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Gorgeous George
Trad climber
Los Angeles, California
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Feb 26, 2015 - 06:04pm PT
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Since I learned on them, I love them. Don't find placing them difficult at all, and trust them much more when well placed than a cam that likes to walk!
Like tri-cams too. PM me if you want to sell them. Them new fangled things look nice.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Feb 26, 2015 - 06:17pm PT
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I still use them...
...as wind chimes.
To eliminate the nostalgic but undesirable cow-bell clink, mill a slot 80% of the way along one side and then they make a beautiful chime. True geeks might even consider tuning by varying the length of the slot.
TE
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Evel
Trad climber
Nedsterdam CO
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Feb 26, 2015 - 07:09pm PT
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I still use them all of the time. I also use the pink and red tricams, with filed down 'half' sizes as the Gnome mentioned earlier.
Bomber!
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Alexey
climber
San Jose, CA
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Feb 26, 2015 - 07:30pm PT
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There are places where hexes are better than cams, but they are unusual/rare. One of such places I know is Reed Direct. The hexes works there perfect and better than cams
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F10
Trad climber
Bishop
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Feb 26, 2015 - 07:44pm PT
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Most definitely
Started out with hexes and stoppers, very confident using them.
Really makes one appreciate cracks and their irregularities.
They provide some bomber pro if you know what your doing.
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Fletcher
Boulder climber
A very quiet place
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Feb 26, 2015 - 07:58pm PT
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I have about four or five that are 20 years old. These were the ones that you needed to sling. Agree they are good for learning to make placements. I bought some cord to resling mine about 10 years ago. This is still on the To Do list. Obviously I'm not using these anymore! I may need to replace the replacement cord if I ever do want to use them. Ha ha!
Hmmm... coincidence that my oldest at home kid is 11?
I like having them around in the garage though. Also like the idea of using them for bail gear. I might do that.
Have also thought on occasion that they'd make a good weapon in a pinch!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
When I climbed for a while with Derek Starr/Roy Naas and he used to call tricams the poor man's cams. I do like tricams too and still carry the smallest 4 from pink on up. They come in handy and I use them pretty frequently.
Cheers,
Eric
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Feb 26, 2015 - 08:58pm PT
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Yes.
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Watermann2
Big Wall climber
Saluzzo Italia
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Feb 27, 2015 - 12:02am PT
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Good Morning .I agree with Mr. LULZ. In iced cracks are (in my humble opinion) and experience higher than friends, because I hammer them with interlocking bombproof (absolutely not move after being beaten with a hammer) (which you can not do with friends) The great BEGHIN died on Annapurna ( ANNAPURNA FACE SUD BEGHIN LAFAILLE) after putting a friend in a crack ice, for abseiling, and when he took off down the friend (slipped away from the crack ice) and the great Beghin crashed and died.
P.S. :
However, they are still much used in the mountains as the BEN NEVIS where they are iced cracks, given the peculiarities of the terrain in which it takes place climbing.
(For the type of climbing on frozen ground)
Mr. Lulz Writes:
"""""""""" have a friend that always brings them when doing mixed and alpine routes. He hammers them home and prefers that than relying on cams in icy cracks.""""""""""""
Greetings.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Feb 27, 2015 - 12:22am PT
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healyje, these ones should remind you something...
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Feb 27, 2015 - 03:38am PT
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Does
that
answer
your
question
Use em
Until
neither
You
or them
Are
shiney
rock
on!
Two more things that only Hex's can do;
they throw into placements, cowboy
It takes practice, and it is best if you are wearing
A helmet.
and 'fixed' in place
you can thread the rope through,
to descend and take your rope with you,
not having to leave
A Carabiner.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 27, 2015 - 07:19am PT
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I've used them a lot over the years....every one of my FA's in Yosemite was done in the precam years.
Times moves on and so does technology. I have always been a minimalist and while stoppers still have a place on my rack hexes have gone the way of the Dodo bird.
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looks easy from here
climber
Ben Lomond, CA
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Feb 27, 2015 - 12:15pm PT
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Relative n00b reporting in (~4 years), and I use hexes. Mostly because my cousin, who I've learned most about climbing from, still does, and the guy he learned from still does, but I find them useful and drag them out even when I'm the "old timer".
Admittedly I'm terrible with them, and usually end up slotting them in as big nuts rather than efficiently using their camming action. I frequently use them for anchors, when I can spend a bit more time with my placement, and so I can save my limited cam collection for placing when I'm in a hurry.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Feb 27, 2015 - 02:18pm PT
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One argument advanced in favor of hexes is weight savings. I decided to quantify this difference.
