Wallstein

I second the West face of el cap being a better route. The posistion isn't as good as the reg though. But the rock can't get any better on the west face.

I don't think this is really good advice. Pretensioning the knot is fine but saying that it is done and you never have to worry about it again is incorrect. Water knots in webbing will continue to slip with continual loading and unloading. BD or someone else has done tests on this and have proven that webbing will keep slipping until failure. I don't really care to find the report as I have seen slipping in webbing first hand. As for tied vs. sewn. It totally depends on what you are doing. Climbing at smiffy for the weekend or 2 months of climbing in Patagonia. I have sewn draws and I have tied slings. Anytime I think I might have to retreat off of a climb I always make sure to bring a few it not all tied slings. If I am trying to send Chain reaction (well I guess the draws are already there but) I would use less bulky better handling sewn-euro-sporto-draws. I never leave the ground without at least one tied sling though. It doesn't matter what I am doing it might save my ass one day. my 2 cents to the penny jar.

Are you guys talking about Check Mark..aka scetch mark? crazy kid with blonde hair and the coke bottle glasses. Probably not a great recommendation to hook up with that guy.

Index sounds nice.

Ya i don't know about any OW on the reg. I didn't bring anything bigger than a #2 camalot last time I did it. The chimneys are very straight forward for Yosemite. There are some short fist crack sections but nothing longer than a couple of bondy lengths. As for the slabs. The supertopo beta is pretty good. I think the approach took around 1.5 hours. But we had to stop and have numerous safety meetings.

I've been up in banff for a little over a week and it has been pretty warm. Things have been falling down. Ice Nine fell down the day after we did it. SCARRY. But everything that is still standing is in pretty easy conditions.

I am not the one to judge WI grades but I could see pilsner being 4+ up the pick holes. We climbed it on the right side, not many pick holes.

Climbed Carlsberg Column, Cascade Cronenberg and Pilsner pillar under perfect blue skies and warm weather. Ice is fat in the rockies right now.

I wouldn't do it yet. It has been very active since the first major slide. I saw it slide in late october of this year. But I know someone who did it the day after the major slide. They kept wondering what all of the dust and fresh white rock was from. Hmmm maybe a rockslide.

Nope no kiddies, but its the fastest home-on-wheels i have seen. It gets me outside 300+ days a year.

145 sounds perfect..... I need another 15 pounds of muscle to pull that thing off. Have you actually tried to lead that thing?

Mike I don't think you are going to be able to find a decked out van like my mine.... You are going to have to get crafty... The best place to find plain cargo vans is at Parknsell.net And whoever says astros don't have enough power hasn't been in a new one. I have a v6 4.3 liter all wheel drive astro that rallys. If you need any beta on the building process drop me line.

I saw someone aid steel monkey on wednesday. Two pins were placed within 10 ft of the ground. It was a pretty sad sight. The climber didn't even try to get a small brass offset in. His said there was no way to do it clean (while standing in his third steps placing a LA that was way to big). I don't understand why aid climbers insist on "practicing" placing pins. Its not like its hard. Nor is it required for any trade routes these days. I was pretty disapointed and couldn't understand why the climber wasn't trying to learn to be a better aid climber. Pins are a thing of the past and newbie aid climbers should realize this.

Bobcat reality..... Another 5 years and I might have a chance. Definitely one of the most insipiring lines I have seen that hasn't had a free ascent

I always use a my belay loop as recommended by the instructions. A large advantage the belay loop has over clipping directly into the leg/waistebelt is that it extendeds my device farther aways from my harness. So when stacking rope over my tie in point (while multipicth climbing) I am still able to manuver my device. Maybe a small point but definetely easier for belaying while multi pitch climbing.

Mythos and mocassyms are great for thin crack climbing with mixed face moves. But they wear out way to fast. I usually only get around 40 days of climbing on them before they blow out. Not nearly worth what they cost. I would reccommend something with a little more leather and structure. The boreal equinox is a good all around crack shoe. The leather is a little thicker than the moccs and the mythos with a little stiffer sole. Not as brick like as an ace though. Equinoxs get even better after the first resole, boreal rubber sucks for most crack climbing. I do almost all of my multi-pitch climbing in a pair of old Kaukulators. I have had them for 5 years and they are on there first sole. They have been up 5 walls and have at least 125 days of climbing on them and they are still going strong. I remember being a young sport climber and laughing at people that wore shocks in their shoes but i've made the swith to socks and have never been happier. Something that I have found to drastically lengthened the life of my climbing shoes is seam grip. I coat all of the seams and goo up the pinky toe area. On the pain...well its almost all entirely technique and balance. The only time my feet hurt when crack climbing is when I am pumped and stressing out. My technique and awareness go to shit and I start torqueing my feet way to much. Same goes for my hands, I only get gobies when I start over-jamming and stop focusing on the pressure I am applying.

I think I am going to head down to smith this weekend. See ya all there.

I've always wanted to try some of those nailups. I know this chick from yosemite that spent a bunch of time at smith a while back learning to aid climb, it sure taught her to be a "rad" aid climber. She has soloed a5 on el cap and done routes in baffin.

What I heard from my three friends, the first three guys to find him was the helicopter found the tracks. No one in the copter actually saw daniel. My buddies followed tracks around almost all day before they found him.

I have been kinda thinkin about goin down but I am not really sure right now. I was thinking about setting up a slack line to the monkey. I haven't climbed in over a month so if i were to go I would be takin it kinda easy. It would be cool to go explore some obscure multipitch routes. Ice climbin up north sounds pretty good too.

I climbed a little pitch that goes up the middle of Icicle creek buttress on Monday. Kinda thin but fun. The day before I saw some guy take a 15 footer on the far right side of icb. The screw held, so the ice must be thick enough.

I have used something very similar. I have never used the third leg as prussik backup though. Exactly what hitch would you be using? I don't see how you could actually use a prussik hitch on leg three. Maybe a bauchman. It also seems important to point out the fact that if leg 3 is to long it could possibly be pulled into the rappel device, and fail to do its job I will have to try this next time I am out.

No but it does include all of the fixed gear they have in place for the free attempt. Which is alot.

I do the same thing as retro when I won't be belaying off of the anchor and will be swopping leads. I sometimes use a self equalizing fig8 and then clove hitch a third piece with the slack side of the rope. The only problem with this method is retreating from the anchor. It would be very difficult to escape the belay and go into a counterbalance rappel.

pin- I never have a problem with the rope feeding for a leader when I coil it over my neck and lay it flat. I think we are really talking about the same method but one is supported by the palm of your and and the other is supported by the back of the neck. I drape the rope over my neck with a dog ear on each side. Not a big loop around my neck. I will coil a rope in my palm when my shoulders are tired and vice versa. I probably coiled around 1000 (no exageration) ropes last year and have found the over the neck to be the quickest method and cleanest feading. But I probably need more practice since I am so young and youth always means incopetence. Well I go back to work on friday and get to practice my rope coiling for the next 6 months while guiding in yosemite. Hopefully I will have it all figured out by then and we can have a rope coiling competition at the next cc.com bbq.