UKC

Anyone wish recount the tail of their most epic "equipment selection" fail?

Winter climbing always worried me. The SMC guide books never seemed to make it clear if you needed to take 12 screws or two sets of nuts and a couple of cams. The unweary newbie had to "just know" what gear would be needed on pitch 5 up there in the clouds somewhere.

There must be some tails of epic off-widths without any big cams.

In reply to JLS:


Does any guidebook? From what I've seen the only route descriptions making equipment recommendations are extreme routes with pretty esoteric requirements. Surely making do with what you have is just part of the challenge?

In reply to JLS: Didn't have an epic as such, but remember setting off on my first ever grit route (I'm from the limestone South) and quickly realising that nothing I had touched both sides of the only crack running up the route. It looked narrower from the ground!

In reply to JLS:



It worries me as well.

Deciding to climb Moonwalk http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=508
with only 4 ice screws wasn't good, made selection of belays interesting.

In reply to planetmarshall:

>"Does any guidebook?"

Yeah but... as Pids points out, the diffrence between rack for mixed climbing and a rack for pure ice is quite considerable. I think you really do have to rely on being "in the know".

In reply to planetmarshall:


Don't remember what it is, but there's a "green spot" climb in Eastern Grit (Stanage) that says something like "Needs larger cams" or "Larger protection useful." So sometimes! And that's not that esoteric.....

In reply to climbwhenready:

There are a few examples to be sure, but it's pretty unusual. With respect to Scottish Winter routes, I've always made do with what Andy Kirkpatrick describes as a 'Classic sparse Scottish Winter rack', unless I'm climbing an icefall - in which case the need for multiple ice screws is pretty self evident.

In reply to planetmarshall:

>"unless I'm climbing an icefall - in which case the need for multiple ice screws is pretty self evident"

Maybe so when you're standing below said ice fall on a bluebird sky day.
Less so when packing the rack the night before.

Experienced is when you can no longer remember the time you got it wrong.

In reply to JLS:

Yes, doing Sabre Cut without any big cams - which were all in the car boot in sight down below. No idea why, but setting off from the car we must have concluded we wouldn't need them for the obvious big corner crack...

[Yes, I know there are some nut placements but mostly low down and then high up on the main pitch - a couple of big cams would have made it so much less stressful - for my mate's lead, snigger).

In reply to JLS:

I couldn't be bothered with taking the trad gear off my harness when I was doing some sport at ban-y-gor last week.

So unsurprisingly at one point I found myself feeling fairly pumped with the next bolt just in reach, so I hung on & rummaged around on my back gear loop where the quickdraws live only to find myself holding a number 3 friend.

Bugger.

In reply to davidbeynon:




I set off up some short shite at Horsehoe a few years ago. Maybe 7 bolts plus a lower-off. Somehow - and yes I know this is inexcusable - I only had 5 quickdraws.

HOWEVER!

For some reason I had three small cams each with its own extendible sling and snapgate, plus an HMS on my belay. So I was able to fashion some extenders

(granted, I could probably have just clipped single snapgates direct to bolts. Or lowered off. So not really an epic as requested in the OP. But just something to counter your tale slightly )

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Well, I could have just clipped it of course, so it wasn't a particularly serious situation. It did make me swear though

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Reminds me of doing what I think was my first 7a, a route called "Hangar 17". I knew it was going to be quite long, but set off with about a dozen draws. Fortunately, it eased off at the top, allowing me to clip my last draw with some way still to go, down-climb to retrieve some I'd already placed, and do this at least twice till I finally reached the lower off.

The clue was in the name, d'oh!

In reply to davidbeynon:

I swore too, quite loudly declaring to the crag that I was an idiot who can't be bothered to look up and count. I wasn't even in a desperate position so I COULD have quietly got on with it as if had been planned

I took this lesson to Sardinia where we had been doing a few easyish multipitch routes at La Poltrona just on one of my half ropes folded in two (pitches less than 22m on a 60m rope, seemed OK). Then I went for a single pitch route. Using the same 60m half rope (its partner coiled in the bag). Similarly folded in two.

The route was 27m. My German and Italian audience gazed on in bemusement (and amazement? ) as I calmly clipped my cows-tail, and sorted everything out. Good job I had tied into both ends instead of into the middle, otherwise the ensuing pulling-through of 30m from the bottom before threading the lower-off for an abseil (I preferred the abseil to lowering off on a half rope)

These things happened several years apart btw!

In reply to Fraser:


Ha!

In reply to JLS:

I once set off up a fairly easy trad climb feeling full of pep and vigour, not putting in much pro because it was a crack. I planned to climb until just below the crux and then sink some bomber gear, because there's always placements in a crack! I got to the bottom of the crux, a jug filled crack through a bulge to the top-out, and found that my largest cam wouldn't even tip out on the crack. A bit scary, but jugs, right? no worries, pull through and place over the bulge, I was sure the crack got smaller again. So I did an irreversible move through the bulge and the crack promptly widened into a glassy offwidth. I took my largest lob ever and was a gibbering wreck for the rest of the day. =/

In reply to JLS:

My second lead on gritstone was quite memorable... I had a nice new set of nuts and some extenders, so everything I should need for a vdiff! I placed a solid size 9 nut by my belayers head and kept climbing. 9 metres later and no more gear, I was scared shitless and vowed to give up drinking until I could afford a set of cams!

In reply to Monk:

The joys of the sub-HS grit routes eh..

In reply to JLS:

A friend and I turned up to climb Eas Anie, at night (we had work the next day), with no quickdraws (I had forgotten them). We managed to just use screwgates and scavenged snapgates, prussik cords...

