I've not seen this seup before. Surely there would be shock-loading the system with such clipping?
How can there be shock loading with a big wang of dynamic rope?
I'm thinking more the technique of using a sling extension in this manner.
Is it not just a cam with an extendable sling? The draw is clipped into the sling, the red crab being the one the cam was racked with?
It's difficult to see exactly what's been placed and how it's attached.
Shock loading isn't an issue because of the length of dynamic rope out.
Cross loading the carabiner MAY be an issue, but that depends what the gear placement is out of sight, and if it's a Cam with a redundant racking crab there may be no problem at all.
If you're going to make a catty comment, take care to ensure you don't end up under the wheels of the bus.
Did you mean to link a different picture? Looks just like a dead ordinary runner.
You’ve not extended a cam with a ‘draw before..?
> Is it not just a cam with an extendable sling? The draw is clipped into the sling, the red crab being the one the cam was racked with?
That’s exactly what it looks like to me.
Sean, not sure if you own DMM Dragon Cams (or the suchlike), but this is a frequently used method when you need to extend them beyond their own extended range, as it keeping the carabiner in place makes them much easier to re-rack afterwards.
Certainly nothing dangerous, to the extent that I - like several others - had assumed you’d linked to the wrong photograph.
A genuine post as I am not familiar with this method of extending runners. How does anyone know it's attached to a cam as the actual placement is not visible. I'll check it out on the Petzl site. Thanks for all the advice.
Who needs to know it's attached to a cam and why? Presumably the person who placed it knows. Extending a cam is normal practice so I'm unclear what your concern is.
It's perhaps a little confusing that the extendible sling passes through the red racking krab. I'm not sure whether that was intentional or was just how it worked out when the sling was extended.
Personally I'd have extended the sling as normal, with the red krab at the bottom, and clipped a quickdraw alongside it, rather than leave the krab jammed up against the stem of the cam. However I can't see anything actually wrong with doing it that way, apart from a very slight risk of damage to the krab in the event of a fall. Since that krab isn't part of the safety chain there would be no risk to the climber.
The only error I can see is the way the rope has been clipped into the bottom krab, running from above to below rather than the other way round.
Pretty sure this is a troll post. Post a normal pic and invite people to argue what's "wrong" with it.
Also no idea if it's a cam why so many comments above about cams? It might be it might not be we can't see. Does anyone even take cams on a VD mountain route like that when a few rope hex, some big wired nuts and a few slings are lighter.
> Also no idea if it's a cam why so many comments above about cams?
Cams are just by far the most common use of that style of extendable sling. There's an outside chance that it could be a DMM Torque Nut, I guess, because they also have the extendable sling. But I reckon you can just about make out the tip of the cam stem and if that's the corner of a hex that would make it quite a shallow placement.
> Does anyone even take cams on a VD mountain route like that
Surely this is a disingenuous question. You must know that they do. Yes, the kit you listed would be lighter. It would have some disadvantages too. The difference in overall pack weight for the day would certainly be negligible so for most climbers these days who almost certainly own cams anyway and are vastly more familiar with them than hexes, they're an obvious choice to take.
> Surely this is a disingenuous question....
I own a few cams, but wouldn't think to take them on a big mountain VD. Maybe I'm just totally out of touch? That's a different thread anyway
It's two runners, the nut on the right is clipped in to that on the left to stop it pulling out.
A common enough technique, I often place nuts in opposition in horizontal breaks.
Actually Scott I think you have hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what is going on. All this talk of cams being extended is irrelevant if it is not actually a cam that is being used. It is 2 nuts placed in opposition to each other. Thanks for clearing that up!
Is the below that we're talking about?
If so it doesn't look like the the extendable sling of a Dragon or similar because the upper krab seems to be on separate tape or bit of tape.
My guess would be a sling larksfooted around something but with a krab instead of passing it through itself. It might not be what I would do, but I'm sure it would work.
