Trad climbing on grit and granite - quickdraws or slings and locking crabs?
is there such a thing?
Some QD's, some sling draws, no locking karabiners except for the belay.
I would suggest quickdraws of various lengths, plus 3 or 4 60cm slings with a single non-locking krab on it.
I am not a fan of slingdraws (photo below) since they tend to always get tangled up and, if you have shorter quickdraws, then you usually use them at full length anyway. Looping them over your head/shoulder with a single krab is much quicker to sort out. There is an argument for having two krabs on the sling for clipping wires but I tend to use them for extending cams and shorter quickdraws where there is already a krab in place.
Personally, I only use locking krabs for belays.
Alan
Wire or solid gate crabs?
Which ever you can afford? Weight difference is negligible until you're carrying a lot of them.
Well the image shows wire and that is what I use.
This is such an oddly phrased question - until I clicked on your profile, I presumed you were a covid sceptic pop up account doing your obligatory one climbing post before lapsing into anti lockdown rants.
So what do mean quickdraws or slings and locking krabs? They are for different things so quickdraws and slings and locking krabs please!
When I started climbing, there were no such things as quickdraws (or camming gear other than hexes!). We used nuts, hexes and slings with locking crabs on!
> is there such a thing?
Yes, it's the new name for what I'd call an "Alpine Draw". But without some people thinking it's only for the Alps
…and then fancy climbers started using 2 crabs as a dodgy precursor! Barely climb trad but quickdraws plus a couple of short slings for me. Some 1981 crabs still in use 😁
I've got a few crabs from the early 90s!
I personally have all 3, mostly quickdraws (varying lengths but not many really short ones) with a couple of sling/alpine draws. I usually also have a few slings clipped around my chest with lockers a 240 for the belay, a couple of 120s and maybe a 60 which mainly get saved for the anchor but also useful for chockstones and threads as well as for long extenders on wandering lines.
I think it depends on a number of factors though. If you're using a single rope, you'll want more options for extending gear. How do you rack your cams? in bunches, you might need more draws, individually, maybe less. If you have extendable gear and you like to annoy your 2nd by always extending them just because you can then you might not need so many sling/draws. Do you save your cams for serious situations or stuff them in first chance over passive choices? Just got to find what works for you, your system and your situation really.
I agree with Toby. All three as they are useful for different purposes. Used to be a staunch sling draw user but now, as long as I have a decent selection I don't care. I usually carry 4 short 12mm, 2 15mm and 4 20mm quickdraws, and between 2 and 4 sling draws plus some 120cm slings with a non locking biner and some aramid 60cm cord slings for threads if I'm climbing where there are lots. But it's personal, and on grit I'd take less.
Hex's strung with rope or slings can also double up as extenders in a pinch too if you slide the hex down a bit.
Half ropes or single rope?
> When I started climbing, there were no such things as quickdraws (or camming gear other than hexes!). We used nuts, hexes and slings with locking crabs on!
Except I bet you called them screwgates. When did "screwgate" start being replaced by "locking krab" or even "locker"? I've really only noticed it quite recently.
> I am not a fan of slingdraws (photo below) since they tend to always get tangled up and, if you have shorter quickdraws, then you usually use them at full length anyway. Looping them over your head/shoulder with a single krab is much quicker to sort out.
But that breaks my first rule of racking: never carry anything looped over your head. Adopting this rule was a revelatory moment in anti faff and tangle for me.
So. Lots of quickdraws of varying lengths. Several short slings (I can't bring myself yo use the term slingdraw) racked the clever way with one krab passed through the other to shorten them. A couple of long slings racked on snaplinks the twiddly way on the back of my harness. A couple of spare snaplinks for belays. Only one screwgate (on my belay device).
> There is an argument for having two krabs on the sling for clipping wires but I tend to use them for extending cams.
But I would have thought one would be more likely to be extending a wire since almost all cams come with a built in extender so are less likely to need a further long extension.
>almost all cams come with a built in extender
2 of the 3 most common types do(seen in UK), but while the very popular C4s don't, I think "almost all" is a bit of a stretch.
> >almost all cams come with a built in extender
> 2 of the 3 most common types do(seen in UK), but while the very popular C4s don't, I think "almost all" is a bit of a stretch.
I meant that almost all cams (including C4) have a quickdraw length extender tape built in. Yes, some such as DMM dragons do have a slingdraw length extended doubled up built in. Do any not have at least some sort of extender built in?
