Your Rack and Your Crag

My climbing partner and I are curious about the rack you've built and how it's specified for the crags you frequent. Different rock develops different styles and different racks. Share a picture or description!

We climb on the east coast and are treated to plenty of quartzite, grit, and sandstone, so my rack consists of C4s, mastercams, our beloved tricams, and the undeniable offset nuts. 

Tony Mistishen wrote:

My climbing partner and I are curious about the rack you've built and how it's specified for the crags you frequent. Different rock develops different styles and different racks. Share a picture or description!

We climb on the east coast and are treated to plenty of quartzite, grit, and sandstone, so my rack consists of C4s, mastercams, our beloved tricams, and the undeniable offset nuts. 

Sierra granite: totems if pin scarred or it's a scary climb for me as they're very confidence inspiring, plus offset nuts and the DMM RP brassies. 

Rompy easy granite cruising: Dragons + Metolius for the win. Built in slings in dragons are rad, extra cams for the same weight from Metolius is rad. Or sometimes when climbing with the GF we go all Metolius (her rack is mostly Metolius) for extra cam goodness. Also tricams to put one or two in the anchor to save the cams for the lead. 

Whatever Pinnacles is: Totems and tricams are money 

Sierra foothills quartzite: Totems and Dragons, wish I could use more tricams but there's almost never a spot for them. 

Sierra basalt: whatever for cams, but definitely taking the offset stoppers. They fit perfectly almost everywhere. 

Sandstone: Totems. Like the extra grip and holding power. Offset nuts seem not as useful in my experience. 

I'd be really curious to learn what you find works well in your quartzite. Quartzite is weird. 

Ricky, I'll see your well-thought-out response and raise you a

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/125401143/gote-milk-cappuccino

+1 on the offset stoppers for many of the Western granite cracks. They fit sooooo much nicer than the old standards. The 4 smallest Totems are worth their weight in gold out West. For many Sierra climbers, we just skip the offsets cams and get a set of totems. They do double duty. 

My top 4 climbing areas: Joshua Tree, Tahquitz/Suicide, Yosemite, Mt. Woodson. 

Rack: Black-Green totems, 0.1-7 C4s, some small C3s, offset nuts and brassies, + random aid shit. 

Still want to get a set of ballnuts for the super thin thin. No hexes, regular nuts, or tricams. I've always wondered how tricams would fare on yosemite pin scars. I know gunks/NE climbers love em

Pugnacious Slab wrote:

My top 4 climbing areas: Joshua Tree, Tahquitz/Suicide, Yosemite, Mt. Woodson. 

Rack: Black-Green totems, 0.1-7 C4s, some small C3s, offset nuts and brassies, + random aid shit. 

Still want to get a set of ballnuts for the super thin thin. No hexes, regular nuts, or tricams. I've always wondered how tricams would fare on yosemite pin scars. I know gunks/NE climbers love em

Tricams are burning garbage in such valley pin scars IMO 

Ricky Harline wrote:

Tricams are burning garbage in such valley pin scars IMO 

Woah woah woah, you can place one on battle of the bulge in tuolumne. So only 99.9999999999999% useless in yosemite.

Donner rack is usually pretty heavy in black totem to #1 sizes, with a few small/medium offset nuts useful.

Mostly climbing basalt/andesite in NW OR.  Rack is heavy on the smaller stuff: ballnuts to .4 sizes, with a real love for original aliens and new totems in the small sizes.  Offset nuts are also great here, with a few regular nuts mixed in.  I also really like having Wild Country rocks to supplement the .5-#2 range on some of the broken cracks in the area. I bring tricams along when I'm climbing in the main park at Smith, as they can work nicely in the pockets and irregular cracks there.  And, prefer longer draws and a fair amount of alpines or runners.

I've climbed mostly at the Delaware Water Gap, a crag slightly south of the Gunks. It's split down the middle by a river. The eastern side is Shale & the western side more quartzite/some Gunks type conglomerate. I almost always carry the following rack: 

>Dragon cams .4 - #3

> C4 .3 - #4 (sometimes #5 or #6)

> Z4 .1 - .2 

> Black/Blue/Gold Totem

>Small rack of nuts and a pink tricam.

