Single Rack vs Double Rack

If all of my climbing friends have (at least) their own rack of singles, why would I own a rack of doubles?

If I’m taking someone out who doesn’t climb (and therefore doesn’t have their own gear), they likely won’t be lead belaying me. And if they are, it won’t be on any pitches long enough to need a double rack.

What am I missing?

Edit to add: a full rack for me includes black to brown tricams and a full set of nuts. (or offset nuts depending on the rock type.)

You don’t want more cams?! What am I missing? 

It could work, if you're never climbing a route that requires more than two of a particular cam, and always climbing with friends who have single racks. The answer to buying more hardware is usually "you'll know it when you need it". 

Get good at cleaning and you'll probably end up bootying a bunch of BD cams while learning anyway.

You're not missing much, IMO.

Everyone I climb with has a rack of doubles (or more), or got nothing, pretty much.

Your math works out just fine.

The thing is that in the very long scale, a double set of cams doesn't really cost all that much for a lot of folks.

So you realize that you don't like your buddies ULMCs so you fill out your C4s.  Or you don't like their x4s so you fill out totems and ULMC for the small stuff.  Or you decide you are tired of using their 30 year old rigid stem friends for whatever reason. Or you get a doubles rack and then you can take your sport climbing friends out.  Or whatever. 

In the end you can bring what you like and just let your buddy bring the rope.  

Now that I think about it... the rope/rack issue is probably the root of a lot of that math: I can't bring half the rack and half a rope.  I usually bring a rope and let my partner bring the rack... rack is more expensive, but the rope gets beat faster so that's a pretty typical way that we break stuff up.  Seems fair to me.  Though there are plenty of ways of divvying that up that are all fair and work fine.  I will bring my rack if I am leading stuff I'm worried about, cause I like it more.

But in the end, having a "complete" kit that folks won't bitch about using solves a bunch of really small problems and isn't (in the big scheme of things) all that spendy.

The actual benefits of a double rack are as follows (extensive list)

• Being able to retort that you have a double rack when someone suggests you might not climb trad
• Bullying your non trad friends to belay you on the only trad route (1 star 5.7+ btw) at the sport crag to get a sense of superiority 
• Guaranteed 300+ upvotes on the pics of your unblemished gear, half sorted on the ground on r/climbing
• Having enough gear to finally sew up that 70ft proj (if your partner also brings their double rack)

Thats all I've found so far - anyone got anything else?

Demetri V wrote:

What am I missing?

You’re missing longer routes in your life.

Here are a few circumstances where I have used my own double rack:

When my wonderful climber partners fly in to climb with me from the east coast, Europe etc. and they only bring harness/shoes.

When I climb with my husband.

When I’m climbing with one of my experienced partners who has their own rack but I’m going to be doing most of the leading that day.

When I’m going cragging with short approaches and am too busy/ too lazy to have the who’s bringing what discussion.

But sure, you can get away with a single rack most of the time...

You're not missing a thing. Less is more. 

Indian Creek roadtrip style everybody has a single rack, between a carful of dudes you have enough gear to get up anything. 

If you want to climb big wall, or alpine, you can commit to that stuff later. Ice screws are expensive; I feel a spread of screws between two partners is pretty common.

In reality, most of your friends probably have a double rack, so by your logic you don't need any cams.  But if you want to climb with somebody else using the same logic, you'll find that as a team you have zero cams.

Plenty of sport climbers (who know how to belay) want to try trad or multi-pitch from time to time.  If you want to climb with them you'll want your own rack.

There are plenty of single pitches where you don't need a double rack, but it sure is nice to have doubles of some particular piece.  There are also longer climbs where it's nice to have triples or quads of a given piece (not talking about Indian Creek).

Multipitch. If you need 3 cams for an anchor because you didn’t bring your tricams then that’s 3 less you have for the next pitch and next anchor if that’s a gear anchor too. 

No need to sort gear at the end of the day.

Matthew Carrier wrote:

Multipitch. If you need 3 cams for an anchor because you didn’t bring your tricams then that’s 3 less you have for the next pitch and next anchor if that’s a gear anchor too. 

Definitely this and also routes that require the same size gear (crack climbing)

For that matter, why have such a long rope?

Most climbers I know have at least a double rack and usually more. If we’re going cragging, everyone brings their own rack because most people prefer to climb on their own gear and the approaches are super short.

Do you need a double rack? No, I had a single set of BDs and TCUs for a decade and got up all kinds of stuff in the Canadian Rockies, winter and summer. After moving to Squamish, I reinvested in another rack of BDs and some finger sized pieces because ‘when in doubt, sew it up’.

You do you, if you don’t want to invest in the gear, it might be limiting, it might not. I find climbing at my limit easier when I’m not trying to save certain pieces for higher up the climb or for the anchor.