I am curious as to how others rack their gear, Initially I was taught to rack on a bandolier/ gear sling, but on steeper routes I find it disappears behind my back and the middle cams are squeezed, so changed to racking on harness, still perfecting that.
What do you do?

Cheers
Cormac

Hi

I used to use a bandolier and quite liked it, racked all the cams on it, nuts and draws on the harness. None of my climbing buddies liked it though so I gave up trying to persuade them and took up racking my gear on my harness. Usually the cams are on my left hand side (I'm a righty) smallest at the front, biggest at the back. Nuts on the right at the front and draws behind. Slings are around my neck, with the ends clipped together with a biner (makes them much easier to take off when needed, just unclip and pull)

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Happy climbing
Nic

I rack acording to difficulty of the route.

If its easy, I just put everything on the bondolier.

As the difficulty increases, I like to put cams on my harness and nuts and hex's on the bondolier.

If its like lank hard i will scope out and pre-select the gear and rack it up on my harness.

Slings are always on my sholders.

get a wild country syncro harness for around R800: 3 gear loops on each side + a 7th at the back. its very easy to organise and the gear will not be cluttered + easy to reach and unclip.

one side (3 loops) i rack small cams; draws; big cams. other side nuts; draws; hexes + belay device + nut pick + prussics. throw slings (4x 60cm; 2x 120cm) diagonally across my shoulders. works like a charm. no need for bandoliers.

http://www.mammoth.co.za/outdoor/wild-c ... rness.html
or
https://www.mountainmailorder.co.za/ind ... uctId=2529

ps: or you can get the BD Big Gun but that is just overkill for anything less than big walling.

I think as long as you know exactly where everything is without having to look you're 90% there. As a general rule I rack bigger gear further to the back. I also spread quickdraws either side. As Mok said, more gear loops are better. I also spread my nuts on 3 biners, grouped in size.

Exactly the same as me, but mirrored (I'm a lefty). I have no major difference in strength between left and right, but my I'm definitely more dextrous with my left hand, so prefer to use it to fiddle with my nuts ( yes I know). Nuts are 3 bunches on oval biners; 1-5, 6-10, 10-14 (I really like the the big WC nuts). If I think I'll need them I have a biner with an assortment of tiny things rock 1 and smaller and also a motley collection of bigger hexes and things which I clip round the back.

I personally use the Metolius Double D Gear sling.

A regular gear sling with some nice extra features:
1) It's got four individual gear loops in the front. So the gear stays on each loop. I then rack nuts on loop 1, Aliens on loop 2, small cams on loop 3, large cams on loop 4.
2) Plus another loop under the opposing arm. That extra loop keeps the whole sling from rotating around your chest on overhanging stuff. It works like a charm.

And yes we sell it too. R300.
https://www.mountainmailorder.co.za/ind ... uctId=2560

A simple bandolier is the most forgiving way to rack gear as you can reach pieces with both hands. You can easily take it off and hand it over. From time to time you can pull it up after doing a bouldery ankle breaking move off a ledge. You can hang your gear on the bandolier off a sling below you in a tight squeeze. And you can shift it left to right if you are climbing in a corner or a chimney.

So all critical gear I carry is on a bandolier. Slings and QD's are on each side of my harness. As well as less critical gear, such as the larger cams and RP's

When climbing very overhanging rock a bandolier can hang off your shoulder and therefor your arms but you can then take the heavier pieces and clip them to your harness or position the bandolier in your front on your chest to take the weight off your arms. Or, in anticipation, distribute all the gear on your harness for the steep part.

A simple bandolier in conjunction with your harness loops provides the most options of managing your gear.

Multiple loop bandoliers like the metolius featured by Robert are fine if you are standing on your feet on not too steep rock. Then you can access the gear with either hand. When it becomes steeper then it has similar limitations to racking all your gear on your harness but still hangs off your shoulders. You cannot shift the weight of the pieces on the bandolier from left to right or in fact shift the bandolier as a whole with all the pieces from left to right or vice versa.

