Climber Creates The "Anti-Cam" - A Fall Protection Device

I love reading subculture jargon I know nothing about. Plus this is all about the problem-solving aspect of climbing, and about improvisation.<p>Was it the Innovator's Dilemma that pointed out power users as a primary source of product innovation?

This was built for a specific route in BC, Canada.<p>The story of its development is told in the excellent web adventure sports series "The Season": <a href="http://www.theseasontv.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theseasontv.com/</a><p>You can see it in action in episode 21: <a href="http://www.theseasontv.com/?p=454" rel="nofollow">http://www.theseasontv.com/?p=454</a><p>The whole series of "The Season" is fantastic and well worth watching if you're into adventure sports. They follow a paddler, a mountain biker, a skier and a couple of climbers through a season. Recommended.

Awesome concept, but from the pictures it looks to big to rack along with normal cams - are there really that many routes with flakes?

It seems like there are a few climbers on here, could one of you please explain how a climber goes about deciding that a flake is too dangerous to apply a horizontal force to but safe enough to apply a vertical force to?

I don't get it. It's a C-clamp. Why not just build an escalator? Why not just tie yourself to a rope and have your Mommy pull you up?<p>I remember seeing footage of some French guy climbing a rockface a thousand feet up swinging like a monkey, with no rope, no pitons, nothing. That is climbing.