UKC

Aside from the fairly increased cost of making slingdraws, can someone give me reasons as to why I shouldn't just take 10+ slingdraws up the crag with me? Are they that much heavier/bulkier in reality? Especially when racked with 8mm/6mm dyneema.

When I climb with a mix of lengths sometimes you use up your longer quickdraws by the time you get to a piece which could do with extending. Surely a rack of just slingdraws would avoid this. Are there that many situations when a 60cm extension is way too much compared to 20cm? OK maybe the first piece above the ground/ledge...

Willing to be shouted down...

H

In reply to badgerjockey:
Probably worth a try so long as you have a pretty foolproof way of keeping things securely attached at either end of the draw, without things unravelling while you fumbling when stressed placing gear.

Always worth allowing for fallibility.

In reply to badgerjockey: why not? Try it and see. I guess that you have a slightly increased increase of cross loading from all the tape floppong around.

fWIW, like most people i see, i use the same 20cm draws for trad, sport, alpine and winter and its worked our well enough over the years

In reply to badgerjockey:

No serious reason not to do this but I would expect inconveniences:
* Extra weight
* More bulk on your harness, maybe significant when doing long pitches that need lots of draws
* Chance of getting them tangled or clipping things through the loops by accident - particularly with overfull gear-loops

My view is that the need for slingdraws is only occasional so I prefer to keep it simpler for when they aren't needed. In reality I rarely use them in practice as ordinary draws give plenty of extension the vast majority of the time. This also applies to cams too, where I will only extend a cam if there's a real benefit in doing so. There seems to be a growing trend to extend everything regardless of need, but a quick think about each placement will mean spending less time and using less gear for all the times you don't really need more extension.

In reply to badgerjockey:

I would if I could afford it. There might be the odd situation where it causes more faff (grit headpoint? Sport?) but generally in "adventure climbing" of onsighting long pitches you can never have too many. Especially on dream of white horses.

In reply to badgerjockey:

Well, naturally it depends on where and what ya climb. But generally you only need one or two "alpine draws" per route, more often than not you don't need a single one. That was certainly true on the odd grit routes I've climbed, and pretty much everywhere else (spain, italy, france, swithzerland and scandinavia).

Where you really need 'em is easy alpine terrain. Where I and most others seems to use them mostly. On alpine routes (and winter mixed climbing) I generally carry more alpine draws (between 4 and 6).

So, in short, you can... but more often than not, it is not needed and fiddling around factor is often too much, especially the extending (unless you have them over the shoulder, when they get tangled up).

In reply to badgerjockey:

I climbed with a guy who did this, he wore around 10 of them on a bandolier. They were the ultra thin ones and he racked them with one snap gate fed through the other and clipped 3 times to keep short. Works well.

In reply to badgerjockey: I have a rack of extenders which have a bunch of long slingdraws and some mid length ones which are only doubled over rather than tripled. Pretty useful really, especially if you happen to be climbing trad on a single rope and need lots of extension...

In reply to badgerjockey:

I don't think there's much extra weight if you use 6mm slings but they are bulkier and they don't sit on gear quite as neatly when they're trebbled up. I usually have about half my draws extendable, on short routes it's pointless but on longer routes can be useful and in winter essential - I have enough crabs for about 12 draws so I just leave 6 of them extendable all year rather than change them. I use either the beal 6mm or dmm 8mm and they're lighter than a lot of traditional quick draw slings.

Six means you can have three on each side so if you find yourself in an awkward position you can get them from either side.

In reply to badgerjockey:

I use half and half. Love extenders!

In reply to badgerjockey:

Great for sea cliffs and wandering mountain routes. Not so useful for straight line routes. I have 10 x 18cm and 6 extenders. If I go on a sea cliff I'll usually take all my extenders and probably add my partners into the mix.

