Virtuality

Once the nuts, cams, hexes, slings, or other protection are securely placed into the rock, we must attach the rope to the protection somehow. This is where the Quickdraw comes in.

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The mainstay of a lead rack is what’s known as passive protection. Nuts, chocks, hexes and similar. My first item of passive protection is a set of Nuts, model name “Rocks“, by Wild Country.

These are used by climbers by wedging them in tapering cracks in the rock, such that any loading causes the nut to wedge even tighter into the rock, securing the climber against a fall.

As I am building up my first lead rack, it’s a rather expensive business. To keep the costs down, I’ve stayed away from the pretty Anodised Rocks, and purchased the older model - plain, silver Rocks.

I could justify the coloured rocks if I were climbing really hard stuff - choosing the rock based on colour, where colour enumerates width would save a few seconds, and with the hard stuff that could matter.

In 2004, incidents recorded by the England and Wales Mountain Rescue services show head injuries were second only to fractures, second only by one incident. This implies that if I do have to call out mountain rescue while climbing, it’ll likely be the cause of a head injury.

As such, I bought a bright orange helmet. This model comes in many colours, many are more cool, but I’m happy with visibility over style.

The helmet is designed and manufactured by Black Diamond, and it’s model name is the “Half Dome“. Weighing in a 345g it’s quite light, and it seems to be well ventilated.

It’s time for me to build up a so-called “rack”, for lead climbing. I start with one important piece of gear, a 240cm Dyneema sling, by DMM.

This sling will be used to create anchors at the top of climbs or pitches, allowing belay stations to be created, or top-ropes to be set up. Without silngs - no climbing is to be had.