Hardware for the Beginning Rock Climber

First, rock climbing is dangerous.  You can die climbing.  The choice of gear you use is entirely up to you.  Selecting, placing and using this gear is your responsibility.  If you are not happy learning on your own how to use rock climbing gear or any gear discussed in this article then get instruction.  Got it?  Ok.

There are many levels at which an individual may participate in rock climbing.  Most people who develop more than just a casual interest purchase a harness, shoes, and a chalk bag so that they can climb either indoors in a climbing gym or join their friends outdoors.  It is possible to stay at this level and have a good deal of fun, however, if the desire to "strike out on your own" hits, then you will need to consider buying your own gear.  The new leader will need to purchase a rope, a selection of passive protection such as stoppers, a selection of active protection such as cams of some sort, slings, carabiners, a rack or sling device to carry all the gear, a belay device, and a cleaning tool for prying out stuck stoppers or cams.  These days this is an expensive proposition so it has become problematic for the beginner to make a reasonable choice.  The choice of gear is complicated by the type of climbing to be encountered but the following discussion is for general climbing on rock in an area that has both face climbing and crack climbing.  There are certain climbing areas that don't fit the typical pattern, such as Indian Creek, where the requirement is for about fifteen cams of every size.  There are only about two easy routes at Indian Creek and they are 5.9 so this is not considered to be a beginners area.  This discussion is aimed at the beginning leader who can follow 5.8 to 5.9 and is willing to start leading at the 5.5 to 5.6 level.

The gear required is a rope which comes in a variety of lengths and diameters, passive protections such as stoppers and hexes, active protection such as camming devices such as Camalots, Friends, or Aliens, a selection of slings of different types, carabiners, some sort of belay device such as a sticht plate, a cleaning tool, and a rack or sling to hang the gear.  There are a lot of variations in all these requirements and that is what makes the choices hard but in general you can't go wrong.  Just about everything available these days is of high quality and works pretty well.

First, lets start with ropes.  A rope will be required under any circumstances since it will be needed even if the only interest is top roping.  Ropes are used in three types of systems, the single rope system, the double rope system, and the twin rope systems.  In the US the two popular systems are the single rope system and the double rope system.  In the single rope system a single 10.2 mm to 11 mm rope is used for the leader.  The rope length can vary from 45 meters to 60 meters as standard lengths and some ropes may be available that are even longer.  The double rope systems are the same length and are made from two 8 mm to 9 mm ropes.  The twin rope system is similar to the double rope system but the application is different.  In the twin rope system both ropes are treated like a single rope, that is, they are both clipped through the same carabiner.  This is not necessary with the double rope system.  The issues here are related to the application.  The single rope system is the easiest to use.  It is lighter so the leader is dragging less rope up the cliff, it is easier to clip it into the protection, and it is easier for the belayer to work with.  All of these are important in an environment where time is critical such as a back country alpine route.  The single rope system is about perfect except for three things.  The first is rappelling off a route in a storm is a lot faster and easier with two ropes and in fact some routes cannot be rappelled with only one rope at all.  The second is the force applied to a piece of protection is higher with the larger single ropes than one rope from the double rope system.  The third problem is certain weird routes that wander are a lot easier to protect with less rope drag with a double rope system than a single rope system.  In any case, most crag climbing and a lot of alpine routes may be climbed with a single rope.  The double rope system will be more difficult for the belayer to feed out and harder to stack the ropes so they don't get knotted together.  The double rope system is heavier than the single rope system and is somewhat harder to lead with, however, this system is valuable on alpine climbs when the possibility of retreat is likely.  This system is preferred for ice climbing since it loads ice screws the least in the event of a fall.

In all cases the de facto length of rope systems these days is 60 meters.  The diameter is a matter of choice.  With ropes getting longer manufacturers have gone to skinnier ropes in an effort to reduce the weight.  The down side is the smaller diameter ropes will handle fewer extreme falls and will cut more easily on edges.  The last choice here is whether the rope should be "dry", that is, waterproof, or not.  The dry ropes are nicer to work with in the rain but most waterproofing does not seem to last long.  A waterproof rope is worth the extra cost if it can be maintained.  A waterlogged non-dry rope is something to behold.  A final comment on the twin rope system.  It does not seem to be popular in the US and I know of no one who uses it.

For the individual just beginning in rock climbing the single 60 meter rope is the one to choose for getting started.  Depending on the interest other ropes and rope systems can be added later.  There are many rope manufacturers.  These include Blue Water, Maxim, Sterling, PMI, Edelrid, Rivory Joanny, Beal, Mammut, and Eidelweiss.  Black Diamond ropes seem to be supplied by other rope manufacturers.  A survey of the ropes used by the subscribers to gear@climber.org was conducted in mid 2000.  These results were compiled and may be found at http://lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/pcs/articles/ropes.asp.

