What goes in a trad rack

The idea behind a rack

Trad climbing means you place your own protection as you go and remove it on the way down or have your second clean it. Nothing is bolted into the rock for you. The collection of gear you carry to do this is your rack, and the whole point of it is that for any crack, pocket or constriction you meet on a route, you have something that fits and holds.

That sounds intimidating, and the catalogues do not help. But a starter rack is a fairly short list, and you build the rest slowly as you learn what your local rock eats. Here is what the pieces actually do.

The pieces, plainly

Nuts (wires). Small alloy wedges on a wire loop. You slot them into a narrowing crack so they jam when pulled downward. They are cheap, light and the bread and butter of a rack. A set of ten or so covers a huge range of slots. Add a nut tool, a thin metal pick for poking out placements that have set hard.

Cams (camming devices). Spring-loaded lobes on a trigger. Pull the trigger, the lobes retract, you push the cam into a parallel crack and let go. The lobes expand against the walls and the harder you pull, the harder they bite. They are the expensive part of a rack, but they protect parallel-sided cracks that nuts cannot, and they go in fast. Most people build up a range from finger-width to fist-width over time.

Slings and quickdraws. Once a piece is placed you clip the rope to it. Quickdraws work for straightforward placements. Longer slings, called extenders or alpine draws, let you extend a piece so the rope runs straight and does not lever your gear out as you move past. Carabiners, both snapgate and screwgate, hold the whole lot together.

Hexes. Six-sided alloy chunks on cord or wire. An older, cheaper way to protect medium cracks, and they still work well in flares and in the wet. Many climbers skip them now in favour of cams, but they are a forgiving place to start.

You will also carry a couple of screwgate carabiners and slings for building belays, and a prusik loop or two for emergencies.

Building it without going broke

You do not buy a full rack on day one. A sensible first set looks something like this:

• A set of nuts and a nut tool
• A few cams in the mid sizes, where most cracks sit
• A handful of quickdraws and a few longer slings
• Spare screwgates and a couple of slings for anchors

Beyond that, let the rock tell you what to add. Grit and granite reward cams. Limestone and slate often take more wires. Climb with people who know the area and watch what comes off their harness. Borrow before you buy a whole size range, because a cam that is perfect at your home crag might never leave the rack somewhere else.

Two habits matter more than the kit itself. Learn to place gear on the ground, at the bottom of a boulder, where a bad placement costs nothing. And get a competent partner or instructor to check your early placements, because a piece that looks bomber and is not is worse than no piece at all.

A rack grows with you. Start small, learn what each piece is for, and add the rest as your climbing earns it. Keeping a simple note of which placements held and which sizes you kept reaching for is a quietly useful way to learn your own rock faster.