Lightening up my rack

[B Deleted_Beck]

Howdy

 

In trying to lighten up my rack, I swapped all my solid gates to hotwires... Then I learned that Camp Nanos are almost half the weight of my old hotwires, so I just ordered up 24 of those... Then it hit me- I bet they're making lighter cams these days... My rack consists of 8 small hole or U stem camalots and 5 ancient TCUs... How much can I expect to lighten up by switching to a modern light cam? What cams do you recommend? Are there cAms that are too light (durability)?

 

Thanks

 

-Ben

[Luzak00]

There are no popular mass market cams that are too light (the Metolius UL cams might be the lightest on the market today and have a good reputation). That said, I use BD C4's, which are heavier than most of the competition.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Luzak00

[boadman]

I could drop the most weight by stopping eating ice-cream.

 

How old are your cams? The new BD C4s, and the new DMM dragons are roughly equivalent in terms of performance and lighter than their predecessors in the large sizes. The DMMs allow you to carry significantly less draws though, which is a pretty big weight savings.

[RafalA]

Carabiners are by far the biggest place you can save weight.

 

Also look at belay device, lockers, misc, etc.

 

Then I'd replace nylon slings with dyneema ones.

 

After that maybe lighter nuts?

 

Cams are hard to save weight on. Performance is better than weight savings here.

 

One of the new, lightweight helmets can shave quite a few grams off, as well.

[chirp]

How much do you weigh? How much could you stand to lose.

[pcg]

...my massive ass of steel...

Replace with aluminum, or titanium if you can find one.

[matt_warfield]

Be a lean mean fighting machine.

 

Don't scrimp on safety with hardware. The first time you are in serious trouble due to pro you will understand this principle. Be very sure about how necessary big pieces are. They will be heavy until the end of time.

 

Thin web is great for weight as long as abrasion is not an issue.

 

Climb with a small diameter rope unless you are a big waller or go alpine.

 

Sometimes rock climbers need to strip down, hose off, and go lean but without risking their neck.

Edited November 7, 2012 by matt_warfield

[Buckaroo]

Camalots

 

.75 1st gen (u-stem) 124 grams

 

.75 3rd gen (newest) 118 grams

 

.5 old 105 grams

 

.5 new 101 grams

 

I recently did a weight comparison, 2nd gen to 3rd gen Camalots

 

.3 thru 4.0 (8 cams) save 10.3 oz.

 

Do you rack your cams with a beaner, then clip them with a draw leaving the racking beaner on the cam?

 

You can cut some weight by taking less beaners by having some 8"-10" slings with one beaner on them to clip cams with. So you're a using 2 beaners per cam placement instead of 3.

 

5mm tech cord Cordalette 5 oz.

 

quad length Dyneema sling, used as a Cordalette 2.6 oz.

 

Have you looked at the weight of your harness, your approach (carry over) shoes?

 

How about your water bottle?

 

empty weights

 

1 qt Lexan water bottle (REI) 6 oz

 

1 qt used Gatoraid or Vitamin water bottle 1.7 oz.

 

early model 3 qt Camelback bladder/hose (no pouch) 4.4 oz

(small mouth, 15 yrs old)

 

Modern 3 qt Camelback bladder/hose 7.2 oz (WTF?)

 

3 used bottles 5.1 oz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[B Deleted_Beck]

Switching to Metolius UL cams and Nano carabiners... It's going to almost halve the weight of my rack.

 

Anybody ever swap out hexes for big cams when headed into the unknown in the alpine?

[bearbreeder]

consider that you can bump up big cams when needed ... depends on the crack ...

 

one thing ive really been liking are the DMM dragons ... they basically save you a quickdraw, if you use those to sling each cam ...

 

but for saving weight ... i would say look to your belly first, your biners, or other packable gear second (what you dont need to bring) ... and cams last ...

 

if its somewhere adventurous, do you really want to leave behind all that new shiny gear when ya need to bail in the face of those storm clouds

[B Deleted_Beck]

There's not a whole lot else to lighten up, at this point. In the last year, I've been upgrading ALL my gear, and I always keep myself in good shape. I ditched my plastic boots, switched to a g-string harness, got a much lighter tent, switched to a 8.9mm single, went to a light and compressible down bag, finally realized a Jetboil is a lot lighter than 100oz of water, stopped bringing all those extra layers I never used, etc.

 

I hadn't focused on the rock rack, because I've primarily just cragged with it, and having a 7lb rack for a 100', 5 minute approach just doesn't scream at you. But now that my experience is increasing and my ambitions expanding, and I'll be doing increasingly more alpine rock and mixed climbing, the rock rack weight is starting to matter.

[stevetimetravlr]

My advice is go with the Camp Nano biners, and not the Camp Nano 23 biners. The Nano 23 is just a little to small to be practical, except as a racking biner. Same with the tiny Metolius biners. I love em, but I find just the little difference to make a big difference in clipping and unclipping and you are only saving like 2 grams per biner. But thats just me!

[B Deleted_Beck]

I'm not finding the non-23 Nanos... happen to have a link?

[stevetimetravlr]

You're right Ben, it looks like Camp has phased them out.

[Jon H]

Mammut Moses or the new BD Oz ("hoodwire") are great replacements for the old Nano biners. They are both full size, easy to clip, and extremely light. The Oz has the added bonus of having a keylock nose for non-snag goodness.