The next types of gear that needs to be considered are slings.  Slings are more complicated than one might suspect.  Slings include the standard loops of webbing but also include "quick draws" and cordalettes.  First, slings are used to extend the connection between the piece of protection and the rope.  There are two reasons for doing this.  If the rope starts to make sharp bends as it follows the leader up the cliff the rope drag tends to increase dramatically.  This can be managed by extending the connection between the protection and the rope in an effort to make the rope run in a more straight line.  This lesson will have a profound effect on the new leader when it is encountered the first time.  Second, even if the rope is running straight it is important to have enough spacing between the protection and the rope so that the protection does not pull out or change position as the leader climbs past it.  It is quite disconcerting to see a stopper pop out and slide down the rope when the leader climbs past it.

In general, about half a dozen short slings are handy and about three or four long slings are handy.  The short length should be about 2 to 3 feet and the long ones about twice as long.  The length of the short ones depends on how you want to carry them.  Many people carry the free slings around the neck and over one shoulder so the sling should comfortably fit so that it is easy to remove.  This can be adjusted incrementally with hand tied slings but be sure to try on commercial sewn slings before buying them.  The longer slings should be about twice for the double length slings and about three times as long for a triple.  It is handy to have at least one triple length sling even though this length may be obtained by using a few shorter ones.  The other carrying option is to carry them on your harness or a separate rack from the gear.  In this case they are carried with two carabiners and racked so they are doubled over several times depending on the length.  There are several tricks for doing this and an experienced friend can show you how this works.

The second piece of gear in the sling family is the "quick draw".  These used to be just very short slings ranging from 4 inches to about a foot but are now usually sewn flat and configured so that the lower carabiner is held tightly so it won't flip upside down.  "Quick draws" are used to clip bolts which are permanent anchors in the rock and are usually encountered on face climbs.  Most "clip and go" routes (face climbs with just bolts for pro) are about half a rope length so about six quick draws are handy.  For routes with more bolts use the slings and rack them so they are folded over.  In total, you should have about a dozen combined "quick draws" and slings equipped with two carabiners.  The choice of sling manufacturer is up to you.  The sewn slings are very strong and some of them have a Kevlar weave.  I usually have a bunch of hand tied slings made from the narrow but thick tubular sling material.  This is so I can untie them and use them for rappelling.  Be careful buying this material.  It sometimes is called "super tape" and it gets confused with the narrow but thin stuff and most store clerks don't know the difference and sometimes load up the wrong thickness.  The material to choose is about 1/2 to 9/16 inches wide and has a breaking strength that is very close to 1 inch tubular sling material.  If it doesn't feel fat or thick it is the wrong stuff.  If in doubt, stick with the sewn commercial slings.

The last sling item of use is something called a cordalette.  This is used to quickly set up a belay anchor and consists of about 17 feet of 6 or 7 mm perlon tied in a huge loop.  Each climber should carry one so only one is necessary for each individual to own one.  Finally, if you decide to make your own slings using tubular webbing then they will have to be tied with a knot.  The standard knot is the water knot but if you allow for extra material the slings can be tied with a double fisherman's knot.  The double fisherman's knot tends to stay tied and not work loose like a water knot.  If you choose the water knot be sure to check your slings each time out!

To go with the slings, stoppers, and cams, you will need a selection of carabiners.  These days the quick draws seem to be sold with the carabiners but you will need at least one and usually two for each additional sling.  The two will be need if you decide to use the slings in a "quick draw" application.  In addition, all the stoppers and cams won't come with carabiners so you will need a selection to rack your gear.  If you look at the carabiners sold with a quick draw they look different.  One usually has a bent gate.  This is the one the rope gets clipped to and is designed that way because it is easier to drop the rope into the carabiner when desperately hanging on.  The other carabiner has a straight gate.  In general, you can equip the remaining slings with carabiners of this style but the bent gate carabiner won't be quite as useful in this environment.  That is because the slings are usually longer than a quick draw and are usually used to extend a piece of protection out to a "substantial" distance.  The straight gate carabiners are more useful.  That is because there is more area inside the carabiner for all the "stuff" that somehow ends up in there.  With this in mind it is handy to have a few of the older style carabiners that are larger.  The "D" style is stronger but even the standard ovals are very handy.