Sorry, I misunderstood. No in that case I think you are right. Don't think I've seen a cam without some kind of sling.
> Sorry, I misunderstood. No in that case I think you are right. Don't think I've seen a cam without some kind of sling.
My earliest mid 80's Camalot doesn't!
In the Lakes and mountain rock in general, plentiful slingdraws can be really helpful. There have been occasions where I've run out of sling draws and resorted to link quickdraws together, sport style. And, on the other hand, if they're shortened, they can just be used as a normal draw on a long pitch when you've exhausted your quickdraws. I don't think they tangle if you use the right sling, but I only use 11mm or lower (mostly 8mm) dyneema. Aramid and thicker slings do tend to get tangled, but skinny slings sit nicely. I've been tempted to carry them around my neck to save 30g on a second carabiner, but sometimes I've struggled to free the relevant arm to remove the sling, or it has caught for a moment on my helmet, and created faff and stress (not just because of the time, but also because of the risk of falling with a loop only around your neck). Each to their own, though, and obviously some benefits/drawbacks to both
Agreed, bizarre question. Like saying "Living in a house - bedroom, bathroom or kitchen?", just doesn't make any sense.
I carry six slender dedicated quickdraws and six alpine draws---I think y'all call 'em slingdraws, the things made up from a tripled over-the shoulder sling. I use the thinnest slings (I think 8mm) for the slingdraws. Tangling while being carried isn't a problem at all. Very occasionally, when trying to extend one, there is some strange tangling and the sling has to be unclipped from both carabiners and reinstalled. Most of the time, you unclip the rope-end carabiner and reclip it to extend from 1/3 to full-length.
Nothing beats a slingdraw when you find you have to back down or reach back and lengthen a draw, but in fact they seem to me to be good for everything, and are a lot more versatile than sport-oriented quickdraws, especially if you run into trouble and have to start improvising.
One thing about sling draws, if you make some up, then get standard hook nosed carabiners for them. I find using clean nose biners (WC helium or dmm alphA trad for example) a total pain because to extend them you basically have to deinstall one biner, pull the sling out and the receipt the biner. With a hook nose it's much easier to unclip two sling strand and hook the third in he notch of the biner nose and pull. It's easy to do one handed which is important when the climbing is tough...
> When I started climbing, there were no such things as quickdraws (or camming gear other than hexes!). We used nuts, hexes and slings with locking crabs on!
That were modern. We used hawser laid rope slings and steel krabs. Moac's were the new-fangled things.
Not sure what the rock type has to do with your suggestions of gear.
> When I started climbing, there were no such things as quickdraws (or camming gear other than hexes!). We used nuts, hexes and slings with locking crabs on!
Quick draws have been around for a Looong time.
I think it's refreshing for someone to give us a fact or two too many when asking for advice, rather than missing out some crucial detail
I'd probably go mostly for quickdraws, with a couple slingdraws
I'm talking late 80s......
> I'm talking late 80s......
Didn't we just call them "extenders" then? I'm not sure when the term "quickdraw" came in. Maybe with the sport climbing boom? I'm also not sure when I stated using "extenders" routinely on wires rather than just when double snaplinks seemed insufficient.
> I'm not sure when the term "quickdraw" came in. Maybe with the sport climbing boom? I'm also not sure when I stated using "extenders" routinely on wires rather than just when double snaplinks seemed insufficient.
First commonly used: 1983. If I recall correctly, 'quickdraw' is an Americanism and came into use later in the 80s.
Hazel's dad, taking no chances with double screwgates, 1980: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwPkHlcDxv0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Me, with shedloads of double carabiners and no quickdraws, autumn 1981: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-sAaIdD9am/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Ron using double and triple carabiners, 1982: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1wm8J5Dd1y/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link (Chris Frick confirms in the comments he got his first quickdraws in Spring 1983).
Paul Smith still using double carabiners, spring 1983: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWeTNr1NxM_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Martin Corbett, with quickdraws on Tour de France, August 1983. As the route name suggests, he'd just come back from Buoux and seen quickdraws used there. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWs95fPoQix/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
They may not have been called quick draws but I was using them then!
> Hazel's dad, taking no chances with double screwgates, 1980: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwPkHlcDxv0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
I don't know what gear was on it in the 80s but with a 10m wanger onto fixed gear I don't blame him!
> Me, with shedloads of double carabiners and no quickdraws, autumn 1981: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-sAaIdD9am/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
That's interesting that you have them pre-clipped together. I remember doing stuff like Right Wall in 1984 clipping one onto the wire and then using another to pull up the rope and clip.