[layton]

Totally depends on what you plan on climbing and how hard it is. If you're gonna climb something fairly technical, it is just too much of a pain to double/triple up cams on one biner, and to have single biner slings. Also (if technically demanding) go with the best cams, not the lightest: black diamond C4s and your choice of small cam (aliens still the best IMO). Lighter cams like metolius are just not as user friendly, and extendable sling cams like DMM just add one more thing too keep you from firing in that cam. Plus the slings they use are sketch and hard to replace. Not as thick cam lobes either, i believe. Folks who like DMM, Wild Country, or Metolius cams over Black Diamond C4s either are from the UK, don't climb hard enough for the differences to matter, or are just super bad ass old schoolers who are too good to care.

 

For slings, save weight on the biners, not the draws - unless you like replacing dyneema floss every year or so, and constantly worrying about the integrity of your slings. Dyneema/nylon hybrid slings are the best of both worlds: still fairly compact, but easier to judge wear and tear and still have some dynamic properties which is a mega plus on trad routes. I'm paranoid: i only climb on 100% nylon slings. (aside: I'm starting to fall in love with the camming action of my Totem cams)

 

For biners: On the rack - Wild Country Helium. Too small and the rack becomes a black hole of smashed together cams. On the slings: there are a lot of good biners out there, but get a wiregate.

 

Nanos are excellent biners, and I use them on alpine climbs that aren't super techy (under 5.10+) but are long (all day). Otherwise who cares if you're rack is light. They are great spare and accessory biners.

 

Your rack is the last thing I'd start skimping on unless you're using dated cams, slings, and biners (~ >10 years). If a set of BD cams, aliens, regular slings and wiregates is too heavy - then I'd focus your time on getting stronger.

[layton]

oh, and for nuts - DMM offsets brass and aluminum. Easier, or more straightforward cracks you could lighten up with a blend of metolius and wild country ultralight nuts...cheaper to replace too.

 

 

If you really want to lighten up, then get those light nuts i just mentioned, a buch of camp tri-cams (new tapered ones coming out) all on camp nano biners with 10-12 dyneema shoulder length and maybe on or two double legnth slings. If you must use cams then get metolius U/L cams and u/l tcus. That would be a most excellent super light alpine rack if you're climbing easier shit, or you are a bad-ass.

[billcoe]

You'll get a lot of opinions here:-) I'd add mine on too.

 

Good advice on biners upthread. I have a mix of Camp Nanos (almost too small but they work) and Wild Country Heliums. Loves me da Heliums !

 

On nuts:

The Ukrainians claim that their plastic nuts are the lightest made: but they're not. They're sort of OK. However, the DMM wallnuts work much better and are very close to comparable weight wise. The DMM wallnuts are lighter than the DMM offsets Mike mentions, and also go up in size, potentially allowing you to drop a few cams (depending on what route you are on). There are times where offset nuts just work so good though, that it's hard not to take some anyway even when you are trying to go light. Any kind of pin scarred granite, they have no equal. That includes both the smaller brass ones and the larger alum offsets.

 

Cams

The Metolius four cams are very light cam and grip so awesome. If you are carrying a full rack of cams you can do the math and add the grams since both Metolius and BD have shifted things a bit, but it use to be you could carry an extra Metolius for the same or less weight than a rack of Camalots. I love Camalots too (better than the DMM Dragons) but they do weigh more, and if I have a choice of carrying 10 cams or 11 cams that weight less than the 10, AND actually grip better as well, I'm taking 11 for lighter weight. There's a reason that movie of Peter Croft and Lisa Rands are doing that 5.12 route on the Hulk with Metolius cams. Light. Work great.

 

I'd pass on the new Wild Country Helium Cams. (I confess to only owning one set). I don't think they deliver a lot for what you pay for and was disappointed in them. If you can get a pro deal, I'd do it (OK, I go the deal and did it:-), but don't use them.

 

Slings

 

Too obvious, but note that the skinny 6mm Dyneema Mammut slings have a real short life and that's a huge trade off IMO. Sometimes you get that trade off with cams as well, and as Mike suggested, you get long life on those old thicker nylon slings they use to sling cams with. Regardless, the weight gain of a 6mm (do they even make them now?) over a 8mm sling is negligible, and if you are a sloth like most of us, 10mm can be tossed around and mistreated a lot longer and still be safe for a slight weight gain. I still use sewn 10mm slings I'd bought 20 years back for toproping. I do wonder what they'd test too.

[layton]

told ya the hard core old schoolers like metolius cams

 

 

(and croft probably forced rands to use them)

[B Deleted_Beck]

Well then I'll get to LOOK hardmanny, at least- I got a whole rack's worth of ULs headed my way.

[layton]

Well then I'll get to LOOK hardmanny, at least- I got a whole rack's worth of ULs headed my way.

 

That'll be a good trick to always climb with your partners rack

[bearbreeder]

i used DMM, Metolius AND WC cams on a soft 5.12 this weekend ... obviously i dont climb hard enough

 

hell i even placed nuts at the crux =P

 

and im neither a brit, badass or old school =D

 

my partners consistently use TCUs, Master Cams, etc ... on 12-/+ trad out here

 

if you are a good climber you can use any decent cam ... its that simple

Edited November 12, 2012 by bearbreeder

[genepires]

 

if you are a good climber you can use any decent cam ... its that simple

 

If you are a good climber, you prolly are not asking the original question.

[B Deleted_Beck]

If you are a good climber, you prolly are not asking the original question.

 

The sigline is sarcasm, I take it.

[matt_warfield]

 

if you are a good climber you can use any decent cam ... its that simple

 

If you are a good climber, you prolly are not asking the original question.

 

:)