r/tradclimbing

Climbing granite and sandstone mainly in the 7c-8a (5.12d-5.13b) range.

I currently have a standard BD double rack, plus the 0.0, 0.1 & 0.2 Z4, the totem basics 0.5 - 0.95 (blue to red) and the same in offsets. No complaints with any of them!

I need a few more small cams for the routes I want to get done, the equivalent of the 0.1 and 0.2 Z4 sizes and also maybe another blue and green (0.5 & 0.65) totem basic size I think, which I use quite a bit.

What are the pros and cons of other small cams, what would you recommend? I think it would be good to have some variety in small cams as they are all fit differently, but don't have much experience in other small cams.

I'm also keen on the smaller normal totems, especially the black. Prefer cams with a thumb loop. Price not an issue.

Every few months I go looking for a climbing film I half remember, and it takes 20 minutes of digging through YouTube, Vimeo, and old brand channels to find it. Half the good stuff is sitting on Patagonia's or Mellow's channel with a thumbnail that tells you nothing, and the algorithm surfaces the same three videos every time.

So I started keeping a list. It turned into a site: climbingmovies.com

It's just the films that are already free and legally online, embedded from the original YouTube or Vimeo upload with a link back to the channel that made them. Nothing is hosted or ripped. There are no ads, no accounts, no email signup, no app.

Right now it's around 20 films, everything from Rotpunkt and Silence to Wide Boyz, El Sendero Luminoso, The Lappnor Project, Es Pontàs, and The Ghosts Above. Each one has a short writeup of what it actually is and why it's worth the time, because "9a project film" doesn't tell you whether you're getting a portrait or 40 minutes of drone shots. You can filter by discipline (bouldering, trad, big wall, alpine, free solo, DWS, comp), by climber, or by country.

Two things I'd genuinely like from this sub:

• What am I missing? Especially older stuff, non English language films, and anything outside the sport and bouldering world. Alpine and trad are the thinnest sections and I know there's a lot out there I haven't seen. There's a submit form on the site but a comment here works fine too.
• If a film is on there that shouldn't be, tell me. I tried to only include uploads from the original creator or rights holder, but I could have gotten one wrong and I'll pull it.

Fair warning on the writeups: they're my opinions, so if you think I'm wrong about a film, say so.

You can also submit free films you find: https://climbingmovies.com/submit

Hi, my current rack consists of the WC friends from 0.4 to 2 and a 0.3 Z4. What cams make the most sense to add to my rack to get to a double rack. I have a pretty significant discount on friends, C4s, Z4s and Dmm cams, but sadly not on totems. Considering passive pro, are dmm wallnuts that much better than BD stoppers? The wallnuts would be about 1.5x more expensive for me.

I have some BD Camalot’s that are nearly 20years old and I’d like to get them re-slung. I contacted Black Diamond and they aren’t doing any reslinging in Europe at the moment.

Any suggestions? I’m based in Ireland so ideally somewhere in the EU.

So me and a new partner were on pitch 6 of an 8 pitch alpine climb, while he was leading he seemed to have gone off route and fell when he was 6-8ft above his last piece. He took a nasty 10ish foot fall on his side before coming to a stop. I was able to lower him to the next ledge below us, and then I down-climbed about 15ft to the ledge. As soon as I got there I assessed, no blood and his limbs seemed to have full mobility, but he did have a broken rib. I didn't even question the idea that we had to go down immediately, as I knew weather was coming.

His first concern was with leaving gear on the wall, so he wanted us, or me, to try to traverse on the face to see if I could come across the rappel route. I rejected the idea, started making anchors with our gear, and setting up a rappel. We needed to do four 60m rappels to get back to the ground but he still was very apprehensive about leaving his gear. So much that after I ran out of locking biners other than the ones needed for rappeling down, he refused to use another one and wanted me to use the rope directly on the cordelette I was sacrificing for that rappel. I hesitantly agreed, since it was only about 20-30ft high to the next ledge that actually had anchors for the final rappel. Long story, rope got stuck after we came down, I had to climb back up solo, and down climb to get back to him. We eventually got ready for the final rappel, and he refused to do any more stacked rappels, and he wanted to go first since it started to hail.

Again I hesitantly agreed and right as he was starting to lean back I saw that his rappel had only one strand on his device. I grabbed his harness and told him, he fixed it and finally rappeled down.

Once we made it to the base, mountain rescue met us, and we started the long walk back to the TH, as he didn't have rescue insurance and didn't want the bill of a chopper. I carried his stuff and we helped him slowly hike down to the car, which took 3-4 hrs.

Eventually back at the TH I went back to his campground to help him pack his stuff and go with him to the ER. Once there he gave me 3 cams, different brand and in worse condition than mine, as payment for the 5 totems I lost and the locking biners and so on I left on the wall. I was happy to just be safe and back , but decided I could possibly sell them to recover some of the cost of buying my gear back.

Once leaving I saw his brand new 2026 XL SUV still with temporary plates on them, and with leather seats.

I didn't think much of it, but I started the drive home, as I knew my wife was worried out of her mind by now.

Next day I found his rocky talkie in my back pack and texted to see if I could mail it to him, since I already have a pair. His answer, "wait, because you still might recover the gear from the wall" ( I mentioned I might try to go next week to see what I could find). "Once you recover your gear, you can send the radio with the cams I gave you".

AITA if I dont return the cams? Even if I do find some of the gear, I'm sure at least one totem flew of the mountain, and another two are off route. There's gonna be a week of rain before I manage to make it back, so who knows what will still be there, and even though I posted in MP asking if other parties can retrieve them, there's slim chances I will recover the $500+ in gear I lost. Undecided on what to do if I recover some of my gear, was planning on selling the 3 cams to pay for one totem at least...AITA if I don't send them back?

I’m putting together a trad rack. I’ve done quite a bit of research. Used totems c4 and friends,m, never z4’s)
Waiting for Labor Day to pull the trigger so trying to min max.

Still learning trad so not repointing 5.11 or anything but I know how my brain works and it’s better to buy the right thing the first time then buying something suboptimal and then caving and buying the right thing 6 months later and taking a massive L reselling used gear

Already have a black totem, Dmm nuts and offsets and a set of wild country friends on the way .4-3

Need help with the items in parentheses. Obviously any other feedback much appreciated.

2x black totem
1x blue totem (1x z4 or a second blue totem)
1x yellow totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x purple totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x green totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x wc red (1x red totem or C4)
1x WC yellow 1x C4
1x WC blue 1x C4 blue
1x C4 gray

Been out of climbing for a bunch of years because kids. I used to mostly just use the climbing rope to build my anchor, the brother in law used to carry a cordelette. What’s the standard nowadays for building your anchor between pitches?