Yup, nothing to see here, it's opposing protection in a horizontal break. Was very common before cams, when just nuts were used. Still a very useful technique on gritstone...
Can someone explain this idea of opposing pieces of protection, please? Maybe a better picture or a URL? I don't know what you mean but it sounds like I should. Thanks.
> Actually Scott I think you have hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what is going on. All this talk of cams being extended is irrelevant if it is not actually a cam that is being used. It is 2 nuts placed in opposition to each other. Thanks for clearing that up!
No it's a DMM cam, you can see the crab is being held tight to the end
Looks like a red crab on a red cam, I'll signpost jack this way to defend himself though
> Looks like a red crab on a red cam, I'll signpost jack this way to defend himself though
Now TobyA has zoomed in for us, Thank You! it does look like a red krab on a red DMM cam where the sling has been extended, it looks like a glimpse of a red object just above the red krab, but... the Dragon cams have colour coded slings (unless that's a new enhancement?), so the tape edges should be red and they're not, so I think it remains a mystery
Regardless of the mysterious protection, the original question was around extending protection "I'm thinking more the technique of using a sling extension in this manner."
Sean, firstly: apologies for having suggested it was a troll post, I now see it was a genuine question. Secondly: since the thread has digressed into cam or not cam debate, do you feel that this has clarified why sometimes it's good to extend the protection (regardless of what it was) or are you still wondering if that doesn't just add extra "slack" in the system?
> Can someone explain this idea of opposing pieces of protection, please?
https://www.climbing.com/skills/nuts-101/
Scroll down to "Advanced techniques".
This is useful to know, but can be a faff to set up. In many situations you'd now use a cam instead. You can also use it in vertical cracks where you might want the anchor to take an upward pull.
Nice. Thanks.
Total death; the placement is imaginary at best, and the quickdraw is clipped in the wrong way round!
Haha well spotted, I changed the crabs to match the photo and put them on the wrong way round 🤦
> Hopefully this is clear for everyone
This is UKFC remember... don't be too hopeful.
To veer off-course in another direction, "shock loading" is an undefined term and I think that attempts to use it to characterize something unfavorable are generally unhelpful, both because no one seems to know what "shock loading" actually means and because there doesn't seem to be a useful distinction in the cases when the undefined term is applied.
It isn't uncommon to hear about shock loads "increasing" the load on an anchor, but there is often no proposed baseline forming the basis for comparison. For example, in the case with the runner here, if the system is "shock loaded," what are we comparing the result to?
If the energy of a climbing fall has to be absorbed by relatively static material, higher tensions will result in the material, and anchor loads will be higher than they would be with more elastic material. In the case of dynamic climbing ropes and runners made of more or less static material, the runner contributes almost nothing to energy absorption and so there is going to be no practical difference in anchor load with or without the runner in the system. Now if the climber was connected directly to the runner and fell, the much less elastic nature of the runner would result in much higher tension in the runner and of course a much higher anchor load. But there is no good reason to speak of one of these loads as a "shock load" and the other load as not being such, as in both cases the anchor gets a lot more than bodyweight.
It is conceivable that one could try to define "shock load" by how fast the load to the anchor builds up as the fall is arrested and so define as a shock load a load that increases at a rate above the proposed threshold. I don't know of any attempts to codify this (but I'm not an engineer) and if they exist, I'm not sure there would be any practical application to climbing situations.
> Does anyone even take cams on a VD mountain route like that when a few rope hex, some big wired nuts and a few slings are lighter.
They do look a bit strange clipped to hemp, yes, but once you drag yourself out of the 60s and into the modern world...
Nice parquet. What is that tat doing, spoiling the view?
An interesting post. I was wondering exactly this myself and I am sure that someone, somewhere must have conducted some relevant tests in this area. Afterall DMM and Play y Brenin have certainly done some tests with runners and testing to failure. Likewise both the BMC Technical Comittee and UIAA. I juts need to trace down the research into this grey area of climbing dynamics. I know at one time there was this mantra not to shock-load the runners at the belay station. Perhaps even more important today with the rise in climbers using Direct Belay techniques.
