes.  Do you know that the OP just asked another question 22 hours ago and you answered it?  And that Yannick was on MP nine hours ago?

But the most elusive aspect may be that my post was a joke.

Thanks for the answers and keeping true to MP my friends!

Jake!!  on the rivet ladder every two rivets there is a nice big bolt to put a quickdraw in.  We just brought three (in case I dropped one). kept two on the aiders and leapfrogged them and clipped the bolts, worked great.   Offset small cams were cool, we had black blue and blue green aliens and they were kinda nice.  The winners I think were blue and yellow totems,  we had two purple as well and they probably got placed on every pitch,  but a lot of those would have been fine c4 placements.  Camhooks were clutch through several sections on the upper few pitches.  we didn't bring any nuts.