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I finished my passive only climb. It was a lot of fun, except that i dropped black evo off my wire oval that i was using for racking. From now on I'll only use solid gate hook nose biners for racking multiple pieces. The torque nuts work great, except the extendable sling concept works horribly. I'd really like to get the wire ones or I'm tempted to buy a swaging tool and resling mine.
Aside from those minor annoyances, the climb was great. I got solid pro in most places. I learned a lot about placement - such as use the biggest tricam that will fit, for better stability. The big tricams #5+ have different Proportions than the others (and there's probably differences within the sub #5 range - perhaps that's why the smaller ones are so stable). So I was wishing i had the #6 with me when the #5 was skittering out of place. Tricams are less stable at their end range, because the rails are at that point narrow compared to the crack width.
I can absolutely see why tricams fell out of favor, because most slcd's have 4 points of contact and this contributes stability from tipping over - not to mention spring force holding the cams against the rock.
Where i climbed had a lot of horizontals, so the tricams had a great chance to shine. I had previously climbed this route with cams. There's a move off the ledge that is pretty exposed, and i didn't trust a tcu in a horizontal to hold me. With extra tricams this time, i was able to secure that ledge with two equalized pieces and make the move with confidence. Of course, then i was face to face with a hornet in his nest, so i retreated back to the ledge and set up a final belay there.
All in all, i gained both an appreciation for tricams and an appreciation for cams. The amazing thing about tricams is they fit where others can't. So i actually set a lot more pro this climb that last climbs and it felt safer.
Pictured are pitch 2 and pitch 1 anchor left to right. That blue torque nut was super solid.
