god dammit!

I always remember reading somewhere that climbing was a relatively inexpensive hobby. Now at the time I was buying one nut a week with a little of my paycheck from the pub where I worked and was looking horrified at the price of a rope. Eventually it dawned on me that maybe climbing was inexpensive. Once you have your rack, it should last you at least 10 years.

Ok so if you climb close to home then climbing is a relativly cheap sport. However add winter climbing, alpine climbing, trips to all parts of the country each weekend and it adds a little more on. I'm not sure where this rant is going but I finally had to replace a cam sling.

Well infact it wasn't a good weekend for my gear. In transit too and from crags I've managed the damage 3 trigger wires (3 seperate cams) so they've had to be replaced. Replacing the trigger kits is obvious but it's still pretty hard work requiring a hammer and a pair of decent piles. With those repaired it was time to look at the sling on the size one cam. I've had the thing for 6 years now and its had a alot of heavy use and for a while the sling has been overly furry and generally looking a bit knackered. I did look into sending it back to Wild Country, but its £15 and they'll get it back within 3 weeks! 3 Weeks? I can't be without such a cam for that long! Well, instead I looked reslinging it myself.

After looking into various ways of reslinging and checking the BD website for thier lab tests on stuff like this, I narrowed it down to either a thing tape or dyneema. I was put off by the dyneema as I thought the knot would be massive and chunky (you need to tie a triple fishermans knot) so opted for some sling. As it happened the sling material was too thick and I ended up with the dyneema! The knots isn't actually that bulky at all and it works just fine. I was worried that I would worry about using a tied piece of gear, but it gives me no bother. All in all I'm happy with it.