What are "camming devices" used for?

Question

What are "camming devices" used for?

Answer 1

Cams are used in "Trad" or Traditional climbing. They are designed to place in a crack as an anchor or protection("pro") from a fall. They are spring loaded and designed to expand as more pressure is applied. The harder the pressure, like falling for example, the harder the cam tries to expand, so it holds it's place in the crack keeping the climber from falling further. Other alternatives to cams are "fixed" or passive gear, which don't have any moving parts like nuts and hexes. Cams really became popular in the last 12 yrs. Their ability to expand means the same cam can fit into different sized cracks, really speeding up the amount time it takes to place the gear and allowing the climber to carry less fixed gear which can be cumbersome. Cams aren't perfect though and come with their own set of problems. The most infamous problem is "walking". With no weight on the cam and rope wagging back and forth, cams will sometimes rock or "walk" out of the crack. Another problem is weight, their heavy. If you know the route and sizes of the cracks you may be better off just carrying the correct fixed gear. Finally, they are expensive! Each cam will run somewhere between $60 and $120.

For an avid climber, who is interested in getting into trad climbing, they are diffidently worth the investment.

Answer 2

this is a climbing devise that is put in a crack location where weight forces the cam to get wedged even tighter so it will not slip out.  On belay!

Answer 3

Cams are used for techical rock climbing on traditional (non-bolted "trad") routes for protection ("pro"). As you climb, you will set pro (cam, nut, hex, sling, etc) in a crack or other feature in the rock and using a webbing runner and a carabiner clip the rope to the protection. You then climb past the protection - if you fall then you will fall to the last piece of protection plus that same distance again before the rope will catch you. When the second climber climbs up to the cam, he will remove it and bring it with him. This is called "clean" climbing because you don't damage the rock and don't leave anything behind.

Good Luck

Answer 4

Otherwise known as Friends (a brand name), "cams" are used as chocks which you then clip the rope to.

They're a relatively modern invention in rock climbing, and being used a lot more than they used to be due to lighter and lighter materials becoming available. So instead of using many nuts and especially hexes, climbers (with enough money!) use cams instead.

As other people have mentioned, cams are spring loaded things, you pull a lever and they contract, you place it into a crack or a hole, and then you let go of the lever and it expands again, hopefully filling the gap and sticking fast. They're also engineered so that the harder you pull on them (in one direction anyway), the tighter they grip the rock. They do have a tendency to "walk" though, if you don't have a long enough runner (i.e. if only have a short sling attaching it to the rope, as you move up and jiggle the rope about it can ease the cam out of the crack).

They come in many different sizes, from 0.5 (tiny! wouldn't reeeally trust it), to like 9 or something, massive.

They are very expensive, but they're so much easier to place and to remove than nuts and hexes.