Interesting. I've had dragons it appears now for 12 years - (cue another, "OMG I got old moment" and thoughts of getting them reslung). But in that time I don't think I've ever left a krab on the sling in that position. I often pull out the extendible sling and clip a quickdraw to that but I wouldn't leave the spare krab on the short loop.
Dunno why really, I guess main as it's more likely to be in the crack and at best probably annoying for the second trying to remove the cam, and I could imagine the spare 'biner getting jammed into the crack in a fall in some way? Or the sling getting damaged with abrasion somehow. Probably a chance in 1000 or 10000 sort of situations, but you hang around climbing long enough you end up hearing those stories when they happen.
Shock loading is simple for engineers, it's defined in an infinite number of ways depending on what one is talking about!
For climbers it's probably "the application of a load at a higher rate than has been accomodated in the design of the equipment". So there is no value that defines shockloading in force or whatever, it's when the equipment or placement fails. For a micro-nut it's completely different to a bolt.
It speeds up reracking.
Pull the snap gate and it’s done. It’s a neat way of doing it.
Whether I do it depends on a few things.
Jack, in this photo, is a v experienced climber.
'Perhaps even more important today with the rise in climbers using Direct Belay techniques.'. Less likely to develop as the 'most dynamic ' (yuk) part of the climbing protection system is the rope, and this method is direct. Compared to a hanger, or multipitch belay with weighting of the belay. The method of course that applies least force to the belay is that the belay is on a nice ledge, holds the weight, and never weights the belay,
> It speeds up reracking.
> Pull the snap gate and it’s done.
Demonstrated in the video below
Oh, I get it now! Nice idea. I guess as long as the 'spare' krab is clear of crack when it goes "up" towards the stem of the cam you're onto a winner! 👍
> Oh, I get it now! Nice idea. I guess as long as the 'spare' krab is clear of crack when it goes "up" towards the stem of the cam you're onto a winner! 👍
Yeah and sometimes on a long pitch I might choose to take the clip with me so I can use it for something else later!
> Yeah and sometimes on a long pitch I might choose to take the clip with me so I can use it for something else later!
Yep have definitely done that as well, although if you are of a slightly but not seriously OCD nature, as I am, so have sort of got colour coded krabs for your various cams, sorting them all back out at the end of the day is an extra chore (although I have to admit, a very satisfying one! ).
I remain slightly confused by the original photo though, because it looks like the sling on the left is going of in a totally different direction to the little bit on the right with the krab on it, although I completely get it could just be snagged on a tiny crystal or something making the strange angle.
Mostly the photo reminds me of what a brilliant route the Cioch Nose is. One of the oldest photos in my gallery is my mate Olly on that route, but its a ropey scan from an even older not very good slide, so not really worth linking. I did the Sword of Gideon last time I was up that way, round the corner from the Nose, but even that's a few years back now. Must get back up there soon!
> It speeds up reracking.
That is a clever idea that I'd never thought of. I might have to play around a bit with that.
It seems to be pretty standard in the US to leave a racking carabiner on cams. Occasionally this carabiner is clipped, but usually an extra quickdraw is added. The racking carabiner makes reracking a lot faster (and for the OCD keeps the color-coded carabiners with their cams), so is a benefit on longer multipitch routes where belay transition times can be significant. On the other hand, it means carrying a lot of extra carabiners that really aren't doing much, and it doesn't play so well with cams utilizing extendible slings.
I do a compromise, which is two cams per racking carabiner up to green camalot size and one cam per racking carabiner in sizes above that. If the second cam of a pair is placed, the racking carabiner goes with it.
I rack my cams individually and leave the racking krab on my cams already - often clipping it if it's a short straight-up route, extending it with a quickdraw otherwise - but I've never seen it clipped like in the picture in the OP to make shortening the extendable sling easier on a Dragon (or similar cam). It seems like a potential useful little trick to add to the toolbox.
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