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Climbing, Adventure, Gear & Choss
A Few of My Favorite Things
We all have them. Those go-to pieces that, once placed, cause your whole being to relax, and you can continue upward with confidence. Here’s our favorite gear that gets us all warm and fuzzy inside.
Red Black Diamond C3
I never really got into Aliens, but I love Black Diamond C3’s. Bomber little units that fit where many other things wont, my favorite of the lot is the red one. It seems to come in handy just when you need it most, and it’s still big enough that you don’t worry too much about whipping on it, unlike some of the smaller ones. There’s nothing like thinking you still have a ways to go on runout terrain ’til the next piece, when suddenly you spy a bomber red C3 placement and all is well again!
Blue (#8) DMM Offset Nut
Start climbing with offset nuts, and I’ll bet you have a hard time going back to “regular” shapes, they just seem so archaic. The DMM Offsets are an integral part of my trad rack, and I’ve particularly fallen in love with the blue one. Slot one of these into a textbook placement, and you can feel your soul leap with joy. Sadly I had to leave one on a route in RMNP last summer, but it was quickly replaced, as the idea of life with out it was just too much to bear.
Gold Camalot
Maybe the grandaddy of all the coveted gear placements, there’s nothing as glorious as a perfectly placed gold Camalot. Whether you are in Indian Creek, or happen to find a big enough horizontal at the Gunks, these things can hold a truck, and are often the foundation of many a multipitch trad anchor. I could write a song about how much I love placing these, but this little paragraph will have to suffice for now. As an added bonus, if you are placing these, it likely means you are on a perfect hand crack, and that’s about as good as it gets!
Bolt Hanger
OK, so you don’t place these, but is there anything that matches the feeling of clipping into a solid bolt, especially after a dicey or runout section of a climb? My whole being wants to shout “I’m gonna live” once the rope drops through the quickdraw, and all is right in my world again. On the flip side, there’s not much worse then clipping some ancient relic, thinking, well, at least it will slow me down some!
What’s the gear you can’t live without?
7 Responses to A Few of My Favorite Things
Bulldog Creek Dog Walk (IV WI 4+)
Hayden Carpenter and Tom Bohanon recently repeated an obscure ice climb on the south side of Mt Sopris. Given a brief mention in Jack Robert’s ice guide, Bulldog Creek Walk is described as being 100 meters of WI 4. What they found was seven pitches of ice in a remote setting that makes for one […]
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Totally agree on the #8 Offset. I grew up on Wild Country Rocks and am even old enough to remember the MOAC, but whatever the version, yeah, that’s the one. One of those in a sinker placement and you know nothing bad is going to happen to you.
Ditto the gold camalot. Since I’m a Brit my equivalent is the 2.5 Friend. There’s a route called Hammer on the Etive Slabs in Scotland, where you run it out on a slab for miles & miles (fortunately with the crux at the beginning, but still …) and eventually you get to an overlap with a crack underneath it. Sinker handjam, fire the 2.5 Friend in, relax.
Organic crash pad! It’s nice to know you have one of those under you when you’re about to make a really sketchy move over a bad landing!
I really want to try offset nuts now and I definitely need a couple small cams. Good article.
If you like the big offsets, be sure to get a set of PeeNuts, they fill the small stuff like the offsets do on the bigger sizes. They are straight up cheating on granite, I use them all the way down for #1, way better than brass. The only stoppers I carry any more are the 5 and 6, and they get used way less now because it’s always about the PeeNuts.
Dave, how do the PeeNuts compare to the brass offsets?
Hi BJ,
I think the PeeNuts are way better for freeclimbing in normal flaring granite. The offset angle of the brassies is much more noticeable, they are much boxier? I think this might be better for pin scars, but for a gentle flare (more common on natural, less nailed cracks) the PeeNuts have them beat hands down. I think the strength rating is higher as well? I know the #2 peenut is 5k, because I looked at it after I had to do a .10 crux over one with it between me and the ground last weekend. I also just feel better climbing over an aluminum nut.
The brass is more expensive, harder to clean and more fragile as well, as anyone who has ever funked a brassie will know. The PeeNuts do get a little kinky, since you are always placing them in the same direction to account for the flare, and offsets are a little harder to clean than a standard nut because there is less real estate in the back of the placement.
What finally got me to buy a set was when a local strong guy I know told me ‘PeeNuts take the R out of a lot of routes.’ After getting a set and using them extensively in tiny fiddly placements where a regular stopper would just be junk if it would seat at all, I would have to agree. Pebbly/crappy seams that you used to just ignore will now occasionally take a small PeeNut.
I have two sets of brassies, HBs and some Stones (I think made ages ago by WC?) After using both for a while, I found the Stones much more useful because they didn’t have quite the aggressive angle of the HBs, and would go in lots more places on free routes. The PeeNuts are better than the Stones. Similar angle, but shorer nut body and made of Al. Also a tiny scallop cut out of the back on the bottom which helps it seat. So the HBs stay at home, the Stones live in the bottom of my bag and only come out for the very rare sustained micro seam, and the Peenuts get taken up everything.
oh yeah, the heads slide down on the Peenuts as well, good for putting on hangerless bolts or using as an emergency quickdraw, something you can’t do with brass (and my HB aluminum set has all glued heads). Only comes in handy like once every 200 pitches or so, but nice when it does.
Oh yes, I would also say the PeeNuts place anywhere a stopper would, and many places a stopper wouldn’t.