Arcteryx AR-395a Climbing Harness
The Arcteryx harness has been a great! I have had it a few years now using it for sport, trad, and alpine climbing. Through it all the harness has held up to the abuse and is incredibly comfortable.
Black Diamond Magnetron Belay Carabiner
The Black Diamond Magnetron carabiner is a bit pricey and not something I would normally purchase but I used my REI dividend and got it for myself. I had been looking for a belay carabiner with an extended gate to prevent cross loading and this thing has worked great! The magnets are strong but can be a bit finicky in cold weather. I have been extremely happy with this carabiner and recommend it for anyone doing a lot of belaying.
Black Diamond Camalots
The Black Diamond Camalots are the standard which are cams are judged. A few years back I bought some gen 3 cams off a coworker and then have been slowly upgrading to the new gen 4 cams through the years. If you have to trust your life to a piece of gear I wound’t recommend anything else. They have great range and are easy to place. I recently had my gen 3’s re-slung by Black Diamond and the process was incredibly easy. I sent them back and within two weeks I had brand new factory sewn slings on all my cams. I know there are other good cam manufacturers out there but Black Diamonds unparalleled quality and customer service will keep me coming back.
Black Diamond Camalot Offsets
I just picked up a set of these recently and am extremely impressed! Where I would normally have to place a but or stopper I am now able to quickly place these guys and feel secure.Placing nuts and stoppers is an art that should not be neglected but these things are so much faster to place and then clean that they can’t be ignored.
Black Diamond Venom Ice Axes
I bought a pair of these for Mt. Rainier and loved them! I bought one a bit longer for my dominant hand to use as a piolet and the second shorter to use as a pure ice climbing ax. For both purposes these performed fantastic. When I was ice climbing the pair felt extremely strong with each swing giving me the confidence to climb higher and feel stable. While using the single longer one as a piolet it gave me extra stability and I felt confident that in the event of self arrest I wouldn’t find myself sliding down the mountain.
Black Diamond Sabretooth Crampon
The Black Diamond Sabretooth’s are the first set of crampons I purchased for myself. I have only used them during my summit of Mt. Rainer but they performed great while I was traversing glaciers and when I was ice climbing up glaciers.
Climbing the 7 