Trad climbing nuts vs hexes reddit I hung out with a professional guide in JTree for a bit who only had offsets for his climbing there, since the majority of cracks are flaring, water-made cracks. Most trad here in Stockholm is face climbing broken up granite and I personally place my HB offsets more than even cams. Use the side of the nut tool and smack the hex as hard as you can the opposite way it went in. That being said, I love cams. Trad climbing often involves crack climbing , which is a different style of climbing from face climbing. Most trad climbing involves lead climbing, in which the rope starts at the bottom of the climb with the climber. DMM offsets are great nuts but there's only 5 of them, so if you buy a set of regular nuts (DMM wallnuts are again awesome, but most brands of nuts are also good to great) you'll have 10 more pieces. You can hammer them into icy cracks. They have strengths and weaknesses, and I wouldn't argue that they're really an acceptable replacement for cams in modern trad climbing. 2 to 4?) and getting used to what you like and don't like before getting doubles. Same thing when I did own the Torque Nuts before I sold them in favor of the Rockcentrics. You'll find in the UK, most climbers skip the cams for their first rack and will opt for hexes instead as they are cheaper and work very similarly to nuts. Posted by u/Dank3509 - 34 votes and 68 comments honestly i think you can find shitty personalities in every kind of climbing--sure you've got trad dads who won't climb harder than 5. Nuts and hexes (although I dislike hexes) are perfectly adequate and safe. Trusting a cam is certainly easier than trusting a nut or hex. I was wondering what would be a good size range for cams and how many nuts is enough nuts? I have money for about 6-7 cams and for the nuts I was planning 1-11 in normal nuts, 7-11 in offsets, a set of peenuts 1-5 and hexes, 1-4 Depends on what you are climbing but a standard set of nuts, offsets, 0-5 (silver - big blue) dragons if you have them and maybe the green and red hexes would be mostly more than adequate. BD stoppers 4-13 would also be a great addition, but many people feel much safer with more cams than nuts. offsets nuts are really nice to have I know nothing about these in general, but tricam-type designs are totally valid protection. 5-3 C4 cam size. If you plan on getting into leading, skip these and just get a set of cams - they will be way more useful. Black diamond is the standard. You can either cut up your cordelette, cut up one of your nice expensive Dyneema slings or take my sage advice about carrying at least one tied runner. There's several reddit threads about building racks and other brand analyses. Nut and Hexes Ranging in size from the thickness of a matchstick to the size of your clenched fist, nuts (also called chocks, wires or stoppers) and hexes are inexpensive pieces of trad protection. Oct 28, 2016 · To learn more trad climbing skills, see the rest of our series, Learn to Climb Trad: A Complete Beginner’s Guide. This is different from toproping, where the rope is pre-hung at the top of the route. You could also probably get away with just hexes and no cams. 75. 2 extra trad draws for nuts. Learn how to use nuts and hexes. If it’s a temporary I am kanda sketched my this move. every area is different but that one fits a large majority of climbs. Or it could be sat behind a block body belaying. Offset cams are nice for flaring pin scars-- if you climb places where this is common (e. Active and passive placement. e. I however started with exactly the cams you have (or maybe first with hexes I don’t remember) and a single rack of nuts. Next time you have a route with a long approach that uses a double rack, take the tricams instead of the second set. Most of the force is transferred in the direction it is being pulled (in most cases, down and slightly American climber here who’s beginner rack started with BD nuts. Posted by u/PaulDaPigeon - 5 votes and 23 comments I understand the webbing should be replaced and those hexes aren’t ideal. Totems are expensive but nice to have in the smaller sizes. How many cams and alpine qd depends on how hard the climb would be, but general scrambling with some small pitch climbing around 4 cams and 6 qd, but I' Use 7 mm cord - it makes a huge difference in strength. Still love the hexes for clanking up the old-school 5. 