Lightweight Gear?

[Peter_Puget]

All the commotion regarding lightweight gear got me a thinkin’. Has anyone seen a comparison between rack weights? For example let’s pick 5 points in time separated by 10 years starting at 1965 and ending at 2003 (ignore the loss of a few years) It would be interesting to estimate the weight of an “average” rack” the made up of the gear available at the different times. I sense a Pub Club experiment here!

 

PP

[lI1|1!]

excellent question i think, for intellectual curiosity. i think you'd just need a way to define "average rack". maybe some old timers can chime in with what was typically on thier rack, or what they remember carrying for a given climb. i think it would be somewhat variable then just as it is today. not forgetting slings too. then assemble the pieces and weigh them.

[lummox]

heres the deal pp: climbers admired boldness a lot more back in the day. so they dint carry much shit. so their racks were pretty light. how many pins did salathe and nelson carry on lost arrow? like 5 or sumpin. grade v too. first in north america.

[Beck]

and Beckey used to use old neckties, i read recently, as slings- i bet they were as light as the 8mm supper skinny runners out there!

[cj001f]

Beck said:

and Beckey used to use old neckties, i read recently, as slings- i bet they were as light as the 8mm supper skinny runners out there!

I liked the wool overcoat as belay gear. Something about that story sounded a bit fishy to me though.

[MATT_B]

I have not been around long enough to have much first hand experience but from what I read it sounds like individual peices of equipment have gotten lighter but for the most part the size or racks have gotten much larger. I have read a lot of route descriptions that describe the rack as being a couple of pins or a hand full of stoppers. Today people are doing some of these same routes and typically have a "standard rack" that usually includes a set of nuts, a set of cams, a set of draws . . . I am not saying this is good or bad. To each their own.

[Crackbolter]

Do you think it is because we are climbing with longer ropes? I always thought the original ascents were broken up into shorter pitches.

[Dru]

A full modern free rack is still lighter and less gear than the ~125 pitons used on the FA of Liberty Crack or whatever.

 

But, way more gear as the clean rack of nuts & hexes used on a free route from the 1970's. They took what they had. we take what we have. We have more stuff and longer pitches. We are accustomed to putting in gear where we want it. They would put gear in where it would go.

[lummox]

i think the best climbers are still going out with minimal gear. course by 'best' im putting a value judgement out there. so fuck you if you disagree.