Equipment
The gear used to protect climbs includes:
- Slings are loops of nylon webbing (also called "tape"), cord, or rope. They can be tied around rock spikes or trees, threaded through natural holes in the rock, round natural chockstones, or through artificial anchors such as metal hangers, chains, or rings. Also known as runners, they are used to temporarily attach a climber's harness to directly to an anchor.
- Nuts, chocks, or simple cams are metal devices placed in constrictions in cracks and attached to carabiners with wire or nylon slings.
- Spring-loaded camming device (SLCDs) use multiple cams in opposition, which expand in a crack as the device is weighted. These can be placed even in parallel and outward flaring cracks.
- Bolts are anchors fixed in holes drilled in the rock and clipped by the climber with a carabiner. They are placed both by climbers putting up new routes, particularly in aid climbing, and as permanent fixtures on popular routes to reduce wear on rock features.
- Pitons are metal spikes hammered or hand-placed in thin cracks and clipped through an eye in the piton to a carabiner.
- Skyhooks are talon shaped hooks placed over very small ledges and flakes and secured to a carabiner. Usually found in aid climbing, they are occasionally utilized in free climbing as extremely marginal protection.
Fixed protection usually consists of permanently anchored bolts fitted with hangers, a chain, and ring, or pitons left in situ.
Read more about this topic: Climbing Protection
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