Simple, Adjustable, Flarable Crack Machines

Lifting a weight with a ring lock in a handscrew clamp

Living in rural Montana near vast quantities of granite is amazing for climbing...part of the year. Some of the locals are tough enough to enjoy wading through snow to climb dripping rock in fridged temps. We recent transplants from more temperate climates will need to get creative with our training if we hope to keep up come spring. 

These rocks are dripping wet and covered in snow and ice at the moment

I've always sucked at ring locks and off fingers and I would like to train those and a few other specific types of jams this winter. I think I've found an ideal tool, 10" Wood Handscrew Clamps.

Fist Jam

Handscrew clamps are a nifty bit of mechanism that my Dad uses in his shop for holding pieces of wood together while glue sets. Each clamp consists of two long blocks of hardwood mounted on threaded rods with handles so that you can adjust the width and flare of the clamp.

Without any modification they are perfect for all sorts of finger, ring and fist jams as seen in the photos above. Adjusting the flare allows you to make the the jam easier or harder.

I've been lashing the clamp to a free weight and dialing the flare so I can hold a jam for under ten seconds and then doing sets (say three sets of ten) like a weightlifter (I use a hangboard the same way). You could also hang them and use them like rock rings though I haven't tried this yet.

The corners are a bit sharp (like some real cracks) and I might take some coarse sandpaper to them at some point to smooth out the sharp bits and roughen up the faces.

Maximum Width of this clamp is about six inches. 

It is flarable...

...in two directions.

You can quickly adjust the width by spinning the clamp.

They don't really work for hand jams which require more surface area than the jaws offer. To solve this I will probably attach boards inside one of my two clamps. I also have some 12-Inch Handscrew Kits (unfortunately not available through amazon at the moment) and some 8 foot 2x12's that I plan to turn into a ceiling height crack machine.

Future plans include adapting for hand and thin-hand jams and an 8 foot crack machine

I was originally considering mounting the clamp kits at odd angles to allow the crack to be bomb-bay flared but I think this is impractical which means it might be quicker to just order 12-inch clamps. There are a couple of things I need to figure out to make this work well:

• How to mount the crack so it can be adjusted and flared but can't shift while in use. 
• Some kind of crank and chain system to allow quick adjustments. Turning the shafts by hand is too slow when you can't spin the clamp.
• An easy way to mount the crack so it can be tilted into an overhang or roof crack.

I'll post updates as I get all this figured out. 

TR: The Passenger, 5.11+ IV 600ft

The Passenger, South Early Winter Spire. Bigger

How I Got Into This

Fitz Cahall moved back to town and, without bothering to unpack, headed for the climbing gym.

I spent a rainy afternoon haunting used book stores and ended up with a copy of Bryan Brudo's old guide book North Cascades Rock.

Fitz is a talented climber and writer (you need to check out his dirtabag diaries podcasts if you haven't yet). I met him working for the school paper at the University of Washington. He was a few years ahead of me and a much better climber.



A coworker first told me about the Passenger. He described it as pitch after pitch of 5.11 finger cracks up the steep South East face of South Early Winter Spire. I'd filed it away as a distant goal. Talking to Fitz, my ego got the best of me and I said I'd like to get on it.

An email showed up in my in box in early July; The conditions weren't getting any better. One Scorching Saturday afternoon, I loaded every small cam I owned into my car, picked Fitz up and headed for the north cascades.

Technical Details

We got to the trail head in the early evening and hung out in the car drinking beers till the bugs died down enough to sleep. Woke up around 5am and made coffee and blasted up the trail. We left our packs in a tree at the base of the South Arete and were on the rock in perfect cool conditions before 7am.


Not so steep.

On route we took one 60m lead line, nuts, micros, double cams to #3 and triple small stuff, one long sleeve shirt each and one 2 liter camel back with 4 energy bars in it. I stuffed my blood sugar meter, insulin, some cliff shots and gummy bears in the pocket of my chalk bag.

Fitz brought a couple of thin cordelettes and a 60mx7mm tag line. The cordelettes kept the belays really clean and the tag line reduced the level of commitment enough that we could go light on food water and clothing and leave our headlamps with the packs.

Approaching the crux.

Fitz lead the whole route in 7 pitches. Going by Brudo's topo, He linked the crux face pitch with the pitch above (rope drag) and the last two pitches. I think it would also be possible to link the 2 pitches below the crux with a 60+ rope.

The crux is scrunchy face climbing and neither of us could free it. Fitz onsigted the rest of the route, i pulled on gear on the crux pitch and hung once to clean on the pitch below.

Start of the 5.10 finger pitch.

Other parties I have talked to since did a difficult left hand finger crack as the last bit of hard climbing before the finishing traverse (above the "amazing hand jams" and a now dead tree). We followed Brudo's topo and did a bit of "token wide" climbing to the right.


Hundreds of feet of this.

We topped out around mid day and made it back to the Marblemount Drive In in time for dinner.

The best Topo for this rout is in Brudo's out of print North Cascades Rock. Hopefully he will put one in the 2nd edition of his new Mazama book, until then either check out the store copy at feathered friends or drop me a line.

Brudo did the first ascent in 9 pitches and rated it 5.12a V, other parties who have freed the entire route felt it was 5.11+ IV. This felt more or less accurate to me but there is one scrunchy hard move on the crux pitch that may be harder for tall people like us. I'm hoping to to build up some strength and redpoint it this next year.



Fitz Cahall on the top.


More pics are on my flickr page.