haireball

amongst the spray on this t'read are several nuggets of real information: 1) it was pointed out that after you've climbed in an area for a season or two, you can pretty much eyeball a line and guess its difficulty pretty closely - having climbed multiple seasons in every western mountain state except Montana, I'd have to agree (subject to the proviso that your unlikely to guess the difficulty of a route significantly above your own standard...) 2) sticky rubber, active protection units (not just cams...)and body configuration can make an enormous difference. back in the 70's, I climbed regularly with a woman whose hands were a fraction of the size of mine; a 5.9 finger-crack for her was an aid-crack for me, while a 5.9 fist crack for me equated to a 5.11 o/w for her - made for a helluva strong team... so - very often the only rating that would be accurrate for both of us was 5.phooey!

icicle and tumwater canyons are still snow-free, but temperatures have dipped into the 20's, with highs in the 40's to 50's. cold fingers...

Rescue Specialists, Inc, in Leavenworth offers courses in partnership with Wilderness Medical Associates. The owner's name is Tom Clausing, and his phone # is 509/548-7875. Tell him the Haireball sent you... First Responder, Wilderness First Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, and Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician are all technical credentials created by the federal Department of Transportation. The minimal criteria for each credential are specified by the DOT, so, to a certain extent, the curriculum is canned. Although the requirements for each credential are set by the feds, the credential itself is granted by each state. One detail often overlooked is that not all EMT & FR course providers require their graduates to jump through the hoops to get on the federal registry - this can create problems if you want to use the credential in a state other than the one that granted it. Your course provider should be able to steer you through the federal registry maze... [ 11-06-2001: Message edited by: haireball ]

spent a lot of years in Oregon, and I respectfully suggest that the best waterfall climbing in Oregon is in Washington... if my memory serves, there's no such thing as dependable waterfall ice anywhere in Oregon... Crown Point in the gorge came the closest to being dependable during the years I lived down there...

What's your objective? Mammoth has the best variety; Alpine Meadows has the best Powder; Squaw Valley has "extreme" terrain. "the best" depends on what you want to do. Why not just head down #97 and ski 'em all?

quote: Originally posted by willstrickland: Fair enough, originally given 5.8 I might be confused, but I'd swear I've seen that given 5.9 somewhere. There's really only five or six ratings anyway: 5.easy, 5.hard, 5.awkward, 5.fun, 5.dirty, 5.scary.... my favorite was always 5.phooey... always and everywhere unerringly accurrate [ 11-05-2001: Message edited by: haireball ]

After twelve years as a professional ski patroller and avalanche worker at class-A hazard rated ski resorts, I can speak authoritatively to this issue. In informal testing at Stevens Pass back in the early eighties, we found that virtually any electrical device - even such things as a headlamp or digital watch would, if brought into sufficiently close proximity, interfere with avalanche beacon performance. We recommended that patrollers wearing digital watches would hold their receiving beacon in the opposite hand while conducting a beacon search. Since patrollers typically wore radios in chest packs, we usually opted to wear our transceivers hanging down our backs - the idea being that the body of a buried patroller might offer some shielding between his/her radio and transmitting beacon. Most of us opted to turn our radios off when performing ski-cuts, and would turn the radio back on after making the cut. In 1987, the death of a pro-patroller during the performance of an avalanche hazard-control at Jackson Hole was widely published and analyzed in avalanche-worker trade publications. It was reported that patrollers attempting to perform beacon searches for their buried colleague were stymied because they were receiving country music from a local radio station through their beacons! On all three of the pro-patrols on which I worked,(Stevens Pass, Squaw Valley, and Mammoth Mountain) it was standard procedure to turn off two-way radios in the vicinity of a beacon search. A cellular phone is a modified two-way radio, and any in the vicinity of a beacon-search must be turned off for the duration of the search. Any signal received or sent from a radio or cell-phone within a few hundred feet of a searching beacon WILL interfere with any beacon signal being transmitted. Please pass the word; and if you ski in avalanche terrain, and rely on a beacon for protection, PRACTICE with the damn thing and get used to what it will and won't do. Over the years, I observed considerable variability in performance between apparently identical beacons. Most seasoned pros can retrieve a transmitting beacon buried three feet deep in a 100-foot-by-100-foot area within three minutes. The standard for Certification with the Far West Professional Ski Patrol Association was to retrieve a two-foot deep beacon in that size of area within two minutes. To meet and maintain this standard of performance, pros perform timed practice searches several times per week during their work season. I haven't patrolled as a pro since the early nineties, but I still play the game with my kids - one of us hides a beacon (sometimes in the house - it works fine indoors)and then another gets to search for it. They learn quickly to turn off the t.v. and computer while searching...