One comment about the design of carabiners.  Petzl, a French company, makes a line of carabiners without the notch in the main body of the carabiner that the pin in the gate sits in.  They have a knob on the main part of the carabiner and this fits into a cut out on the gate.  Expensive, but worth it.  The reason is the notch on a standard carabiner design catches on anything it can and it makes for slower operation and slower use of the carabiner.  Lastly you will need at least two bomber locking carabiners.  One is for the belay or rappel device and the other is to clip into the belay anchor.  After you get used to it you will end up with more than just two.  In the case of locking carabiners, bigger is better.  Usually a bunch of ropes, slings, harness and what have you gets put in there simultaneously and it is whole lot easier to work with a big locker.

Next up is passive protection.  This consists of stoppers and hexes, although there are other options that are used in certain rare applications.  The nice thing about stoppers and hexes is a well set piece is very, very, strong.  I once watched a friend of mine pitch off of "Outer Limits" in Yosemite Valley and he pulled out every piece except a giant stopper stuck behind a flake.  Scary.  In general you will need two complete sets that get as big as about .5 to .6 inches.  The biggest stopper size should just overlap the smallest cam size you choose to start with.  Fortunately, stoppers are fairly inexpensive and a complete set will run about $45 to $80 depending on which manufacturer you choose.  Stoppers come in straight tapered and curved variations.  The curved versions tend to be much more solid in most applications.  This means they will lock in small tapered sections of a crack more solidly.  It is difficult to find straight tapered stoppers in spite of the fact this was the original design.  The curved stoppers tend to be harder to remove since they lock in more efficiently, however, don't let the difficulty of removal be a consideration.  It is important that a stopper be set well in order for it to stay stuck in the crack and they are the cheapest piece on your rack so if it is necessary to abandon one it is not too painful.  If you choose to get a complete set you will end up with some big ones and they will be useful in alpine applications or in rappelling in an emergency so they are not wasted.  There are also tapered stoppers that are asymmetric.  These have application in a lot of granite cracks, especially in piton scars, and there are those who swear by them.  Some of the manufacturers are DMM, which makes Wallnuts and Peenuts, Black Diamond, Wild Country, HB, and ABC.  There are others.  The Peenuts have a peculiar taper on the bottom and are useful in piton scars and HB makes the asymmetric stoppers that work well in a wide range of granite cracks.  Most people will run into Hexes somewhere along the line.  Prior to camming devices these filled the wide end of the protection spectrum.  They are fairly hard to work with and are not recommended for the beginner.

The last big item of protection and easily the most expensive are the camming devices.  These have become the de facto standard for most climbing and there is always some manufacturer trying to make a very narrow camming device in order to move further down the crack sizes into the area usually protected with stoppers.  These devices are expensive and will run about $35 to over $100 for some truly huge stuff.  The average is about $50.  These prices are per device!  Since the camming pro will be the most expensive item on the rack and the choice of manufactures is large most people agonize over the choices.  The most important criteria for choosing cams is how easy they are for you to place them.  The emphasis is on "you".

The first part of the problem is to choose the correct piece to fit the crack.  This takes experience and surprisingly this ability to eyeball the crack and get the correct piece on the first shot is hard to do and is lost quickly without regular leading.  There are certain keys to finding the right piece.  It is very handy to have things color coded.  Next, it must fit your hand conveniently and it must be easy to "pull the trigger" and contract the cams.  This is a function of your hand size and strength.  Next, it must have the widest range of use in terms of crack size and depth.  This means the camming device must have decent range and it must be long enough to place into cracks that are flaring on the outside and the device needs to be placed deeper in the crack.  How do you choose the right devices?  If you can, lead an easy route with a friends rack and try out his or her choices.  Go to the local climbing store and try all the devices and pull the trigger on them.  Remember, these devices must be easy to locate and place.  The breaking strength?  All of them are strong and the breaking strengths are about the same.  The price?  The price will vary depending on how astute a buyer you are but the prices are about the same also.  With all this said most climbers seem to use Aliens for the smaller sizes and Camalots for the larger sizes.  The best sizes to have of the Aliens are the Green, Yellow, and Red.  This will overlap somewhat with the .5to .6 inch size stoppers but the overlap is worth it.  It is very often a lot easier to slam an Alien than it is to wiggle a stopper into some weirdo crack.  The two sizes smaller are handy also.  These are the Blue and Black.  My personal choice is to use duplicates of the Green, Yellow and Red and one of the Blue.  I then switch to the .5 Camalot and go larger.  The .5 Camalot and the Red Alien overlap somewhat.  I have duplicates of the Camalots up to #3 and one of the #4.  You can do a decent amount of climbing without the duplication but in the long run it is convenient to double up on everything.  It is a matter of how far you want to "run it out" and beginners aren't too keen on this.  When it comes to how to double the cams, I usually go with a cam that covers about the same size but is made by a different manufacturer.  This leads to a hodge-podge type rack but the slight variation in manufacturers designs mean the range of cracks covered is a little wider.  I duplicate the Aliens, though.  It turns out they have about the longest stem and are the easiest to place in the back of flaring cracks.  They also fit my hand well since I have small hands.  Stay away form the older Camalot Juniors.  The sling is sewn flat making it very difficult to add a sling without clipping into the carabiner, which is a weaker connection.  These older Camalots have two parallel wires.  The newer small size Camalots are single stemmed and work a lot better.  There are other manufactures of camming deices.  These include Wild Country (friends), HB, DMM, and Metolius.  The Camalots tend to be heavier than the other styles.