The .2 & black totem get a lot of use in traditional nut style placements. Lots of horizontals, and few thin vertical cracks. Tend to carry less passive pro as time goes on. 

Devils lake Wisconsin and Jackson Falls IL.  single .1 .2, double .3-3, a 4 and a 5, nuts, offset nuts. .1-.2 are black and blue aliens, then a single rack of c4’s, single rack of Friends. Nice compliment to each other. The 4 and 5 are clutch for anchors, I use them pretty frequently. Same rack gets me up granite in vedauwoo, and Wichita Preserve, I add some metolius and more c4’s for the creek. 

I mostly climb in the gunks, but sometimes in the water gap or at ragged. My rack was built up over a long time, so it’s a frankenrack except for the smaller sizes. 

My rack consists of 

#00-2 Metolius TCUs

Yellow and grey aliens

1 purple dmm dragon

1 purple and 1 green Z4

1 red Metolius ULMC 

1 wild country friend 

1 clear alien, I don’t use this one a lot as it is a terrible cam 

1 pre thumb loop red and yellow C4

1 of the new generation C4s 

For Nuts, I have mostly wild country rocks, and some old brass offsets.

I also take 10 single length slings, and 1-2 double length slings. 

Between my partner and I we have like 4+ sets of cams, several sets of nuts, etc. We "take" what we need for the day's objective. Pretty much exclusive Sierra granite for me these days, occasional latite action. I avoid California sandstone as a matter of principle, North Coast bouldering excepted of course.

Eldo: tricams, offset nuts, micro nuts.  Cams: black-blue-yellow totem, red-yellow C3, .4 X4 (this adds up to doubles in small sizes), single .5-3.  Add or subtract standard-sized cams up to 4 as needed.

Red Rock Canyon, I mostly target old wide Herbst stuff:

Double from black totem to 3, plus a 4 and 5 usually. 6 and up is for specific climbs. I think tricams are crazy useful here but ymmv.

Next additions are brassies and ball nuts for the thin face stuff in Black Velvet.

doubles of cams from #.2-#4, plus a 5 and 6, offset nuts and 2 60m ropes is pretty standard for anything in zion.

I climb mostly granite in PNW/BC (Index, Vantage, Trout Creek, Squamish, Cascades, Bugaboos) with yearly trips out to the desert (Indian Creek and Red Rocks). I have a double rack from 0.1"-4"  and one #5 of BD C4's and Z4's and also five total of #1, #2 and #3 C4's for Indian creek and Squamish. I also have a full set of nuts/runners and a set of DMM offset nuts, which I love and use the most of my passive pro. When ever I visit the Creek, I usually combine racks with a buddy so we have like 8-9 #1, #2, and #3 cams for those long splitters. 

Moore's Wall — WC hardstem Friends 1.0-2.5, gold DMM Dragon, 0 Z4, Dragonflies red to gray, WC Zero blue to green, BD Stoppers 3-11, WC Rocks 1-6, BD Microstoppers 3-5, DMM IMPs 2-3, Tricams .25 to 3.0 plus modified pink and red

Sauratown — Same as Moore's plus red and blue DMM Dragons

New River area — Same as Sauratown plus another black Tricam, 8 Metolius Powercam, 4.0 Helium Friend, 4 BD C4, and a small selection of offset micronuts/nuts

Rumbling Bald — Pretty much the same as NRG plus gold WC (modern) Friend, and Metolius 00-0 TCUs, but no 2.5 hardstem or 2.5-3.0 Tricams

Mostly climbing West Virginia and my rack consists of a 

full set of Black Diamond nuts (doubles of 5-9) 

Set of tricams from black to violet with doubles of pink

Double sets of cams from .3 to 4 (Mix of BD and Wild Country)

some BD micro stoppers for the occasional thin climb.