Finally, it is what you are used to what matters.

Some 15 years ago I was climbing with Andy De Klerk at Blouberg and he had to momentarily grab a sling that was hanging on a fixed peg on the 24 pitch of Dog Day in Heaven as he could not access the appropriate piece of gear on his harness. He spoiled the on-sight which was well within his grade of climbing upper 20's and even 30's at the time. I always use a bandolier on tricky routes and if I don't have one I use a sling. Does not matter much on routes well within my grade.

Thanks for the tips okes!

mmmmm, good case for a bandolier there SNORT! my biggest gripe is that gear gets cluttered on it; often grabbing the wrong biner or having to fiddle with the stuff to release the right piece. you found a way to manage that?

Willem, first of all if I carry double pieces I either carry the extra one on my harness or clip the biner of the second piece to the biner of the 1st piece. So there is only one biner on the bandolier.

Secondly, light weight gear and biners can halve the weight of your rack. There are now full size biners weighing at 20g and aliens are very light. Heavy gear clutters indeed.

Thirdly, pre-planning placements by either having one (or two) right in front or right on the back of the bandolier or on your harness loops if you know which hand you gonna need helps a lot. You can pre-plan at least 6 pieces like that by even hanging one round your neck on a sling or clip one to the front loop of your harness. Saw Willem Le Roux do that at YW on Sunday. He does not use a bandolier.

But yes, a clutter*uck does occur from time to time no matter what method.

Sorry sway the topic a little, but people often reference "heavy" gear on the market, and I would love to know what counts as heavy? Sure a Omega Pacific is heavy as a single unit as it is about twice the weight of a normal cam, but when you think is has the range of 3 cams I think its fair. The Big Bro's have the best size to weight ratio, but are not the easiest things to place, and if you are climbing a uniform(ish) crack they can't be easily dragged behind you, like a cam

I think pro that has the widest range makes more sense as you are more likely to place the right one off your rack, and there will be fewer on the rack. I look forward to the BD Predators launch early in the new year: their increased range means you need less cams on your rack- like 3 or 4 fewer*! less stuff= lighter weight, and in this case less money spent too.

*compared to C3's

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

When you climb big trad routes at Yelllowwood or Blouberg, it is not the range that counts but the amount and variety of pieces. Yellowwood eats gear and mostly small pieces. Double set of Aliens is almost essential. You can use other cams but then they are heavier. And then biners can be found that are half the weight than in the past And then some slings are also lighter.

When climbing with Douw and Willem at YW they checked out my rack which is a double rack including inbetween sizes except for the 2.5inch and 3 inch cams and they decided to leave some extra tiny cams behind. They both ran out of gear on their pitches....

Going up there tomorrow and will take photos of this Monster rack.

And then go do an aid route in in Yosemite.

Hi Snort

Sorry, I have to call you out on this:

The lightest/smallest Fixe Alien ranges from 8.4mm to 13.8mm and weighs 66g
The BD C3#00 (second smallest) ranges from 9mm-13.7mm, and weighs 57g.
The Master Cam Size#0 (second smallest) ranges from 10mm to 15.1mm and weighs 65g

WC Zeros don't make an easy comparison here due to sizing as the Master Cam above has the range of two zeros. The two units in question are #2 at 32g and the #3 at 44g. I also don't want t include the BD Predators as they aren't out yet

The point I am trying to make here is not which is the lightest (nor to offend you), but rather to say that there aren't options out there that are significantly heavier than their competitors.

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

You won't can't offend me.

But you cannot compare Omega P cams to aliens. I do have the orange Omega cam on my standard rack as a piece that I try keep on new ascents for the belay as it is so versatile. But only one!

Fair enough. Light cams are light cams but at YW and in sandstone in general the flexibility of aliens beats all and is crucial to anyone who uses them. That means less QD's and/slings needed to take any side-ways tensions off. Ask Willem, Bruce, Robert Douw, Tony Tini the Brits that come here.. Whenever anyone climbs with me that uses Aliens, they bring a spare set - just in case!



