Posted by
ped on 5/5/2008
For the past year and a half, a cloud of paranoia has settled on the climbing community regarding the safety of Aliens.
I have a set and I love them. They place better than any other small cam, imho. I also have to say that a green Alien has arrested my longest fall to date (15+ feet).
But hearing all of these negative reports left me disconcerted. Last summer, I sent my set into CCH to have them tensile tested. They all passed.Still, each new story has served to chip away my confidence in them. I especially worry about my climbing compadres. I’d hate to see one of my partners get seriously injured while leading on my rack. Last Friday, I went ahead and invested in some of the new Metolius Master Cams. I climbed with them yesterday and decided that I like them, although not as much as Aliens (of course). The guy at the counter who sold them to me said he replaced his Aliens with a set of Master Cams, adding “You don’t have to worry about these. Metolius is bad ass.”What does everyone else think? Do you use Aliens? What’s your confidence level in them? Have you replaced using Aliens with some other type of cam? What are your thoughts? Just curious.
woodchuck07 says:
Alien complaints have existed since the first generation long ago. I still have a very tiny 1st. gen alien, size zero back then, and it has always worked fine. Trusty and still in use.
Anykineclimb says:
The biggest issue is quality control and customer service. When the Aliens began failing CCH initially did nothing (no recall, etc) it took other companys to issue warnings and finally CCH did the recall and offered inspections.
Although I do trust Aliens, I'd trust the Master Cams "more". My rack consists of Metolius cams and I will be getting Master Cams to replace the smaller size Powercams, doubling up with the TCUs. Many partners of mine use aliens and I'll still use them when using their rack.
jedi mike says:
I've had aliens for years, first just the green and yellow and now I've added the blue and black. I've also doubled up my small cams by adding Metolius TCU's. I've fallen on my green and yellow before, the yellow taking a 12' one or so. I trust these units because they're "battle tested," and I probably wounldn't trust the newer cams mostly due to the size. I'm willing to fall, but once they were 1-2' below my feet I'd be looking to back them up.
I trust the strength of the Metolius, but I find that they walk much more than the Alien's do. So while I trust that they'll hold a fall, I'm also more worried that they'll change their orientation as I climb above them. A friend of mine decked when a blue Metolius pulled, but I this was due more to placement and operator errot than cam failure.
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