Matt_Anderson

"I have a similar problem. I just finished building a bouldering wall in my gargage and normally don't pull plastic. I've got flappers all over the place. Whats the best thing to do for flappers? " Choose your holds more carefully when filling out your wall - smaller holds, less sharp edges.

Nice TR will . . . Missed your request for partners, to bad. Give me a jingle next time you're interested in climbing around here and I'll return the Tallulah favor. matt

Frank had one of the most generous hearts around. He will be missed. It had been to long since I had seen him, despite many calls that "we should get together." Please be reminded that spending time with friends growing relationships is to easily put aside due to other priorities. A friend of Frank's sent me this. I thought I would forward it. Here's to Frank . . . FRANCIS X. OLDING 1964 - 2004 Francis X. Olding, devoted husband, Army Ranger, Seattle lawyer, and avid climber and outdoorsman has parted company with us to climb peaks unseen. Frank Olding, born on April 23, 1964, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Paul and Anna May Olding passed on September 6, 2004 while climbing at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. In addition to his adoring wife and loving parents, Frank leaves behind three brothers and three sisters, and numerous nieces and nephews. Prior to moving to Seattle in 1997, Frank served with distinction in the United States Army. As an Airborne Ranger, Frank graduated from Ohio State University in 1992, where he received a Bachelors degree in Political Science. After attaining his undergraduate degree, Frank obtained a Law Degree from the University of Toledo, Ohio. In 1997, Frank moved to Seattle to pursue his dreams, including the practice of law and all things outdoors. In 1999, Frank had the good fortune of meeting, falling in love and, in August 2001, marrying his wife beloved Teresa Olding. Frank and Teresa celebrated their marriage by climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, elevation 19,340’, in Africa for their honeymoon. Frank was a charismatic, compelling person who touched everyone that had the opportunity to meet him. His love of the outdoors was infectious and he always sought companionship for every adventure that called to his great heart. Although possessed of an uncompromising adventurous spirit, he was happiest when in the company of family and friends, whether lifelong or newly made. Frank enjoyed sharing his passion for the mountains with people of all abilities and skill levels. His enthusiasm was tempered with patience while introducing the sport to family and friends. He took frequent trips to the Cascades and Tetons. He also traveled and climbed in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Africa. To have spent any time in his company was simply to know the delight of life. Although we are joyful that Frank’s spirit must now soar above the peaks that so called to him and he is onto another great adventure, we all mourn his passing. His will be greatly, greatly missed. In June 2004, after a successful career with the Seattle law firms of Lee Smart Cook Martin & Patterson and Betts Patterson Mines, Frank established the Law Offices of Francis X. Olding. Memorial services will be held this Saturday, September 11, 2004, starting at 11:00 am and ending at 2:00 pm, at Leif Erikson Hall, 2245 NW 57th Street, Seattle WA 98107, in Ballard. For further directions, contact Leif Erikson Hall at 206-783-1274. Frank and Teresa had dreamed of building a school in Nepal for underprivileged children. Please send any donation to Room to Read, a group dedicated to providing reading materials to underprivileged children in Nepal. Send check, payable to Room to Read and In Honor of Frank and Teresa Olding, at: The Prisidio, PO Box 29127, San Francisco, CA 94129.

Along the same lines, but not myself (really, I mean it . . . ) and more due to exhaustion/stress than age . . .. Up on the captain, it's gonna get dark soon. I'm belaying. One of my friends is leading, the other just hanging out. The hanging out friend (lets call him Todd, though that's not his name and I would never want to embarass him in public ), decides to think ahead and mount his headlamp to his helmet ahead of time. He's not really all that used to thinking ahead, so I am quite impressed. He digs through the pack, locates said illuminary device and mounts it. Backwards. No big deal. the front of the helmet ain't all that different from the front. Anybody could do that. He dutifully takes the headlamp off, turns the helmet around and remounts the headlamp. Backwards again. Oh goody, now I have something to make fun of him for come sleepy time. He laughs at himself, takes the helmet off, removes the headlamp, turns the helmet around and puts it back on. Backwards again. again. We look each other in the eye and realize he shoudln't be doing the hard leads for the rest of the day. The fourth time was the charm.

where is fragrance lake?

heard a rumor of a new climbing gym going in on 4th avenue somehere south of downtown. Anyone have the scoop? a new VW or SG or something else?

Did it around june 11th last year. Snow in the approach gully and descent. Made is soooper doooper fast geting down. Would be far less pleasant if no snow. Feel free to extrapolate about how much less snow there is this year. Trip report!!

