Silence of the Cams: 11 Whips With Big Gear Rips

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Tend to run it out? After you watch this Weekend Whipper remix, you might think twice before climbing with a diet rack. Luckily, no climbers were harmed in these gear-ripping whips.

If you dare, read on for the details of each whipper, including route info, the piece that whipped, and probable cause. Soldier on for some broader takeaways, as well as constructive insights from a cam designer who’s been trad climbing since the late `80s.

Weekend Whipper Remix: Whip and rip details

Here are this weekend’s featured whippers, in chronological order as they appear in the video above.

One Cam Rips. Another Unclips

Climber: Casey Dubois
Route: Warriors of the Wasteland (5.12), Squamish, BC
Rock: Granite
Gear that ripped: Black Diamond #0.1 cam, plus a carabiner unclipping in the piece below
Cause: Dubois called his gear failures a “perfect storm.” Once his cam popped, the extra slack in the system caused the carabiner to rotate. This is ultimately what may have led to it coming unclipped.

The Triple Ripper

Climber: Michael Scarborough
Route: Gettin’ Schooled (5.12), Long Canyon, Utah
Rock: Sandstone
Gear that ripped: Three #.01 cams
Cause: Scarborough reflected that those small pieces may have been too loosely cammed to effectively catch his fall. Luckily, a nut saved the day.

Ripping Gear on ‘Meltdown’

Climber: Ethan Pringle
Route: Meltdown (5.14c), Yosemite; Pringle was trying for the route’s sixth ascent
Rock: Granite
Gear that ripped: An unknown piece in a hollow flake
Cause: About a month earlier, Babsi Zangerl’s piece failed in the same spot. Needless to say, gear placed behind a hollow flake is usually less than bomber.

Trad Climber Nearly Decks: 60-foot Fall

Climber: Kate Harrison
Route: True Grip (E5/6a/”very scary” 5.11+), North Wales, U.K.
Rock: Rhyolite (volcanic)
Gear that ripped: Wild Country Rock 3 nut
Cause: It’s hard to tell what caused the nut to rip out. It’s worth noting that the yellow Totem that ended up catching Harrison sustained some damage in the fall and broke the rock where it was placed.

Dangerous Rope Drag: One Cam Pulls Out Another

Climber: David (last name unknown)
Route: The Sloth (HVS 5a/5.9), Roaches Upper Tier crag, England. HVS stands for “Hard Very Severe.” (More on international grades here.)
Rock: Gritstone
Gear that ripped: #2 cam
Cause: The cam was a little too small for the placement and was “tipping out” of the crack. Furthermore, the cam walked itself upward into a wider section of the crack as the climber ascended. Then, David placed a foot behind the rope, pulling his #2 upward. The kicker? The rope wrapped around another cam on his harness, creating an even stronger upward pull on that #2.

Cam Breaks After Catching 3 Falls

Climber: Paul Turrisi-Chung
Route: Beatle Brow Bulge (5.10a), the Gunks, NY
Rock: Quartz conglomerate
Gear that ripped: Blue Totem
Cause: This Totem had already caught Turrisi-Chung thrice as he struggled to pull the crux roof, so he was not expecting a blow-out. On his fourth go, the cam’s wires severed. “I believe what happened was each fall jostled the piece slightly,” Turrisi-Chung reflected. “My last fall was enough to pull the piece from the crack. The wires of the cam rubbed against the abrasive rock while it was pulling out, which caused the wires to fray and break.” Luckily, a cam just below prevented a deck.

Even “Bomber” Gear Has Its Limits

Climber: Franky Lapitino
Route: The Hunter and His Dog (5.13b), Smuggler’s Notch, VT
Rock: Schist
Gear that ripped: #0.2 cam
Cause: The cam’s lobes had begun to flatten out and open up where they pressed against the rock, perhaps reducing its strength.

Skipping Bolts, Ripping Cams

Climber: Adrian Montano
Route: Golden Beaver Left (5.13b), a mixed route in Mount Lemmon, Arizona
Rock: Gneiss
Gear that ripped: A cam (size/type unknown)
Cause: Montano, who opted not to clip the bolts on Golden Beaver Left, had fallen multiple times on the cam set below the crux before it finally popped.

Climber Pulls Out Her Own Cam

Climber: Sam MacIlwaine
Route: Space Invaders (5.12), Yosemite, CA
Rock: Granite
Gear that ripped: An old Black Diamond #5 cam
Cause: Sam instinctively grabbed at her cam when she fell, twisting it out of position and ultimately causing it to pop.

Black Metolius Cam Explodes

Climber: Andrew Leich
Route: Blockage Project (5.13+ R), Cheat Canyon, West Virginia
Rock: Gritstone
Gear that ripped: Black Metolius Master Cam
Cause: The cam exploded out of its placement, turning what should have been a three-foot fall into a 15-footer—and near-deck. The initial fall damaged the aluminum clasp that keeps the lobes retracted.

Gear Ripper: Good Clean Fun (aka, The Mystery Whip)

With this last clip, we were unable to track down the climber after they sent us their video. So we know nothing about the route, rock, or circumstances of the fall. Our best guess from a visual inspection of this blurry phone video still is that a smallish cam in the #.03-#.05 range is the piece that blew.