I compared the DMM Torque Nut (since I think it is the most useful hex currently available) with the DMM cams fitting the same size range.
Torque Nuts come in four sizes so I compared weight of those four Torque nuts with their four counterparts in the 4 cu line.
I found only a five ounce weight savings between the two sets of four pieces.
Given the cams fit a larger range of crack size (amongst other advantages of cams v. hexes) I find this exercise disproves any realistic advantage to hexes v. cams based on weight savings.
So, Donini and the other old-dogs-who-have-learned-new-tricks apparently have the better argument. I wanted this data to show the hexes had a significant advantage, but it doesn't seem to be true.
Has anyone else done the math?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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I tried for a while climbing with a single set of cams and a matching set of hexes, but the cams were, in general, so much more versatile that I gave up on that set-up. I could still see using it for remote climbs where weight matters, if the climbs aren't too hard for me.
For the most part, I don't carry hexes any more, but sometimes I wish I had some. They are perfect for horizontal cracks the open inward---i.e. are wider further back then at the lip. Smaller versions of such cracks make for perfect keyhole stopper placements, but now I have to put a cam in the bigger cracks, and the fact that the crack widens inward means that it is easy for the cam to walk in and umbrella. A hex would be the way to go.
Something similar happens with vertical cracks that are beyond normal stopper width but whose sides pinch together---a cam can walk upwards and umbrella, and a hex would be a better choice there too.
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feynman
Trad climber
chossberta
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While doing a new route yesterday through a band of really rotten rock I ran into a couple of placements hard to protect with the cams I had (but would have been fine for the hexes I left at the house):
-vertical crack with fractured rock where there were a number of triangular divots on the sides: cam lobes either flared in these divots or only had minimal contact with the edge of the lobe. Hexes large surface area would have ignored the divots getting spotches of good contact. Nuts didn't have the width to get by the divots.
-inward flaring crack at a top of a short crack. The crack was too irregular, broken and flared for much, but at the top I could have dumped a hex at the top of the block and had it fall behind. Large surface area would have been able to ignored some of the weird flaring and constricting variation. With no hexes I ended up relying on a small TCU jammed near a small section of "regular" rock near the surface of the crack which I was certain would have exploded with much force on it.
-the large blocks in this section (fridge size) weren't fully hollow, but I would have preferred to minimize any extra force magnifications (note I don't know in practice how the expansion forces generated by a cam compare to those of a cammed hex).
Sorry, no picts - camera stolen from my car couple of months ago...
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couchmaster
climber
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Yeah, I love hexes, but seriously, cams plug in and pull out so much easier that they speed your times up enough that you mostly don't need hexes. I posted a photo below that would be the 1 instance you might want to use hexes, but in looking at the pic, I realized I retired that Jrat gear sling 2 years back, so it's an old picture (still have those shoes, on their 6th resole now but I rarely use them these days). Probably had a lot more hair too:-)
In regards to the question asked upthread "Seems like people prefer to have a nylon sling rather than a wired hex, whats the school of thought there? ". For me: nylon sling -x2. I bought a set of wired BD's when they came out, thinking that they would replace my old near-retired hexes. I mean, if wired nuts were so much better than slung nuts, wouldn't wired hexes also be that much better than slung hexes? NOT the case with cams as it turns out. Slung works better as they eliminate the need for any additional slinging most of the time. They do take up a bit more rack real estate though.
In answer to the question "what advantages do hexes have over cams", I think that a careful use of a hex in blocky stone will reduce the outward force that a cam would cause in a fall. You can hire Ed H or another smart person to do that math, but certainly every cam out there, when fallen on, causes shitloads of outward force: hexes less so. For loose blocks, you don't want to be hanging on a cam or pulling outwards on any blocks at all.
That said: some routes in some areas have naturally shaped grooves adn cracks that open up in the back accept hexes much better.....a few routes in a few areas.....either that or they have heinous blocks of looseish stone perhaps better left unclimbed, although hexes will cause less outward force:
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Plus the larger ones are an effective self defense device
There was a particularly unsettled time that I carried a singular #10 just for that reason while bouldering in a certain locale.
(A blue Camalot would work just as well)
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David Plotnikoff
Mountain climber
Emerald Hills, CA
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For anchor building, you betcha. I can poke three of those indestructible things in whereas I'd sure think twice about committing three cams for belt-and-suspenders redundancy. Particularly for TR anchors for the kids, they're still very useful. They don't leave the gear closet very much since my kid started leading four years back, but they're still relevant. DP
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