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General Climbing Discussion

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Racking Cams 24-Jul-2007 At 10:50:47 AM IdratherbeclimbingM9

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On 23/07/2007 master of drung wrote:
>had always racked cams individually but recently when forced to minimize
>my rack for a trip i racked 2 sets of 3 consecutive cams on single large
>biners on my harness and am a convert, i found it much easier to find what
>i wanted without looking.

This works well doesn't it eh. Fairly standard technique for aid climbers due to carrying so much gear, but the only difference is that usually I have similar sizes (rather than consecutive) on the racking krab/s.
Also to clarify any ambiguity; ~ each cam has its own krab which is clipped into the one racking krab. I tend to extend (if needed), with runners rather than quickdraws and each of my runners has its own dedicated krab on it. If I find the need to extend, then invariably I find quickdraws too short for the purpose.

Mostly I echo the posts above (particularly bomber pro and wallwombat), however here are some other thoughts.
I enjoy climbing with a bandolier style gear sling, but only tend to use it on multipitch in combo with harness racking, or offwidths (by itself), to enable getting the gear out of the way when necessary. I reckon the second should use a bandolier gearsling as it makes transitions at belays quicker / more efficient?

When leading most climbs I rack most of the gear on the harness loops as it lowers centre of gravity and stops the awkward leg bashing (that Steph refers to), / obscuring my vision of footholds. For aid I additionally combine / use a chest harness with its own gear loops.
I tend to distribute cams equally on both sides, largest at rear through smallest at front with wires front-most. Amongst the racking of cams in the mid-range sizes I will distribute similar size hexs each with its own krab racked to a dedicated racking krab. Nothing worse than being committed with the hand that is needed to get the right size gear for placement, so having a sprinkling both sides gives added options / flexibility.

Another tip; You can always minimise the swinging bandolier by clipping it to one of your harness loops.

A search will turn up other similar thread topics on this forum ...
:)