Looking for Advice on Aliens

[Need2Climb]

So my current Alpine rack consists of a full set of nuts, a couple of tri-cams, mid-range Camelots and WC hexes. The basic stuff.

 

However, I hear that Aliens do very well and the ease of placement works very well. What experiences do people have with these on alpine routes? What colors are good to begin with and have the most versatility? I also see that other manufactuers are now producing Alien equivalants (Metolious, BD, etc)

 

Thanks,

Chris

[fenderfour]

Red down to black

 

Aliens are great for smaller placements. The larger ones are "eh.."

 

The floppiness of the cable is nice, so is the tube trigger thingy. The wires are shorter and more difficult to get bungled.

[mattp]

I agreet that Aliens are useful in sizes from red down to black. I find they bung up faster than, say, Metolius cams, but they often seem more secure in shallow placements.

[catbirdseat]

By "equivalents" you mean Metolius TCU's and BD C3? Not exactly equivalent, but close enough.

 

Bear in mind that Aliens are the only cam that I know of that has no stops at all. As a result, they can get stuck in certain situations. On climbs, I tend to save them for applications where they work better than other cams, that is shallow, narrow or bottoming pockets and horizontal cracks.

[underworld]

red thru black is a lot to buy if you're just starting out. i'd suggest to start w/ green, yello and gray. imo good finger sizes.

 

i've got tcu's and zeros, but i favor the aliens - for whatever reason...

[dbconlin]

red and yellow aliens are the most useful cams EVER. that was before grey, which is betwix the two, so it is probably really useful too (but I don't have one). I have a green which sees occasional use and blue which sees rare use. unless you are doing aid, i say no to blue and black (at least to start).

[crackers]

I love aliens in the gunks. I've never used them alpine climbing because most of my alpine days have been on crappy exfoliating limestone where i love the sound of a pin.

 

In the gunks, from 5.7 to 5.9, green and yellow are perfect.

From 5.9 to 5.11, blue and black are your best friends.

 

I'd start with green, yellow and red in that order. The red is a thinner profile than BD or metolius, but it's definitely on the range of where the beauty of aliens stops.