Pick the Right Rock Climbing Protective Gear

Video Transcript

"We're going to go over some of your basic attachments to the rock. This first one is called a quick draw, it's got two carabineers on it, or 'beeners, and then a short sling in between, which is the draw. And then you're going to clip this to a bolt, which is the metal attachment into the rock. Put one end into the bolt, and then put the rope through the other one, when you're lead climbing, and that'll give you attachment to the rock. I'll show you that in a sec. These are called nuts, or chalk stones. You're going to use these when you're traditional climbing. Any time you have crack, that has a constriction in it, you're going to take one of these, stick it into the crack so that it lodges there, and then you'll be able to attach the quick draw down here. So this is going to act as a bolt when there are no bolts, just cracks. Once that, that's going to give you an intermediate anchor on your way up the rock. Explain that a little further later. This is the bolt. Like the nut, this is called a tri cam, and actually act just like a nut, or the clever thing about this is that it has a camming action, so if you fold down your tricam like this, layering this sling, this nylon over, you chalk some portion of it, when you fit this into a crack, when you pull the sling, it leverages out. See how that works. So you put into a, say even into a horizontal one, put it into a crack like this, when you pull out, the metal expands, and it's all passive, it's not a, there's no springs in this. But that gives you a really secure connection to the rock, in the right placement. Finally you've got this, a camming device, or an SLCD, a spring-loaded camming device. This actually has springs in here. And what you're going to do is, when you find a crack, you pull the trigger, which is this part here, and the trigger wires are going to bring the camming lobes down, and you'll put it right into the crack, I'll show you that, right into the crack like this, and when you release the trigger, the lobes expand, and the outward force on the rock keeps this in there. This is as good as a bolt in a solid crack. And again, it comes with its own quick draw, and you're going to attach your rope down here, and that will keep you into the rock. Now with any of these, they're only as solid as the rock you place them in. So if you put them into crumbly sandstone, then it might not be worth having them at all. But in solid granite, these pieces are balmer, they're not going to come out until pulled apart."