Cams

In Indian Creek the routes follow perfect splitter cracks. These are often straight perfectly parallel cracks and the only thing that you can protect them with are cams. The rock isn’t as solid as granite and this means that you [allegedly] have to protect them every six feet (1.83m). I also am a bit of a whimp and unless I become braver (unlikely) I need lots of cams. With these perfectly parallel cracks it isn’t impossible that you need up to 10 cams of the same size. Take for example “The incredible Hand Crack” on Supercrack Butress. How could you not want to climb something with that name. The gear list goes 1 #3 camalot, many #2 camalots. The route is 100ft. Supercrack requires a myriad of #3 camalots. By normal standards I have a large collection of cams (pictured above) but this isn’t enough for the non-standard cracks I will encounter in the Creek. Therefore, I am making an appeal to all my friends to lend me some friends/cams etc., particularly in the range of BD 1-3. On my return to Finland I will buy you all a great many beers.

My rack (from smallest to largest) consists of 3/8" (blue) and 1/2" (green) CCH aliens, #0, #0.5, #1, #1.25, #1.5, #1.75 WC friends, #0.75, 2x #1, 2x #2, 2x #3, #4 BD camalots and #6 and #7 RE pulsar cams.

By the way, a cam is actually a Spring Loaded Camming Device and has four (in smaller versions, two or three) rounded cams which are forced apart by a spring. To place them you contract the spring, then release it, putting the cam faces into contact with the rock. It's impossible to believe they will work until you fall onto one, after which you use them relentlessly. A friend is a buddy with a large set of cams who’s willing to lend you some.