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Thanks. I do understand the mechanics, but the article seemed to imply that there are some flakes that people do use traditional cams to climb. I was more cur
by jfager 16y ago
Thanks. I do understand the mechanics, but the article seemed to imply that there are some flakes that people do use traditional cams to climb. I was more curious in how the line between safe and unsafe gets drawn than the theory behind why horizontal forces on flakes are dangerous. In other words: you pull on flake, and it moves - obviously, horizontal force is unsafe. But: how do you then decide a vertical force on the same flake is safe? Is it just feeling and experience, or are there actual rules people generally follow?
- aplusbi 16y agoWell from what I know this "anti-cam" device is the only rock protection that would not have a horizontal force component This guy is the first person to ever try it. All the other pro I can think of catches a fall by wedging into the crack, either by expanding or by taking advantage of a natural choke point.
- kscaldef 16y agoWell, you can't actually do an engineering analysis of a rock face, so you're never going to achieve that level of rigor. Placing protections and building anchors is a combination of experience and intuition; observation and analysis techniques; and a bit of actual physics around angles, direction of force, rope stretch, and force multipliers.
- weaksauce 16y agoThere are guidelines that people follow but there is no hard and fast put this here like this and it will hold a fall from 75' up rules. It is a lot of feeling and intuition and most importantly redundancy!