In reply to badgerjockey:

Got to the crag last week - no quick drawers in the sack! Already had 4 60cm sling drawers, and between us managed to construct another 5 with slings and mixed carabiners. Put five on the harness doubled up and four full length over the shoulder on top of the 120 and 240 - worked really well on the day.

In reply to badgerjockey:

- Sometimes (usually on short and squat routes) you want a short quickdraw so that if you fall it's that much shorter (if you use a tripled-up slingdraw the gate can face a funny angle, which I don't like).
- As mentioned it is extra faff, especially if you're needing to re-align the wiregate (sometimes the sling doesn't "pull through" properly, or the gate faces the wrong way). A bit harder to clip when you're clipping from an odd angle.

I tend to carry 4 quickdraws and 6-8 slingdraws or so (2 with revolvers), so not a full harness of them - but more than average maybe. I find the peace of mind knowing that a bit of gear won't be pulled out or that I won't get bad rope drag - worth the extra faff.
They can be used as threads straight away (I only do this as a last resort, as I prefer to use my dedicated "can get cut up and dirty" slings for threading or slinging spikes).

In reply to Andysomething:


Draws - draws - DRAWS!



And breathe. Sorry.

In reply to badgerjockey:

All slingdraws seems t be an American habit, which makes sense as they climb almost exclusively on single ropes. Less need for them generally on half ropes.

In reply to badgerjockey:

I usually carry 4x 60cm and 3x 120 cm sling draws, with some short runners to make up the difference. The longer ones are great for threading, slinging and belay building too. They speed up climbing, IMHO, and if you are trying to do 60m pitches, are key to reducing rope drag.

In reply to badgerjockey:
Thanks for all the responses guys.

Maybe I am prone to the "sod it, I'll just extend it anyway" school of thought, overthinking the possibility of gear rotating and falling out with any jangle of the quickdraw... And anyway, you can extend everything and still get horrible rope drag at the top of a wandery route anyway (cf. topout of Dream OWH...)

I think I am going to settle on 6-8 slingdraws and 4-6 25cm quickdraws to not clutter up the gear loops too much. Done. Still slingdraw-heavy but I like em.

Not going to bother with any sling retainers, seem to do more harm than good to me, don't really have a problem with rotating phantoms as far as I can tell but the alpha trad krabs look even better...

H

In reply to badgerjockey:

I have two on my rack and that seems plenty. Out of 12 draws, 8 are 18cm, 2 are 25 cm and two are sling draws. Climbing on doubles in summer and winter, I've not wished for more.

In reply to badgerjockey:

Probably completely meaningless but those who have basically said slingdraws have limited use or that one or two is plenty generally climbed more on grit compared to those who love them who have apparently tended to climb more limestone/mountain/sea cliff crags... Interesting!

In reply to badgerjockey:

I think your analysis may be flawed, particularly so if you included me in the "generally climbed more on grit" category. Technically this may have been true but when I've had a rope on definitely not! A quick scan through the thread's other responders doesn't offer much other support for your conclusion either.

In reply to john arran:

Fair enough, it was just a quick meaningless rummage. I was going to put 'with one notable exception' to mean you anyway!

Back to slingdraws, any preference on krabs? Do people like the Alpha Trads? I haven't seen many of them around, I don't think...

H

In reply to Fraser:

HAH!! No Tony Hart in the sack either :-

In reply to badgerjockey:


I think the 'when in doubt, extend' rule is generally a good one!

In reply to badgerjockey:

I carry 10 as standard on most climbs (in the lakes), plus a couple of short normal QDs depending on pitch length. I used to have 5, and found I was using them all and wanting more so I made 5 more. Works well for me.

In reply to badgerjockey:

I've used a full rack of sling draws for years.

with modern slings the weight penalty is small and I can happily rack the while lot on my back gear loops and not worry what I grab.

it works for me and less drag means lower impact on gear if you fall.

In reply to badgerjockey:


Never used a slingdraw in 47 years climbing and only been on grit twice in my life, done some sea-cliff climbing though