Disclaimer: I've never owned a harness with a belay loop, so my contribution to this discussion is obviously skewed. Opinion: I attach my belay device NOT to the harness, but to the closed rope ring created by my tie-in through the harness. With the rope tied into the anchor, my harness is isolated from the belay chain - thus the harness is not loaded when the belay comes under load. The only time my harness is loaded is on rappel, or toproping from the ground when I may not be tied into the rope. In those cases, the predictable loads are quite low - again making this debate irrelevant for me. As far as the liability issue is concerned, I think the point is that IF you anchor the belay device to the harness, then the belay ring is the Only place to do it. IF you anchor a belay device to ANY OTHER point on the harness, and it fails, THEN YOURE FUCKED (duh) In the late eighties, the AMGA took the position that guides' belays should be made from the rope ring, and not from any point on the harness. With improvements in harness materials and design, this may have changed. Any certified guides out there who can give the current recommendation?

Kirk Mauthner, Rigging For Rescue, P.O. Box 399, Invermere, B.C. Canada - This guy does a great deal of pull and drop testing and is fairly generous with his results (publishing much of his material in SAR trade journals) tests by a German lab associated with Edelrid (ropes) back in the early seventies found that ropes joined with a double-fishermans knot and then pulled-to-failure failed at a point OTHER THAN THE KNOT often enough that they felt it necessary to publish their surprising results, and begin trying to account for why this should be so. I never did see an authoritative resolution published. I, too, have had the frightening experience of having a water-knot fail under the load of a rappel, (1972)and have since been suspicious of this knot's value for joining slick-finish tapes and ropes. My personal preference to join two ropes for rappel-rigging is to tie a square-knot with long tails, and finish the tails as a double fishermans. The result is a square-knot "inside" a double fishermans knot. Yes, its bulky, but it retains the security of the DF while remaining easy to untie even if it gets overloaded. I've been using this method since the early 70's, and enough of my partners use it that I'm surprised that it apparently isn't widely practiced (at least, not among posters on this site...) I've tried the EDK, but have not become enamoured of it... I don't seem to get that many rappel-rigs stuck, so its major advantage doesn't exist for me... [This message has been edited by haireball (edited 10-22-2001).] [This message has been edited by haireball (edited 10-22-2001).]

Gill was more inspiring than you credit him for. I once read that he had trained himself to the point of being able to do a one-finger pullup on ANY of his fingers! (yup, all ten of them!!!) These days, I find my wife and three sons the most inpiring items in my world. Been training aggressively for thirty years and still can't do a one-arm pullup - but, I am closer now, at age 49 than I have ever been. If I continue to train and improve at the same rate for the next thirty years, I might come close... the trainers and sports physiologist-types that I've consulted all agree that the capacity for a one-arm pullup is genetic - either ya got it or ya don't. An informal sampling of friends and acquaintances who do have this capacity reveals that 100% of them could perform the feat before they ever trained formally... oh well... I'm still training, getting stronger, and hoping I live long enough to prove the experts wrong... which leads to another phenomenon that often inspires me - tell me something can't be done!

quote: Originally posted by Cpt.Caveman: I am serious. I need money. Come all. SHould I do a layout at marymoore park at a designated time? so what happened? you bought on margin last year?... loansharks? we're all diein' of curiosity...!!!

back to the original topic - I'd like to learn to sail...in spite of the fact that every time I've been on any kind of ocean-going boat I've spent 95% of my time hanging over the rail puking... a couple of years ago, I actually built a very small wooden boat... so small that it will float me with about 1" of freeboard! back to the drawing board...

I do mine myself, but many of my partners swear by Yates (you know, the harness guys...)