3” for wedgeshaped nuts and 3. So I have been saving up money to start building a trad rack cause I want to start trad climbing. The big decided is what kind of rock you climb and being able to see good nut placements. Yes alpine draws are super important, the south east has a lot of rambling back and forth climbing (Especially in low grade 5. Hexes clean as quickly as a nut that you need a nut tool to get out, often times quicker. . A typical trad rack will contain 10-12 nuts and maybe one or two mid-size hexes. Note, once you use this thing, it is nearly impossible to untie so if you want spare cord for something else, I would buy extra and use bunny ear figure eights which you can untie. Anyone who says that stoppers are all the same, have never climbed pitches that have finicky gear and aren’t protectable without good nut placements. 9 trad routes), so reducing rope drag is an absolute MUST. They are made of a flexible wire which is threaded through a hard 'nut' of metal. Also there has been talk about buying whole DMM torque set (4 pieces) to supplement our cams for belays, and save cams for hard climbing. Posted by u/Sigmund--Fraud - 29 votes and 71 comments I don’t know your rock type but in my experience many easy climbs can be done cam free with just nuts (and hexes if you want). We like to compliment the Black Diamond Stoppers with a set of offset nuts. One of the best value for climbing nuts is the full set of Black Diamond Stoppers, which come in at $119. Black Diamond Offset Stoppers will work perfectly as a One thing I’ll add—think carefully about the trade offs you want to make between getting used cheap gear vs new and state of the art. you can supplement with bigger or smaller gear if you need to. One nut one/ one hex or any piece of worthwhile protection. However, because of the hexes' camming action, the constriction doesn't need to be as sharp as it would be for a nut placement. One placement kills two pieces. (Nuts are the foundation on which UK trad climbing is built). The same with those “double ended nuts” with different sizes on each end of the same cable. Therefore we've been thinking on buying maybe one big Hex or blue DMM's torque nut just in case we might need something so big for the route. 4-3 so little grey to big blue (dmm 0-5 maybe). cams . Nuts/hexes - I don't own any hexes personally but they're a favorite to some. 5” for six-sided hexes. Depends where you'll be climbing. They are cheap, light and durable. Folks have explained to you the nut but the wired hex is older. For unknown long climbs . the whole "hexes aren't good" is definitely just an internet meme though. I think they’re just what we buy here and then don’t think about it. I'm assuming limited rack so one sling per cam. if you plan to only do cragging, the majority of people would suggest you save for cams. There's plenty of trad climbing around NZ! Different regions/crags/climbs will prefer certain sizes, but you cant go wrong with a single rack i. Once I finally got out and started using some cams, I got hooked. Trying to master my gear placement though. It depends on the scramble it depends on your ability and it depends on your seconds ability. It’s not a complete rack but it’s far from beat. 4 vs #4) Master point equalization with respect to previous three points Likelihood of follower fall Likelihood of leader fall on the first few moves of the next pitch You really can do almost anything on passive gear. Trad climbing is a lot broader than sport. I find the hexes and offsets tend to have the strongest placements and get placed more often but I definely still use the nuts a lot. There are stores in town to buy whatever you might want. Neil Gresham gives us a masterclass in the basics of placing nuts as Trad climbing protection. there's a lot of information in the stickied post on this sub but standard rack is doubles . Plenty of people use cams but don't use hexes. There’s no need to buy a huge amount of gear before you spend some time climbing trad. 5 and 5. The only time I do the single carabiner sling is on alpine climbs and I'll put the sling trad draw style using the racking carabiner directly on the cam. if you can place a hex = elephant bomb proof! but the weight, take only what you expect to place size 3 & 6 if you have a full set of nuts. set of nuts. My ideal rack is probably going to be a 2-1 ratio of cams to nuts, with other gear added as needed for different climbs. Fuck the hexes off. Toproping. Trad climbing opens the door to the adventure of starting a climb well before the sun comes up and stumbling back to the car way after the sun goes down. I almost always carry a single rack of nuts at least. 