The new climber will need a gear sling to hang all this shiny new stuff on, a belay device, and a cleaning tool.  There are several choices for gear slings and Metolius makes a version with multiple little loops on it, which is supposed to help organize the pile of gear.  I am not sure how successful this is.  The belay devices are either the endless variations on the sticht plate or the figure eight.  The sticht plate variations are the two hole devices and the popular one is Black Diamond's ATC (for air traffic controller).  I don't particularly like these things but HB makes a good one with an aluminum keeper wire, solid aluminum rod in this case, that does not get stuck in the ropes when rappelling.  This is about the only one of this type I would consider.  There are the old sticht plates themselves around.  The one with the spring should be thrown as far away from you as you can.  The figure eight is an interesting device and was designed to be "fool proof".  I don't know if this is true but the figure eights tend to turn your ropes into telephone cords and I have avoided them once this became clear.

Lastly, there are the GriGri's and other esoteric belay devices.  These are great for belaying your buddies while they are floundering on the 5.13 top rope problems but are slow to operate and heavy and are not recommended for general application.  To round out your rack you will need a cleaning tool.  This is a short piece of steel used to pry the reluctant stopper or nut from the crack it was wedged into.  There are a lot of choices here and some even come with an end that allows pulling the trigger on a Friend if it has walked into the crack out of reach.  I have no preference and have used a Leeper thing for years.  People tend to drop these things and you can sometimes score a tool at the bottom of popular crack climbs.

Finally, here are a few notes on maintenance of all this expensive equipment.  Be sure to watch your rope.  Minor abrasion of the sheath is ok since that is what the sheath is for.  If it separates or the core can be seen through the sheath then the rope has had it.  The number of serious falls on the rope should be known.  If the rope loads up with fine dirt and starts to turn your hands black when using it then wash it.  I don't use any detergent.  The rope can be dried outdoors in the sun.  Watch the knots on all hand tied slings.  Watch the wear and tear on slings in general and replace them if they look dinged or it has been a few years.  It is cheap insurance.  Watch the wires on stoppers.  Severely bent ones should be examined carefully for breaks in the wire strands.  Monitor the action of the cams.  They should be easy to operate and will start to get sluggish when loaded up with grime.  Cams can be cleaned out with a water based cleaner and then lubricated.  I use something called "Rusty Duck" which is used by gun owners for lubricating guns.  Maybe "politically incorrect" but I have yet to find anything that works as well.  Stay away from oils.  They spread thin and then attract dirt and grime.  Be very, very, careful lubricating cams.  It is important to keep the various chemicals away from the slings attached to the cams.

So you have decided to buy a bunch of gear.  Where do you buy this stuff and is there a way to get a discount?  Well, there seem to be some options here for those with access to the intrernet.  Try the following:

www.rei-outlet.com

www.sierratradingpost.com.  Everything is discounted.  If you need it this is a great company.  Outstanding returns policy.  I have bought several ropes from this place.

www.mgear.com.  Mostly retail but outstanding specials and sales.  Spokane, Washington based, no CA sales tax.  www.northernmountain.com.  Mostly retail but amazing discounts on certain massively expensive items like tents, sleeeping bags, etc.  CA based and somewhat clunky returns policy.

The following two overseas websites have mountaineering and climbing gear at very good prices.  Dee has bought a rope and other friends have used the barrabes site without any problems.

http://www.telemark-pyrenees.com/

http://www.barrabes.es/barrabes/default.asp

The best place I have found for cams is in Moab, Utah.  Try Pagan Mountaineering, 88 E.  Center Street, Moab, Utah, 84532.  Call 435-259-1117 and ask for Larry Harpe or Brian Jonas.  This is a climbing store built by climbers and you should get a good price and no California sales tax.

Caveat emptor.