4 ms·

Awesome concept, but from the pictures it looks to big to rack along with normal cams - are there really that many routes with flakes?

blackguardx 16y ago
Flakes are common on granite routes. You can usually put cams or nuts behind them, though. In this case, the flake is very loose and the gap between the flake and the rock behind it is very wide. If he did manage to place any large active pro behind it, it might pry the whole flake off in a fall. This would probably kill him, his belayer, and any people on the ground below. This is why it wasn't climbed by anyone until he invented this device, which won't pry the flake off the wall. One of the most famous granite flakes is the Texas Flake on the Nose route on El Capitan. The gap is so wide that you can't place any protection and must chimney up the 5.9 pitch with no pro.
- weaksauce 16y ago
  They put a bolt about halfway up it some time ago, but it must be climbed free.
crux_ 16y ago
It looks kind of route-specific / very, very niche: You need a quite skinny flake, attached either too far away or too loosely to the main wall to put normal cams or big bros in behind it, all without any other reasonable protection nearby. And if the flake is so loose that you're really worried about pulling it off the wall, running it out might actually be the safest thing to do. (That way, if you fall, you won't load the flake with your momentum. This gizmo will load it strictly downwards, which is the whole reason it's being used instead of normal cams -- which will pressure the flake out from the wall in a fall.)
bmj 16y ago
It's slightly route specific, but when dealing with expando-flakes, particularly, this could be really useful. There are plenty of other pieces of protection out there that are feature/route specific (Big Bros and ship-anchor size cams come to mind). This will be useful to some climbers.

blackguardx 16y ago

Flakes are common on granite routes. You can usually put cams or nuts behind them, though. In this case, the flake is very loose and the gap between the flake and the rock behind it is very wide. If he did manage to place any large active pro behind it, it might pry the whole flake off in a fall. This would probably kill him, his belayer, and any people on the ground below. This is why it wasn't climbed by anyone until he invented this device, which won't pry the flake off the wall. One of the most famous granite flakes is the Texas Flake on the Nose route on El Capitan. The gap is so wide that you can't place any protection and must chimney up the 5.9 pitch with no pro.

weaksauce 16y ago
They put a bolt about halfway up it some time ago, but it must be climbed free.

crux_ 16y ago

It looks kind of route-specific / very, very niche: You need a quite skinny flake, attached either too far away or too loosely to the main wall to put normal cams or big bros in behind it, all without any other reasonable protection nearby. And if the flake is so loose that you're really worried about pulling it off the wall, running it out might actually be the safest thing to do. (That way, if you fall, you won't load the flake with your momentum. This gizmo will load it strictly downwards, which is the whole reason it's being used instead of normal cams -- which will pressure the flake out from the wall in a fall.)

bmj 16y ago

It's slightly route specific, but when dealing with expando-flakes, particularly, this could be really useful. There are plenty of other pieces of protection out there that are feature/route specific (Big Bros and ship-anchor size cams come to mind). This will be useful to some climbers.