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Chockstone Forum - Gear Lust / Lost & Found

Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

 Page 4 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 66
Author
Cam failure discussion
Wendy
27-Apr-2015
7:16:47 AM
On 26/04/2015 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 23/04/2015 Wendy wrote:
>>People rip gear all the time. Mostly it has
>>to do with bad placement not rock.
>
>What are the attributes of a bad cam placement then?

Ok, for those slow people who can't work out what I'm saying ... Common bad cam placements are tipped out, unevenly cammed, in shitty shallow flares, not angled to the direction of fall, not extended to minise movement, tight on edges where the cams are going to get torqued under load. etc etc.
sometimes they are from placement in shitty crumbling rock or glassy smooth rock.

Whilst it is a bad decision to place a cam in friable or glassy rock if you have any better options, I reckon that most cam failures come from the technical aspects of the placement not the glassiness of the rock. So it's all very well and good to say, look, this guy ripped 5 pieces out of erg, it must be the glassy rock, but it seems more likely to be a series of bad placement decisions.
Now, as I am not used to removing your cams and thinking thank f--- he didn't fall on that, if you ripped 5 cams out of the start of Erg, I might think twice about what was going on there.
One Day Hero
27-Apr-2015
3:57:25 PM
On 27/04/2015 Wendy wrote:
>Common
>bad cam placements are tipped out, unevenly cammed, in shitty shallow flares,
>not angled to the direction of fall, not extended to minise movement, tight
>on edges where the cams are going to get torqued under load. etc etc.
>sometimes they are from placement in shitty crumbling rock or glassy smooth
>rock.

Ok, that seems like a pretty sensible list.

>Now, as I am not used to removing your cams and thinking thank f--- he
>didn't fall on that, if you ripped 5 cams out of the start of Erg, I might
>think twice about what was going on there.

I must have a little more faith in the skills of random climbers than you do (which is surprising). Clint was apparently a pretty solid climber, and you can see in the video that he isn't just poking gear blindly at the crack. As far as I remember that crack isn't crumbly or flared, and it doesn't look like the cams are super shallow or anything. I think you have your head in the sand if you watch that and don't feel that the most likely cause is cams slipping out of seemingly good placements due to smooth rock.
Wendy
27-Apr-2015
5:24:34 PM
On 27/04/2015 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 27/04/2015 Wendy wrote:
>>Common
>>bad cam placements are tipped out, unevenly cammed, in shitty shallow
>flares,
>>not angled to the direction of fall, not extended to minise movement,
>tight
>>on edges where the cams are going to get torqued under load. etc etc.
>
>>sometimes they are from placement in shitty crumbling rock or glassy
>smooth
>>rock.
>
>Ok, that seems like a pretty sensible list.
>
>>Now, as I am not used to removing your cams and thinking thank f--- he
>>didn't fall on that, if you ripped 5 cams out of the start of Erg, I
>might
>>think twice about what was going on there.
>
>I must have a little more faith in the skills of random climbers than
>you do (which is surprising). Clint was apparently a pretty solid climber,
>and you can see in the video that he isn't just poking gear blindly at
>the crack. As far as I remember that crack isn't crumbly or flared, and
>it doesn't look like the cams are super shallow or anything. I think you
>have your head in the sand if you watch that and don't feel that the most
>likely cause is cams slipping out of seemingly good placements due to smooth
>rock.

I promise to go and do it next month and let you know personally if gear should really hold in that crack. I did Wizard of Ice yesterday. White Heat a few days before hand. They are pretty glassy. Gear is still failing to come out with a friendly tug. I'll be getting myself into this bad habit of tugging every cam if I keep this experiment up much longer.

Doug
27-Apr-2015
6:41:54 PM
On 21/04/2015 Wendy wrote:

>What you call "setting" a cam is what I call simply "placing" a cam. It
>involves a good look, sometimes an adjustment, not usually a tug. Tugging
>a cam you know is in a good spot is pointless.

Can't fully agree with the last sentence, Wendy. On rock with a high friction co-efficient I'd say: "Sure, there's no need to pull on a cam to "set" it."
But on the glassy rock of some of Frog's great routes I'd "set" a cam ( but not on Infinity: the crack isn't one of those perfectly parallel and glassy smooth ones).
Di and I were involved in a rescue of a guy who pulled a cam on Erg. (luckily he landed flat on his back on the ledge at the base and, while sustaining a number of fractures no paralysis resulted, but that's another story). Spoke about it with Scott Camps afterwards and he said he always sets his cams at Frog.

As far as the term "testing" is concerned in relation to cams or nuts ... well, unless you set up some elaborate and time-consuming antics that involve replicating the forces that occur when a real-life load occurs, the notion of "testing" a placement is a total furphy. And I say this even after climbing with Squeak and seeing him attach a sling to a nut and reefing as hard as he could on it. That was still nothing like the forces that are going to come about when a leader fall occurs.

Cheers

Doug
rightarmbad
27-Apr-2015
7:58:02 PM
Having done Erg a few times and fallen twice just near the top of the pillar doing the direct, I can say that there are plenty of great placements on the climb.
There are also plenty of bad ones..
The problems?

Black shiny rock and twisty cracks.

It is easy to see the problem if you get you head right in close, the cams sit a bit twisted and engage the edges of the lobes with uneven opening.
Move it a few mm or cm and all is fine, but slam it in in desperation without looking as that is what the route begs you to do and you will more than likely have a bad placement.

Always be wary of the black slippery rock at Frog.
But also be aware of the twisty nature of some of the cracks.
Linkcams do not work well there, if on the tighter side of the range, they will simply not bite.
Larger aliens can also be unstable with their narrow heads.
Ballnuts can also be problematical there.

There is simply too much blind faith in cams atthe moment and not enough fundumantal knowledge of how they work.
In general, Frog is bomber rock with great protection, but as with any crag, it has its own perculiarities.
patto
27-Apr-2015
8:29:05 PM
On 27/04/2015 rightarmbad wrote:
>There is simply too much blind faith in cams atthe moment and not enough
>fundumantal knowledge of how they work.

That is an easy statement to be made by somebody with the aptitude and the interest in the more complex details of operation. There are some people who lack the interest or the aptitude to properly understand the details. Most of the time diligent learning will get the by safely. A good grounding in physics, engineering and geology can and does aid trad climbing. But so are a whole bunch of factors.

(I'm not being critical of your statement. Just being realistic about the breadth of knowledge backgrounds of climbers.)

 Page 4 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 66
There are 66 messages in this topic.

 

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