BD tricams (and Metolius) have VERY rigid stems which when placed in a shallow horizontal rail stick straight out and you always have to put longish floppy slings which means 3 biners per piece and a sling. You can use two biners but that means fiddling. When you are shitting yourself and you slap in an alien or two and clip em direct there is nothing more comforting. Aliens also have their disadvantages in that they can overcam but there is nothing that beats them overall at YW, the Ledge or Blouberg. Ask the guys that climb there? We all love em.

I have 3 racks which includes a full set of BD cams, 4 full sets Aliens, Dragon cams, Rock Empire, WIld country offsets. They all good. But the lightest and most flexible and useful are Aliens in the ranges to 2 in.

Sorry to reply to my reply here, but I thought I'd try get reasoning for this diversion justified! Snort you are right that range in cams is irrelevant as you need to place multiple points in, however in terms of ease of placement a wider range in a given size does help. I also have several duplication's in my rack, due to where I climb.

There was an interesting supertopo article about cams almost from a social history perspective, saying how a generation of tradies fell in love with the Aliens because they were the best cam units in small sizes. But then, with time, other products from much larger companies started competing and now Aliens runs on historic reputation and celebrity endorsements rather than relative performance. By the way (and I am embarrassed to admit this) I have never owned C3's, as I bought Aliens then too, but as they are approaching retirement I'll replace them with the Predators. Thanks to Mr Hills and his attempts at Cash's King for speeding this process up!

oh, and I rack everything I can on my harness, like the sport climber I am! bitch for swinging leads, but everything has its place...

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

All good Warren, but you are wrong about Aliens and celebs. BD is king in cams. Period. Aliens are preferred by a few guys only but most people who are properly introduced to them end up using them.

Everything has its place, agreed. My little buyers remorse was not thinking about sizing more comprehensively when getting my Aliens, which leaves me with heavy overlaps and gaps. I suppose the celebs thing is perspective

Snort as you are reading this there is a little racking question i have been meaning to swing passed you, slings: I have seen 3 common methods, but I see a flaw with each, and so with a person of such experience I am curious. Do you twist and rack on one biner; stick it over your shoulder, or make the Quickdraw extendable sling? Simon uses a fourth option of simply having 18cm draws, 30cm runner-draws, with over-the-shoulder slings for the very long.

Finally I ask a strictly Racking Question

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

I mostly use the triple biner through biner method with thin slings. Easiest to rack and extend and pass on when swinging leads. Doubles as a QD and a sling. No extra long slings. Cumbersome! Rather carry extra std slings with light biners. Sometimes in anticipation would hang a sling or two over my neck. Twisting is used if you have thick long slings.

Must also use only open slings as sewn tight qd's are difficult to extend if needed.

Okay great, we are on the same page, thanks. I saw Richard/squeaks uses the same technique, although he put a small elastic band on one end to make it more obvious which not to drop, if you know what I mean!

Higher up the thread Mok mentioned the Syncro, and I was wondering if anyone else has feed back on it? I'd like to know if the double decker gear loop plan doesn't result in a difficult to use system? In the latest SA Mountain there is a long article on harnesses, and one they speak of is the BD Flight. I hope BD use the gear loop design from this harness on the Aspect, with a longer rail. This way more can be stacked on the harness more comfortably. I suspect the very forward gear loop configuration would result in more trad gear in your crotch, but then I suppose if you are wearing a harness like that your gear is more likely to slide of the back of the harness rather than the front due to the angle of the walls you climb!

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

Yes, I use it too. I've used it for 1 or 2 years now I think. It's great! The gear loops are well positioned. I find more short loops are better than fewer long loops. That way it doesn't bunch up so much. I also think it's better to have the middle loops higher than the rest. It's never a problem, in fact it allows the back loops to be further to the front, making the gear on them easier to reach. The only loop I don't like so much is the 7th one at the back. I generally rack my belay device, nut pick and maybe stuff like a cordilette or prusics or what ever else. The problem is it gets in the way when I want to sit on a ledge (yes I sit on ledges some times, deal with it).

