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General Climbing Discussion

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N008ie mistakes??? 26-Oct-2008 At 8:58:00 PM DrDan

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On 26/10/2008 kady wrote:
>One thing that you should know about wire gates is that when used in conjunction
>with carrots/bolt plates they can rotate and pull the bolt plate off the
>carrot. Also be wary of carrots with smaller heads. I will never forget
>climbing past a bolt when my foot caught on my draw and lifted the draw
>(solid gate) and bolt plate right off a small headed carrot. p.s a carrot
>is like a regular bolt that has been bashed into a pre-drilled hole. (
>i had no idea what a carrot was when i started climbing)

Thanks Kady :) Yup, sure enough, being a newbie, I only learnt about bolts and carrots in the last few days through a book (The Climbing Handbook by Steven Long).
I'm still a little bit somewhat unsure with respect to quickdraw placement - I was in a climbing gear store yesterday, and got some advice from a fellow shopper who was an exprienced climber - he told me that one thing I should definitely get was
1) a daisy chain
2) fu(ket loads of biners (screw and clips)
3) similar abundance of quickdraws
Then he said to me "Make sure you always have the biners facing opposite directions on a quickdraw" and he explained why, but being less technical it escaped me (sorry...)
I think he said it was to stop the top (anchoring) biner from accidentally being dragged and unclipped or removing the bolt...(?)

Also, I've decided to buy Mountaineering: Freedom of the hills (7ed) tomorrow - do you guys and girls recommend any other books? or alternatives?