Some takeaways on gear failure

As surely as climbing partners occasionally bail, gear periodically fails. If there’s one recurring theme among most of these gear-ripping whippers, it’s that a back-up piece or simply adding more gear could have potentially reduced the size of the fall. This is especially true of smaller cams or less-than-ideal placements that you don’t totally trust. If you can afford to, back it up and sew it up!

In a few instances, cam placements in these falls were less than ideal, according to the climbers we interviewed. Make sure your lobes are adequately retracted (more specifics on that below). And avoid overly shallow placements or setting a cam right below the point where a crack widens, as David did on his Hard Very Severe 5.9.

In one instance, a nut ended up preventing a deck. If cam placements prove challenging, consider backing up your cam with a nut if you can find a good spot for it.

Of course, you’ll also want to avoid grabbing your cam as you fall, or you might pull it out, like Climbing Associate Editor Sam MacIlwaine did on Space Invaders. The instinct to grab at something—anything!—when you’re falling isn’t unique to MacIlwaine. Grabbing at a quickdraw or bolt can be just as dangerous, putting you at risk of bigger falls or upper extremity wounds. If you’re a grabber, one recommendation to consider is training yourself to grab at your tie-in knot to prevent yourself from grasping at something else.

Lastly, while these videos may instill fear in the trad climbers among us, remember that sport climbers shouldn’t blindly trust their protection either. Bolts sometimes fail, too!

Prevent those cams from ripping

So can those micro cams and tiny totems be trusted with a bigger fall—especially if you’re a heavier climber?

We reached out to Derek Gustafson, the Climb Business Unit Director at Black Diamond (BD) Equipment. Gustafson helped design BD’s Ultralight Cams that hit the market in 2016 and oversees climbing gear there today. Though he’s an old-school trad climber who’s been questing up rock since 1988, he was an early cam adopter. These days, he usually doesn’t even bother bringing nuts along for the ride—unless he needs to leave a piece behind. Here are some things to keep in mind when you place your next cam, according to Gustafson.

Ensure your lobes are retracted right

This will come as no surprise to seasoned trad climbers, but Gustafson recommends that your lobes are retracted between 25 to 75 percent. If your cam is under-retracted, say at around 10 percent, it doesn’t exert enough pressure on the rock to hold your fall. “The key to getting the cam to work is getting it to activate in that initial loading,” Gustafson says. “It’s harder to get it to bite.”

That said, if you’re using smaller cams (i.e., a Black Diamond #.04 or smaller), Black Diamond suggests a smaller ideal spectrum of lobe retraction: 30 to 60 percent. Gustafson explains that these smaller cams have a narrower range in which they’re effective. This is particularly true of softer rock, like sandstone, since the pressure of the cam biting into its placement can blow out the rock. When we see cams “explode” out of the rock like on that route up Cheat Canyon in this Weekend Whipper edit, Gustafson explains that the lobes swing past horizontal and blow out, sometimes damaging the rock in the process.

What if you can’t find the perfect piece? “My general advice, when possible, is to bias toward a little overcammed,” Gustafson says. “It just has more of that initial grab and you have more range if things wobble.” Of course, avoid overcoming your gear to the point that you won’t be able to get it out later.

Lastly, especially with softer rock like sandstone, stack your cams. “You might as well sew it up,” he advises to all climbers, as well as to his own kids. “There’s literally no point in being a hero.”

Know how much force you’re generating

Do bigger climbers need to more cautious of whipping on small cams? After all, many of the falls in this Weekend Whipper involve smaller cams and male climbers (albeit of unknown weights). Gustafson says generally not. Most of their small cams are rated to withstand falls that create a load of 7kN (kilo Newtons) or more. Regardless of your weight, knowing how much force you’re about to generate can help you make smart choices when anticipating a fall.

For example, a 225-pound climber creates 1kN of force just by hanging on a piece of gear. That’s why gear rated to only 1-2 kN, such as the smallest micronuts, are known as “bodyweight only” placements. But almost all cams today are rated to withstand more force. “Even a factor-2 fall with a fully fixed belay would be about 3kN to 5kN,” says Gustafson. “That’s probably not in the range to break the cam given the other pieces in the system and the dynamic nature.” (For a breakdown on fall factors, read this.)

Larger cams—#7s and #8s, for example—also have lower ratings than mid-sized cams. Gustafson noted that because they’re so wide, they aren’t as stable as mid-sized cams and can easily twist out of the crack. That said, most climbers aren’t whipping on cams of this size. MacIlwaine, an invert offwidth specialist who climbs a lot of #7 cracks, agrees with that assessment: “I never trust a #7 or #8 to hold any kind of fall above two feet unless they’re aggressively overcammed. Those things literally jump out of the crack.”

If you’re truly looking to nerd out on fall factors—and whether that cam you placed will hold a possible whip on your project—you can try to calculate the kN force of your anticipated fall using an online calculator. A couple informal fall factor calculators exist online, like this one. Australia’s Professional Association of Climbing Instructors has also created an informational resource for heavier climbers on falls.

Happy Friday, and be safe out there this weekend.

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