25” wide—and go up to about 1. Many people will condescendingly say that passive pro is only enjoyed bt people doing easy trad but I take nuts on projects that are above my current sport grade too. Being honest about why you're doing this and how much risk you're willing to take is important. I've recently started trad climbing as well and am using DMM nut set 3 (includes a set of nuts, offsets and hexes). Jan 8, 2024 · In the late 1980s into the 1990s in UK climbing, there was a decisive move away from a mix of individually racked hexes of all sizes & medium nuts on cord towards using only larger hexes, plus nuts on wire (with quickdraws) due to ease of use. And I really love them nuts. I can confirm that they’re inferior to most other nuts. A set from 0. 3-1 (black->blue) weighs less than a #0. Usually one or two hits and it rattles loose. if you plan on doing mixed climbing in the long run, you'll probably end up wanting at least some hexes. If that’s the case, get doubles up to 0. Get some nuts and that will probably carry you into plenty of 5. 95. Also have a few micros of offsets & stopper/rock/nuts. Sending a hard sport climb is satisfying, but trad climbing offers a feeling of accomplishment unmatched by clipping bolts. Once I started climbing on gear routes that physically challenged my climbing ability the rapid placement of a cam became welcome[1]. But the biners, cams, and nuts are practically brand new. Climbing nuts exert very little outwards force on the rock, unlike cams. We tested all of the products in our review in a variety of rock types in places like Squamish, Eldorado Canyon, Yosemite Valley, the North Cascades, Smith Rocks, Red Rock, Joshua Tree, Zion, and more. 6. May 29, 2020 · Lead Climbing vs. Good places to stand and place and fiddle with a hex are good places to break an ankle. 7-5. Then you could have made the decision, informed by experience that you do not, nor will you ever need will never need hexes. For nuts I would either good for a set of wild country rocks 1-10 or dmm wallnuts 1-11. Nuts, hexes and slings will get you started just fine. (Cams are much better in parallel cracks). I also instruct my second how to easily remove them. Where as nuts fill a much larger need (that is protecting sections cams can't or protecting a section better than a cam could), hexes rarely offer many See full list on rei. Happy Climbing! I started trad climbing with one set of cams, one set of hexes, and a double set of nuts, ended up fine but there were definitely sketchy runouts. Obviously this resulted in carrying more equipment so was heartily encouraged by gear manufacturers. For trad climbing many places consider a “standard rack” something like cams bd sizes 0. Posted by u/deadphish1 - 9 votes and 35 comments So I’ve recently started trad climbing and have only led 2 very easy ones (5. Nov 23, 2016 · Hey Matt, if you are going up the learning curve in trad climbing, I highly recommend you buying hexes. Tricams - useful for horizontal cracks and cheaper than regular cams. yosemite) then they are nice i think. I have a friend who climbs in JTree a lot, and he swears to them so presumably there is a geological feature there that eats them as well. 10 trad climbing as well as alpine stuff. com Aug 8, 2022 · A typical set of nuts, also called wires or chocks, consists of 10 to 12 pieces that start small—less than . But it depends on rock type of course. 7 but go on about how "sport climbing is neither," but you've also got sport climbers who shit on trad climbers for the precise reasons you've outlined and argue the opposite side of the coin that sport climbing Oct 31, 2024 · This review focuses on climbing nuts used for protecting traditional free climbing routes as well as for aid and big wall routes. That being said, stacks like this were used in clean aid climbing in the 90s. Also hexes work much better when you are Scottish winter climbing. 3 to 3 and a set of nuts. Want more in-depth training? Internationally certified mountain guides Rob Coppolillo and Marc Chauvin will teach you the fundamentals of trad climbing in our Intro to Trad 8-week online course. Since you're asking about trad climbing, at some point in your career you're going to have to untie and thread your sling or use it for rap tat. Mostly though, look at what you'll be climbing. Personally I think nuts and hexes are great, and not just for easy stuff. 