When I was a young man, I had was trained to take a knife to a gun fight.......

In reply to top cat:

Knives for a pro - guns are for show

In reply to Skyfall:

I think I've done it 3 times and never had a cam larger than a 2.5 friend with me. Not that I'm recommending it as a strategy.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

I did it pre-cams: the grade seemed about right then. Has it been down graded on the assumption to can do it with runner above your head?

In reply to planetmarshall:

No guidebooks suggest the gear you should take.

In reply to JLS:

Did a 9 pitch route in the USA once with no possibility of walking off where the guidebook clearly stated the route needed 60m ropes to get off. We only had 50m ones but really wanted to do the route. So we climbed it, and knowing it was a popular route, just sat on top looking at the view until someone else climbed it later that day, then begged a ride down on their ropes.

In reply to j0ntyg:


That may be true of UK guidebooks, but not of guidebooks universally. I've hit many guidebooks that will describe a "standard rack" for the area, then if a climb needs something different or special, describe what the supplement is.

On the topic:

I went after a local (Ottawa, Canada) 4-pitch climb called "Club Sandwich" at The Weir earlier this spring. I'd looked at it a few times, the first pitch takes some small stuff, to a ledge. Then a steep ramp with a crack along the back of it, to another ledge; a traverse across the ledge; then up a final corner. All looked good, so I took my usual rack (which goes up to a C4 #4), leaving my (old style) Camalot #5 behind. On the first pitch, most of the placements were wet, making the gear less than trustworthy, but not much I could do about that. Get part way up the second pitch, to where the ramp starts, and find that it is wide enough to get my shoulder into much of the way, with narrower bits. And the ramp itself is all glassy edges sloping the wrong way. 8m of squirming, past 3 placements for the #5 before I have to pull the hardest move so far out of the crack on a knee-jam. Finally, gear. Damn, I wish I'd brought my #5.

In reply to j0ntyg:


The rockfax guide tend to be riddled with what gear to take. Might not be specific but often refers to a "small nut" or a "large friend" as a crucial bit of gear... I noticed a reference to an RP2 on one of the routes I was looking at on Stanage last week.

In reply to David Coley:
>> I like that. It happened to us but the climbers who turned up on the top of the crag suggested that we use their rope as they didn't think that our's was long enough. they were experienced, we were not.

In reply to j0ntyg:

Is that true for winter guides for areas where you're likely to have mixed routes and pure ice routes side by side? Genuine question, I don't do winter climbing. Presumably the description is going to give you at least a bit of a clue...

It seems like trad guidebooks don't bother partly because most of the time the variation in rack would be a couple of smaller bits here or a couple of larger bits there, and if you guess wrong then you'll probably survive. If you're looking at a bolted route that needs a bit of trad gear to make it safe or some crumbling esoterica that you can only protect with warthogs or something similarly unusual then you'd probably expect the book to flag up some sort of warning...

In reply to mockerkin:

Sometimes on Ben Nevis in winter it feels like the mountain was designed for 60m ropes. We took my mates 50m halfs up there once and every time we ran out of rope there was a bomber stance 5m higher!

In reply to top cat:

I believe it's always been VS. Mind you I was talking to one 'old timer' who said, when he first did it, the whole route went unprotected.

In reply to JLS:

To be honest one year you may be able to protect a winter climb with nuts in the rock, the next year everything is buried and soft and its dead man or ice axe belays and the year after, lots of freeze thaw cycles, you can get a few ice screws in so I don't see how they can reliably advise you.

In reply to Rebecca V.:

This is partly true but some routes don't vary much season to season and always rely on the same type of pro.

In reply to Rebecca V.:

Would you not expect to take a diffrent rack to Ben Udlaidh that you would to Coire an t-sneachda? Is it completely unreasonable to expect a guide book to give you a step for a hint as to typical charachter of routes they describe?

In reply to JLS:

I have climbed the same route in Coire an t-sneachda twice a couple of years apart and it was unrecognisable as the same route and the protection we used was completely different. People would do better to study the local conditions at the time. Winter climbing is not predictable, conditions can change in hours and you have to be prepared to adapt. If the guide books started to give such specific advice they would end up being slated for misleading people.

In reply to Skyfall: The top pitch is VS 4b, its graded to be bold, but is safe enough and a brilliant pitch. a rack of big cams would make it HS and spoil its character.

In reply to Rebecca V.:

>"If the guide books started to give such specific advice they would end up being slated for misleading people.

So, if the guide where to state...

"Ben Udlaidh - this venue, when in condition, prodominalely offers ice fall climbing where protection with screws is to be expected"

...that would be misleading and unhelpful?

In reply to JLS:

I don't really need to be told to use screws on an ice fall to be honest.

In reply to Rebecca V.:


What ice fall? It turns out it's a snowed up rock route. Why have you got all those screws with you?

In reply to JLS:

Then what use is the advice in the book? Which is my point.

In reply to Rebecca V.:

Do you have the same winter rack regardless of where you climb?
I'd be surprised if you don't tailor your rack to suit the target.
If you do tailor your rack, how did you learn how to do that?
I guess you learned from experience and from advice from more experienced partners.

It seems a shame that such experience can't be passed on via the guide book.

In reply to Rebecca V.:

I've seen general recommendations for gear on winter routes. Often something like "don't bother with screws unless super fat year" or "likely to find screw placements even in lean conditions".

Not very on topic to the OP though.

Unless you're saying you've never made bad gear choices. In which case, go you!

In reply to Webster:

That sounds right to me