Rating
★★★★★ (5 out of 5)
Stick clips don’t need to look like wizard staffs or be overbuilt.
Stick clips at the sport crag were once shunned by purists but nowadays are an essential piece of gear for most climbers. Roll up to any party clipping bolts today and it’s likely they have a stick clip in tow. In fact, I’d venture to guess that sport climbers more frequently use stick clips than wear climbing helmets. This shouldn’t be an either/or scenario, but rather a use both as necessary and when in doubt error on the side of caution.
Before the current commercial offerings of stick clips were available, climbers were coming up with crude solutions for clipping the first bolt from the deck. The most classic DIY stick clip was finding a nearby long stick and taping a quickdraw to it. Soon came commercially made attachments that could fasten to a pole of your choice, typically a painters or window washing pole. These poles telescope out to longer lengths and can be readily found at your local hardware store. The Superclip and Trango Squid represented early options available on the market for building a stick clip, with the Superclip still being a top option for many climbers today.
A few years back, Trango decided to make the leap and offer an integrated pole + attachment solution that didn’t leave climbers needing to piece together two disparate parts. The Trango Beta Stick was born.
Price
$93 | Where to Buy
Review
While having to purchase a pole separate from a clip attachment wasn’t a monumental hurdle for climbers to overcome, the Trango Beta Stick does more than simply marry the two together in a single package. It comes in a variety of sizes with different telescoping lengths, and can accommodate different sized carabiners. It also can be used to not only hang draws but clip draws that are already hanging. It’s easy to use, fairly intuitive, and should be a consideration for any climber in the market for a stick clip.
The Good
Easy to Carry
Unlike some of the long staff-like poles you see people carrying around, the Beta Stick collapses down into a very manageable package that can easily fit in your pack or be fastened down with straps on the outside of your pack. The key benefit of this is that it frees up your hands which is nice if you are making any sort of significant approach in or need hands for scrambling of any sorts. Gone are the days of the wizard staff.
Telescoping Length
The Beta Stick Evo currently comes in four different sizes that vary in length from 5ft fully extended to 22 ft fully extended. Each size collapses down into different lengths but the most common version is the Standard length. It compacts down to just under two and half feet and can be extended 12 ft in total. Tack on your height, reach above your head, and any extra purchase you can get from rocks at the base of a climb, and you might be looking upwards of 20 ft of total reach from the ground. Clipping the second bolt is almost always possible, which sounds sort of absurd, but it’s also really nice for those scenarios where there is ground fall potential due to spacing between the first few bolts.
Intuitive to Use
It’s a pretty simple piece of gear but just looking at it makes it easy to understand how to seat a carabiner in the clip. The same can’t be said for newbies using the Superclip. Simply seat the top carabiner of your quickdraw in the cradle of the stick with the gate facing out. Secure the gate open with the gate trap, properly feed the rope through bottom carabiner (don’t back clip), and then extend the pole to the needed length. The trickiest part of stick clipping, regardless of what type of stick clip you have, is always making the clip. Extend the pole while keeping the rope close the pole with enough slack out to reach the bolt. Securing the quickdraw through the hanger can be tricky depending on line of sight and how far away it is. Once the carabiner is through the hanger, give the pole a little tug and the Beta Stick will naturally release itself from the now hanging quickdraw.
See the video below for instructions from Trango.
Multifunctional
While the most obvious use for the Beta Stick Evo is to hang your own draws, it also has the capability to lasso clip a draw that is already hanging or remove an existing quickdraw from a bolt. We can confidently say that using the Beta Stick to lasso a quickdraw is fairly easy. It will take a little practice and maybe the help of a second climber to manager the rope, but all in it’s totally doable. We’ve yet to need to remove a quickdraw and haven’t tested this functionality out in the wild, but the instructional video from Trango makes it look difficult based on the timing needed to lasso and pull the draw out all in a spit second. The Metolius Superclip is much more capable for removing hung draws based on it’s rigid method for doing so.
Bolt to Bolt Clipping
If you feel it’s necessary to use a stick clip while on route in a bolt-to-bolt manner, there are likely better options than the Beta Stick, but it is doable. The Superclip comes with a eyelet that can be used to clip (dangle) from your harness. The smaller the version of the Beta Stick the better. Once tethered into a bolt, you can use the Beta Stick just as if you were on the ground but clipping the next bolt in a crux sequence that is shutting you down. To each their own with this type of climbing.
A Single Purchase
While buying a stick clip attachment and pole in separate purchases isn’t hard, it is nice to have a single manufactured product that is meant to work together. Metolius has since released their own integrated Basic Stick Clip that uses their Superclip, can extend 12 ft, and collapses down to just over two and half feet.
The Not So Good
Our Trango Beta Stick is still in it’s early days of use but so far it’s been great. The compactable and portable size is so nice. If we had to gripe about something it would be the following:
Durability
The pole fully extended doesn’t feel as rigid as a painters pole so we’ll see how it holds up over time. Be careful not overly flex or weight the pole when fully extended.
Multiple Points of Failure Potential
Having to open and extend multiple sections of pole opens it up to more risk of failure. Using an painters pole is easier since you typically are only extending out a single section (wizard staff size). Opening and closing multiple sections really isn’t a problem but likely risks more points of failure. The attachment that holds the carabiner open also feels a bit flimsly but given it only needs to hold a carabiner open, it should hold up.
The Final Verdict
Stick clips being taboo is a thing of the past. Remove the stress of ground falls and enjoy climbing. In fact, if you find yourself at the Muir Valley parking lot in the Red River Gorge, they have a variety of stick clips equipped with Superclips for you to bring in and use for the day. If you aren’t lucky enough to be at a crag that has stick clips readily available for you to use, give the Trango Beta Stick Evo a look. It ticks off all the boxes at a reasonable price.
Price
$93 | Where to Buy