This video highlights how to place cams in cracks for trad climbing. It also shows how to objectively score placements to know if the placement is secure or not. #cams #tradclimbing #climbing
A couple comments have come up on rock quality and other things in the scoring system. To be clear, if rock quality is very bad (hollow rock, thin flake, rotting rock), the scoring system is out the window and you simply should not place. Similar for VAST discrepancies in symmetrical loading of the lobes. The scoring system should only be used to judge a placement that is within reasonable judgment: decent.
I’ve watched lots of “how to place cams” videos. Your video does the best job talking about the judging/scoring of placements which sometimes gets skipped over too quickly! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="725">12:05</a> Didn't notice this mentioned in the video or the comments and I know this is an example of cam walking so you might have intentionally placed the cam with the outside lobes on top, anyways ideally you'd want to place the outer lobes on bottom to provide a stronger placement and reduce walking. Tiny niggle I have with this great tutorial, as many others have said many of the other videos don't really go into detail with how to actually try judge the placement, they're more "here's a crack that's size two and here's how you place the cam , give it a yank, yeah it's good, now lets look at a different placement".
Yeah, I've had a few comments on the outer lobes on the bottom... that part of the video, I wasn't even thinking about that and just wanted to show the cam walking... between that and this freaking dog that kept barking at the time, just slipped my mind.
Love the videos and enjoy your content I think we can all learn from each other! The way I like to explain Rock quality is "we need to check micro and macro quality"... micro quality being if the rock is flaky or grainy (breaking apart), dirty( which we might be able to to expose good without dirt or small particles/plants)... Macro quality being the larger picture if the blocks are solid that we are placing our gear in on the larger Spectrum... I will always go into more detail of course but those are the bases I follow. And definitely I placed some bad gear intentionally but sometimes it's all you have😁
The other thing... at the end of the video when you place the #2 the lobes were on top... I would mention to your viewers if the wider lobes are on the bottom of the crack it's much more stable placement and less likely to walk...
mah dude! time for a new and biggerererer helmet... ;-) on that #3 horizontal placement. the rock has a great lip on the bottom but top looks as if it's sloping up. would that potentially cause the cam to pull on a hard fall?
Dude, my head is huge, You're right though, Gotta figure something out on the helmet game. Typically a #3 in a decent placement is going to hold just about anything unless the rock itself breaks.
Very good explanation of placing cams and there were literally no confusing parts. If you can introduce us to: nuts - regular and offset tricams and most importantly all about offset cams, that will be great. Q. I'm trying to buy of set of micro cams (I have full set of totems). Deciding between DMM Dragonfly, WC Zero Friends, Alien Revo, BD Z4. What would you buy and why? Thanks!
I utilize WC Zeros and have a bunch of friends that use BD Z4. I'd say the BD Z4 are slightly more robust than the WC zeros so even though they are more expensive, I'd probably consider the BD Z4. I'm not familiar with DMM/Aliens so can't comment there.
Why dont you use the sling attached to the cam itself to extend, ie by opening it up fully? Is there a reason, or do you just prefer the large extension an alpine provides?
I definitely use that many times while climbing. I just wanted to show the audience how the alpine draws worked because not all cams have the extending sling built in like wild country's
Here's a memory rule I made for this rating system: Is the cam S.O.L.I.D? S: Stone Quality O: Orientation L: Lobes are symmetrical I: Index is ≥0.75 (green) D: Deep crack
When you mean "symmetrical", do you mean that each of the two lobes on one side of the cam are symmetrical, that the two pairs of lobes on either side of the cam are symmetrical with one another, or that all 4 lobes are symmetrical? Not sure if that makes sense. Hard to explain without visuals...
@@summitseekersexperience then address that in a beginner video, this is obvious to you and me but not to someone trying to learn trad climbing of RU-vid. It is very easy to interpret your video as "if the placement is good and the rock is bad whip on it." which is a very dangerous mindset...
I'm not happy about the cam at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="480">8:00</a>. The roof of the cam expands outwards, meaning that if the initial contact friction is not there on the fall / the cam walks a little bit forward, the cam is useless as it could glide forward, and reach a spot where the cam will get fully expanded on pop out. At the cam at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="565">9:25</a> you go on about it being a shallow crack, but the cam at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="480">8:00</a> is imo the same situation (apart from it, of course, being in contact with a 'deeper' part of the rock). I really think, if you jangle that cam left-right (horizontally) whilst tugging it a bit, it'll crab walk right out of that crack. I'd use it, but not advertise it as a textbook placement. So for me it's a 3 when extended with a sling to minimise the potential for walking. This is exactly why I personally don't like using point systems when I teach people, as people rely on their 'points' too much and often stop asking the fundamental question: Will it hold? Or: What will it take for this cam to fail? Great vid otherwise. I know it's impossible to make a cam placement vid without any critique, so see this comment as an attempt to contribute to the discourse ;)
Finally someone that understands the full burden of making a cam video ;-) I can definitely agree with you that the 8:00 placement could be characterized as a 3 instead of a 4. The gopro makes the crack look more flaring than it actually was so when I was looking at it in real person, it looked a lot better. When I watched it on the video I was like, "oh that looks more flaring than I remember". Anyways... I think we're both right based on the data we had. Yes, fully agree on the scoring but at the same time, I wanted to provide some kind of "objective tool"... a fine balance between being objective and then using good judgement is assumed in all trad climbing ;-)
This video seems dangerous. How can you justify placing in very poor quality rock and still call it safe? Trying to over simplify things is not always good especially when you may be putting peoples lives at risk.
@@bigmutant69 if you have a perfect placement in bad rock i.e. a 4 in this video...that placement ist still useless...this video basically teaches to put a good can behind a thin flake and whip on it (which is a very bad idea)
@@rasenmaher9629 I guess the idea of putting pro in bad rock and trusting it doesn't even come up as a possibility in my mind like a big alarm goes off internally, but I could see what you mean now
@@bigmutant69 Right... I didn't really specify in the video but obviously if the rock is total crap, the scoring system is out the window and you simply shouldn't place. Thanks for clarifying. I'll pin a comment in this regard.