I've tried to love using a bandolier and failed. I fully appreciate the speed of change overs when you're swinging leads, but unless I need to climb more than 15 pitches in a day the speed doesn't win over having what feels like a millstone around my neck. Yes you need to take the remainder of the rack off your harness and hand it to the new leader at belays. But personally I *HATE* mantelling onto a ledge just to have all the gear swing to the front of the bandolier - and then your .5 C4 hooks *under* a little overhang and you have to do a mini reverse to unhook it before you can mantel again, trying to keep the gear swung to the back...if you can understand what I mean from this clumsy description? I think bandoliers also lose their speed advantage if you're leading blocks and not swinging leads.


I'm not so sure what you mean? If you do the pass-through-the-biner-to-triple-the-sling trick as Snort mentions, to un-tripple the draw you take one biner, and drop two of the sling strands on that biner and the draw extends naturally. I haven't been able to do this incorrectly (I mean, where one of the biners detaches entirely from the draw), even after trying on the ground. It seems that no matter which biner you drop the strands off, or which 2 of the 3 you drop off, it always comes out as an intact extended draw. If you did something funny when tripling the draw in the first place, you could end up with twisting but not an unstructured draw. The only way I've managed to screw this up is if you don't triple the sling but double it - when you unclip the wrong strand on a doubled sling you're clipped to nothing at all.

I have a WC Syncro on the way from Snort's shop right now, I'll let you know how it works with a big rack on.


Right on Snort

Warren, my gf supposed to get me 2 x cams for Xmas, any chance predators will be here before 24th? Or can she get c3's and you do a trade-in, when Predators arrive?

@ Pierre: you have answered your own question, but to clarify:

1. place sling between a Straight gate and bent gate biner.
2. place elastic on straight gate end of sling
3. pass bent biner through straight gate.
4. clip bent into the loop of sling (two strands)

you now have the 1/3 draw.

to extend: unclip either of the non-elasticated sling strands passing through the straight gate.

Tip: don't put any twists in the sling when passing the bent through straight gate in step 3, as this may cause the draws to not fully extend.

@ Xenomorph: if you celebrate Christmas in Easter she will be fine, but I don't expect to see them here in the warehouse before March. And Nice try, but no way on the swap! If you have a BD rack down to 0.3 then the smallest 2 X4s will complete your size curve, unlike the C3's in which you will need 4 (I argue that as the C3#2 and C4#0.3 are the same size you wouldn't include the C3#2, otherwise its a 3 cam saving).

More @ Xenomorph: if you look hard at the size range, the difference between the C3#000 and the X4#0.1 is minor, and so she could buy you the C3#000 and then when the X4s come out the #0.2. this way you have the smallest size now, and when the new units come out your rack will still make sense. the big advantage in the X4's are in the mid sizes more than the smallest.

Clearly there are more advantages to the X4s than the sizing and range, like the soft beaded stem rather than the relatively stiff rubber C3 stem, and so the option above might not work for you.

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

Me too. What I have found useful is a little daypack for multipitches that has a couple of gear loops on the shoulder straps. The second and leader each carry one, and if there is a load of gear required this can be clipped to the leader's pack, or passed off to the second to carry. I think it's by either Deuter or Mammut.

You may have the Metolius Big Wall Multi-Loop in mind. I tried it and it doesn't work. The Gear sits too high under your arm pits, gets in the way, throws your center of gravity off too much, plus the pack is tiny.
The double D loop I wrote above works great. You unclip the underarm cross-brace and can swing leads or gear in seconds.

makes sense that racking gear around your waist has the lowest impact on your balance & movement - it is the "axle" of your 4 limbs and hence the most stable area of your body. one of the reasons you want a backpack riding on your hips and not your back.

as shorti said, the syncro's loops works well - the middle loop is raised and is great for racking draws. i have not had any issues with clutter or gear getting stuck / tangled. highly recommended

This would not be good!