To climb fast, you have to be able to place gear fast and to remove it just as fast. The easiest protection to use for speed are cams rather than nuts. With a small rack of cams, you can quickly select one and plug it in. Your partner is also able to speedily clean your cams but simply pulling the cam’s trigger.
Learn to Place Bombproof Gear
If you’re going to climb fast, you have to learn to place solid, bombproof gear. Nothing less will do. The equipment you use for protection when leading and for your belay anchors has to be perfect. Only after you’ve climbed a lot of gear routes and know how to place protection efficiently, quickly, and solidly, are you qualified to speed climb routes where you place your own protection. Part of being a safe and speedy climber is having the knowledge, experience, and judgment to evaluate all your gear placements for their reliability. Nothing less compromises your safety.
Cams Are Easy to Place
Cams are easy to place. You find a crack, pick the right sized cam to fit it, slide it in, clip the rope, and keep climbing. Cams like Black Diamond Camalots and particularly Omega Pacific’s Link Cams have a more extended size range than other cams, so you can carry less sizes. With Link Cams, when you grab one off your rack, you’ll be sure that it will fit the crack in front of you.
Nuts Take More Time
If you use nuts like Stoppers you have to look at the crack, analyze the constriction, and then select the right nut for the job. It’s more time-consuming. Nut also tend to get wedged tight in cracks, which takes more time for your second to clean them. Remember, of course, that just cause cams are faster doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carry a set of nuts. Bring a set of nuts, you might need them at some point, but use cams when you can and you’ll climb faster.
Learn What Works for You
Lastly, as you climb lots of traditional gear routes, you will learn what gear works for you. You’ll find you don’t need a lot of specialty pieces of gear. To put together a speed climbing rack, you need to look at the route and decide what to take. If you’ve climbed it before, you’ll have a good idea what you need to bring. Remember that you also need to have gear to create belay anchors.
Basic Speed Rack
A basic speed rack should have a set of nuts, a set of TCUs, and a set of cams. Also bring a few free carabiners and 10 or so quickdraws. A nifty device worth bringing on a long free climb is a Leeper cam hook or two. You can easily torque these bent pieces of metal into a thin crack to snag a quick rest or to make an aid move without placing a nut.
Buy Cams for Speed Climbing
Omega Pacific Link Cams
Black Diamond Camalots