5 and #0. My question is, if I’ve used all my cams earlier on a climb. At crags with splitter cracks, I obviously place more cams. Which neither of us own. That being said this method is not for the feint of heart. So I'm seeking potential burner nuts or replacement for the Trango The judgement we need to select a placements for Hexes and Tri cams is very similar to selecting a nut placement. Direction of belay stance vs direction of follower fall Directionality of gear placements Type and size of gear placements (nuts vs cams, 0. I carry a 5 m cordolette tied together with a double fisherman knot. When I started trad climbing, I couldn't afford the cams, so I led exclusively on nuts, hexes, and tricams for probably 40 of my first 50 pitches on gear. 4 days ago · How much does a full rack of climbing nuts cost? A full rack of climbing nuts will cost around $120. Another upside of using strictly hexes and nuts is that if/when you decide to invest in cams you have a better understand of where works well for what kind of gear. That said, folks climbed a lot on nuts, hexes, and tricams before modern camming devices were invented. You do all the work to carry multiple pieces up a climb and then this type of stacking eats through your gear at a double time. Share gear, it's muuuuuuch cheaper this way too. g. Offset hexes were the norm when I started to climb in 1977. From placing/removing gear and For an alpine rack I would carry less cams, more nuts, some 60cm alpine qd and two 120cm slings with biners clipped end to end around chest. When using a hex in active mode, it's still good to place it in a constriction; they are fairly unreliable in perfectly parallel-sided cracks. Most nut placements here take offsets much better than straight ones. Aug 28, 2020 · The smallest hexes are the sizes of medium to large nuts but asking about nuts vs hexes is kind of like asking about nuts versus cams. I currently have quite a horde of nuts so will try to restrain myself to just that suggestion in the normal sizes. I'm running old Tango "made by Hudy Sports" nuts, and I recently realized that they are actually offset in one plane and parallel in another plane. This! If you are doing TR only, they are my favorite hexes and you can set up probably any TR with just hexes and nuts - but they can be a pain to use in "cam mode" with just one hand. Posted by u/PulpFiction849 - 16 votes and 29 comments Totally, not trying to shit on hexes but I think a lot of beginners don’t totally know how to use them properly. These are “standard” sizes to look for when first building your rack. Learn the skills to stay safe and have confidence when climbin Small nuts, big nuts and offset nuts 6 cams (built in slings) 4 hexes (built in slings) 4 quick draws, 16 and 25cm 4 60cm alpine draws 2 120cm slings 1 240cm sling And various screwgates etc Cams are expensive and you don’t need them for easy trad. 6 or so alpine draws a few of your sport quickdraws, some 7mm cord to build anchors and some lockers. I set my Rockcentric hexes as hard as I can and they have never rattled loose during a climb. From what I’ve been hearing, don’t place nuts in horizontal cracks and place cams instead. But for the record; things harder than I'll ever climb were established with nuts and hexes. In short, trad climbing, more formally known as traditional climbing, is a form of rock climbing that requires placing your own gear for protection, rather than solely relying on pre-placed bolts. For any beginner trad climber I'd have suggested starting with a much smaller rack (maybe nuts, and single from 0. Older cams generally perform well, just gotta resling them, but one thing I’ve noticed is that for brand new trad climbers, it often benefits you to start with a cam that has a relatively standard sizing. In normal multipitch id much rather have trad draws with 2 biners than single biner. if the rock type is suited to offsets have a set of theirs also. I also run DMM offsets, I feel okay about them. Double up 2-7. Nuts are an essential for every trad climber. 75 with either totems, c4s, or z4s. 7). The quick draw soft goods should be replaced. And then a quick Italian hitch. These were fiddly to place for freeclimbing and tended to lift out but could still be used for aid climbing. It covers everything from hard single pitch cragging where you're basically sport climbing on gear to sketchballs alpine climbing where the gear is mostly there so they can follow the rope to find your body. As noted by u/muenchener it might date from the late 70's but I suspect it's from earlier then that. Just use the sideways long end of the nut tool and smack the hex as hard as you can from the wire or sling side like your hitting something with a hammer. They mostly protect very different sizes of cracks. Offset nuts are considered more of a supplement, whereas standard ones are just that: standard. The Phoenix (13a) for example. When I started getting into trad, I thought I was gonna hate them, and was going to rely on mainly nuts, hexes, and tricams. Nuts=Stoppers Have a full set. Odds are their guidebook will call for cams and nuts that they’ll learn to use first. First off is the rock secure than then you need to look at how well the device sits in the shape of crack. oiin cgnawyj srgf xdyfro tezjmn iietwm phel kzlehhr asxwyr cdyem