So you just use a standard (beefy) electrical drill for this? Were the holds that shattered good granite or something else? sorry I'm a dumbass about all this. And thanks everyone for the replies.

That's one of the things I was getting at. What difference is there in wet saws besides the quality of the materials/longevity. Faster rotations, I assume make a difference? would they decreaase the inevitable wear on teh blade? I don't know shit about wet saws. And about making the clamping jig - any resources for how to do that?

So I will have a brand spankin' new climbing gym soon in my brand spankin' new garage. I will be supplementing my hold supply and wish to do so using river rocks (sloper city with perfect texture!). To prevent spinning and also so they won't all be jugs, I intend to cut a fair number of them in half in addition to drilling the obligatory bolt hole (I don't want to glue them to the wall). Anybody done that? Questions: Is there a slick way to hold the round river rocks when taking a wet saw to them? I don't want to wind up like Tommy Caldwell. Same basic question for holding the rock while it is being drilled. I can either rent a wet saw or buy one. If I buy one, I'm unlikley to be able to afford a super high quality one. Will there be a huge difference in the saw for this job. (FYI - if this works out, I am likely to do a lot of stones this way, the gym will be large, effectively filling up a two car garage with 12 foot ceilings, so how long the saw lasts may be a consideration). Can I expect this to be cheaper in the long run than buying holds? Most of the holds will be granite, which I imagine will eat up both drill bits and saw blades. Anybody think I should be limiting the number of river rock's used because they will be to heavy? Matt

Sat: worked. Sun: Applied Jackhammer and sawzall to your typical Seattle cinderblock and concrete one car garage. Jackahammered the two long sides of the roof, exposing the rebar. Then cut the rebar. The last three "pinged!" as I cut through them because of the tension from holding up the cement slab roof. The roof collapsed immediately after severing the last rebar on one side. Then the far side wall also collapsed. Bunch of noise. Bunch of dust. Pretty freakin' stellar. This demolition will make room for a driveway that will reach my new two car garage (in the back yard). The garage will be almost entirely devoted to bouldering and will have 12 foot ceilings. I anticipate three walls: 45 degree, 30 degree and 20 degree. This should help me deal with the way I spent Saturday (an ongoing problem of late).

Married since 9/21/02, with her since 12/2/96. She used to climb, but is way risk adverse and really only did it b/c it was more time w/me and it made me happy. It rarely made her happy. We went through a long period of figuring out priorities. When I started the relationship I would have called you crazy if you told me how it would work out. Like everybody else, I faced the inevitable “Do you love climbing more than me?” Quite frankly, there were times where I did put it at a higher priority. I remember thinking that anyone who didn’t allow me to follow my passion for climbing in an unfettered way didn’t accept me as a person because it was such a big part of my life. The relationship grew and I figured out that our relationship is more important than climbing and have adjusted my schedule accordingly. I’m happier and better off because of it. It is convenient to have a relationship where the SO wants to do everything that you want to do when you want to do it (and vice versa). IMHO, that may limit your growth in the long run. Having different priorities outside of each other allows you to examine exactly how important the relationship is to each other. I’ve seen a number of relationships where both parties were elated to find that they had the exact same passion. It enables a quick bond and wonderful synergy. That mutual passion can also be mistaken for a true commitment to each other. Over time, everyone figures out if they share that commitment. Those that don’t, break up. Those that do, (and have the other skills need to keep the relationship,) last. ‘Course, if her passion was mac’in on others, that would drive me crazy. Doubly so if I was away climbing a lot. I can’t imagine anything that would make it harder to survive the inevitable hard times that will come in any relationship.

Err . . . I downclimb at Smith. Alot. Matter o' fact, one of my best onsights was at Smith and involved prodigious amounts of downclimbing. It really isn’t harder to downclimb a climb of a given grade at smith than anywhere else. Matter ‘o fact, for me it’s a whole lot easier doing so at Smith than at other, steeper venues. Mebbe I don't try hard enough climbs to onsight, but I doubt it. My best onsights are three letter grades off my single best redpoint, a climb I worked on tried two or three days a week for weeks at a place with significantly softer ratings than Smith. Huh? Reversing a move is reversing a move, regardless of whether your hand is crimping or in a jam, or if the protection is a bolt or a cam. What you said above about downclimbing at smith . . . You might be . . . Originally, my comment was just a joke, but, seriously, it sounds like your climbing might just improve with some downclimbing practice.

Sounds like he needs more practice downclimbing . . .

And if you're talking mostly about trad, then I would say that you should: One thing to remember is that most people onsight a full number grade less than they redpoint, so if you generally can redpoint .10's and are onsighting .9's, then that's the norm.

