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The frugal climber’s stick clip

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If your personal ethics allow it (and mine definitely do), stick clips are great.

Sure, those super long extendable fiberglass poles with some fancy carabiner-grabber-thingie on the end work sweeeet, especially for really high bolts.

However, for the frugal climber, there's the time-honored dirtbag method.

All you need is some a small rock and a stick. Tape or a rubber band are nice, but optional.

  • Left photo: tape method. This is my preference, it's a bit more reliable. Tip, tape the middle part of the carabiner as shown here, keeps it more stable. A sturdy rubber band or two works pretty much the same way. (Note that depending on the quality of your tape, this might leave some sticky stuff on your carabiner, which is not so great.)

  • Right photo: forked stick method. This is a bit more finicky, and you usually have to pull some downward tension on the rope to keep the top carabiner from flopping around. (Yes, in the photo it’s hard to see a stick there, but trust me, there is. =^)


Below is a link to a short video showing how it's done.