> First commonly used: 1983. If I recall correctly, 'quickdraw' is an Americanism and came into use later in the 80s.
> Hazel's dad, taking no chances with double screwgates, 1980: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwPkHlcDxv0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
> Me, with shedloads of double carabiners and no quickdraws, autumn 1981: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-sAaIdD9am/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
> Ron using double and triple carabiners, 1982: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1wm8J5Dd1y/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link (Chris Frick confirms in the comments he got his first quickdraws in Spring 1983).
> Paul Smith still using double carabiners, spring 1983: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWeTNr1NxM_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
> Martin Corbett, with quickdraws on Tour de France, August 1983. As the route name suggests, he'd just come back from Buoux and seen quickdraws used there. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWs95fPoQix/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Probably a bit earlier, climbing with a new partner, I recall being offered some short troll slings in July 81 designed for using with two krabs , no name for this arrangement then.
I was not taken at the time, prefering to use a single krab if the wire could take an outward pull or a 600 sling to extend .
This seemed to work out surprisingly OK, probably because a lot of nuts stopper 5 (about 8mm) upwards were still on cord.
Fwiw I now carry low to high teens of draws like most folk.
Also it used to be fairly common, but probably inadvisable though never heard of any failures, to tie an optional inch tape to extend through the stiff wire mini moacs.
Late 80's , early 90's extender was the phrase I normally heard
I assume from your profile you aren't looking for advice ?
For me mainly quickdraws. Slings / screw gates depending on the route. I never set any slings up as sling draws - too fiddly to use.
I started climbing properly at the start of the 1990s. In my memory they've always been interchangeably both extenders and quickdraws - I don't know if that is actually true though! I got a DMM Mamba around when they came out - 1994 maybe? I reckon they were called quickdraws by then?
But, I called friends friends for probably the first 20 or so years of my climbing 'career', now I call them cams I don't really remember consciously deciding to change - it might have been an evolution I don't remember from extenders to quickdraws as well.
I do definitely still call them extenders sometimes though. Is that weird or does it date me? I'm sure my climbing mates who have only started in recent years use that term still as well...
> I do definitely still call them extenders sometimes though. Is that weird or does it date me? I'm sure my climbing mates who have only started in recent years use that term still as well...
Extender is the more accurate term. I'm sure if I'm belaying Iwould shout up to the leader 'you need to extend that' if I see drag potential.
I started similar time as you. My mate got about 5 DMM Mambas at some point and we were well excited by the bent gates on the rope side and we definitely referred to them as 'quickdraws' or 'draws'.
We also used the term 'pro' rather than gear, though these days that seems like quite the Americanism. Like you I don't know how 'friend' transitioned to 'cam' but it seems to have.
For comments relating to sling-draws being fiddly, I think there are great IF you make them up with 8mm dyneema tape and wrap elastic bands round both ends to retain the crabs. They feel like normal quickdraws in use, but the option for extension is there within about 2 seconds and with almost zero weight penalty. What's not to like?
> wrap elastic bands round both ends to retain the crabs.
This can be quite dangerous on open slings. Each to their own but I wouldn't recommend it generally: vimeo.com/4138205
> We also used the term 'pro' rather than gear, though these days that seems like quite the Americanism. Like you I don't know how 'friend' transitioned to 'cam' but it seems to have.
I thought that these days you just call them "units". And you don't place them; you "slam" them.
> Trad climbing on grit and granite - quickdraws or slings and locking crabs?
There are occasionally places where shortening a fall by a few cm could be critical, so you might want to carry a couple of short (10cm) QDs for that; but in almost all cases making sure the gear is sufficiently extended is the priority.
Everyone develops their own tastes, but FWIW for long granite sea cliff routes I carry 2x10cm, up to 8x16cm, and 2-3 slingdraws (tripled up). For the belay a long sling with locker, and also 2 shorter slings with lightweight lockers for additional belay anchors and/or any big thread/spike runners en route. If your cams have extendable slings you need fewer QDs, and (obviously) less for shorter climbs e.g. grit.
Re locking crabs: not essential except for the belay master point, but these days there are some very lightweight lockers, so there's almost no extra weight penalty, and you might as well have the extra security. Grivel Nut Plume or similar are hardly any heavier than a snaplink.
Yeah that's a fair point and I did see that video at some point in the past. Caveat emptor and all that.