Granted, both human and canine injuries would be of interest, but at least the humans had a choice of what to do that day. . .

probably the most accurate way to characterize the beal rope is that is rated as a half rope, not as a twin, but isn't the rating for the half ropes more stringent? Is there anything in the testing of the twins that isn't included in the testing of the halfs?

never mind . . .

I need to pick up some new half-ropes (the kind that you clip independently and are rated for falls on a single line, not the other kind). Who makes the lightest ones (per meter or whatever)? Who makes the skinniest? Anybody got ones that they particularly dig? By nature, I'm cheap, but if I was really sold, I'd spend extra money for a better mousetrap. I'll most likely be looking for 60 meter lines - Although I love linking pitches, 70 meter ones just seem to freaking heavy to lug up long approaches.

Ran into them periodically and always wrote them off as yahoos until . . . I was climbing El Cap and found a WHOLE FAMILY of 'em. They had lugged a couple of GIGANTIC ropes to the top, would set up anchors and check out The Captain. I don't know/remember the details of how they did it (rap down and hike up, rap down and jug up, whether they clipped in to stay close to the wall, etc.) but it struck me that these guys had the right idea. One of the coolest things about El cap is the other world that exists way up there - tiny varmints, plants eaking out their existences, beautiful granite, smelly humans scrambling about. It takes a rather large investment of time/energy to get good enough to climb El Cap on your own, even via The Nose. These guys totally cut that investment down to a managable level for anyone in good enough shape to hike a rope to the top of El Cap and enough sense to learn how to rappel.

do a search for humboldt county climbing. As I recall, there's a web site that details a fair amount of climbing in northern CA. I did it a while ago and don't remember where I stopped, but it was nice. That's how I found out about what places I did stop at. Also, there's an article in one of the mags that details the options. Probably 2-4 years ago.

I use the 1, 2, & 3 ball nutz, a double set of aliens from blue on up and BD’s copper steel nuts (or whatever they are calling them these days). With that rack, there aren’t many thin crack crux’s I can’t safely protect. A lot of people are skittish about falling on ball nutz. I’ve done so multiple times, and I have yet to have one rip. The 1, 2 & 3 have twice the expansion range of a comparably sized cam (if a comparably sized cam exists . . . Wild Country smalles tzero is about the size of a number 3 ball nut with 2.5 X less expansion range). I don't own the larger ones, probably just because I'm used to aliens in those sizes and shy from change. Also, I don’t see as much of an expansion advantage. The placement will likely determine which you use. Matter o’ fact, their primary advantage is that their best placements are often in areas of the crack that are unusable for your fingers, other cams or nuts: On thin cracks, your conventional cam and wire placements are generally in the pin scars that you would rather cram your piggies into. The ball nutz fit best in parallel seams smaller than your fingers. It was pretty amazing when I first started using them – there are huge number of thin crack cruxes with @.5 cm parallel crack sections right in the middle of the business that just eat up the ball nuts. I’d never noticed them before b/c none of the cams or wired nuts would fit in them. Placing them is pretty simple and intuitive. A bunch of people complain about removing them. I don’t have much trouble. I would echo Tom Tom’s comments: To remove, first try to slide them out using the trigger, if that doesn’t work, tap the metal block with your nut tool (Any thin nut tool is as thin as a ball nut, so I seldom have trouble with placing them to far if the crack is parallel.).

Why's the second 11+ pitch on Cloud tower hard? steep? crack pinches down?

"Now that I know what you goal is is I would say that you would be better off climbing Freeway or Liberty Bell than the U-Wall. " Agreed. RNW on HD is mainly free and what aid exists is easy. Also practice for speed on town crier - Aid doesn't have to be the slow, clusterfuck that many people make it. Go combine Davis-Holland with Town crier, The diamond, Godzilla-slow children-etc. to get fast. Spend lots of days at Index making sure that you get at least ten pitches in. Practice french freeing to keep things going fast. Bottom line - Just do a lot of days with multipitches as fast as you can - the main difference is that belaying on a wall is not quite as restful as belaying at the base, leaning on a pack arranged "just so."

"Designed for use at rope clipping end of a quickdraw, this extremely light and strong biner works mechanically in your favour." When it comes to falling on less than bomber pro, I usually think of friction as my friend - it transfers the energy of the fall into heat and also onto other pieces. It seems like this biner would just transmit more energy to the piece holding the fall and increase the chances of failure. It also seems likely to transmit more force to the belayer. I'm no physicist (and also no speller . . .), so maybe I'm way off. Anybody have a comment on this?