I'll read damn near anything...once spent a week in a foul-weather camp reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales aloud with my tent partner. Another time it was Louis L'amour... Recently, have enjoyed drifting through Colleen McCullough's series of historical novels dealing with the decline of the Roman republic... Guns, germs, & steel was very good - very readable Mostly, I avoid climbing literature - too much of it reads like the essays my elementary teachers used to assign each September "what I did for summer vacation"...whoopee...

Matt, - excellent thread, damn thorny idea... I agree with the concept you're proposing, and see a long road to implementation. Seems like whatever "we" could come up with would have to earn the blessing of public land management agencies like the USFS, BLM, state and national parks administrations, etc. Also, the final form of the setup would have to have some teeth - and this would generate resistance. Access Fund, Mountaineers, Mazamas, AAC would be places to look for support for the concept - maybe AMGA and outfitters as well. Indemnification is a big issue if "we" purport to "maintain" actual anchors and routes. Lots to talk about...

interesting thread - some questions raised and a few challenges issued: to mr. Lambone - I have, in fact belayed two and more followers on munter hitches in full alpine (snowy/icy) conditions - like any other skill, it comes with practice - been munter-hitching since the mid-70s... -prior to the advent of tools like the reverso, guides and instructors used a technique called the "alpine clutch" to belay multiple following climbers. The alpine clutch was a "hands-off" top belay which involved threading the belay rope through a pair of matched carabiners in such a way that the rope would only run in one direction, but would lock when pulled in the other direction. -prior to the advent of the sticht plate and the tuber, the existing belay techniques were the hip belay, the figure-8 device, the "carabiner wrap" and the munter hitch. Of these, I had seen published tables from Europe (courtesy of the UIAGM - I was teaching self-rescue seminars for the AMGA in the 80's) suggesting that a hip belay, perfectly executed under ideal conditions (whatever that means) is capable of generating about 2KN of stopping force. A figure-8 (designed for rappelling, NOT belaying), again under "ideal" conditions, might generate about 3 KN of stopping force, while a munter hitch (again, perfectly executed under ideal conditions) could generate about 5KN of stopping force. The UIAGM, in those days, recommended that guides restrict themselves to using munter hitch belays. -- in my opinion, then, the inventors of the plate and tube style belay devices were not creating a superfluous product - they created a product that could approximate the stopping capacity of a munter hitch, and was easier to use. I have not used a reverso, but judging from the questions and issues raised in this thread, I suspect that it would not easily meet these criteria for being a significant improvement - i.e. performs as well or better than the competition, and is easier to use...

"who wants to carry two corelettes?" well, I typically carry three or four on anything more substantial than a single-pitch sport climb. Also, for what it's worth, a "prussik-upon-itself" tied from 6mm+ accessory cord is stronger than any nylon sewn daisy, and more precisely adjustable. It shares with the clove-hitch the advantage of being able to adjust without unclipping/reclipping. I equalize multiple anchor points with a sling or cordelette, and tie in SHORT to the power point with the belay rope. I'm not worried about rockfall or icefall chopping the few inches of rope connecting me to the power point. Anything big enough to chop my belay rope that close to me is probably going to damage me enough so that I'll be past caring.

the point is well taken that this issue is about more than just bolts. old rusty pegs, worn rap-rings and chains, even old slings (we NEVER use the ones we find, do we?) can be false security for the inexperienced/uninformed. the more jaded among us may invoke the principle of natural selection, here, and there may be some validity to that position; but there is something to be said for the argument that if a placement is resident, it ought to be worth something. ultimately, all resident placements become time-bombs. the only place I've ever climbed where anyone acknowledged any responsibility for maintaining resident anchors was at Devils Tower, Wyoming, where the National Park Service installed, and subsequently maintains rappel/belay anchors on the Durrance Route. Everywhere else, the ethic I've seen is that the first ascent party places whatever they feel is appropriate, and subsequent parties mostly repeat the route in the style of the f.a. occasionally, if the f.a. was uncomfortably or dangerously ballsy, a consensus may develop for supporting altering a route. maintenance of existing routes, and replacement of resident anchors has, in most cases, been one of those "hey, if its important to you, then do it" kind of things. my own personal practice has been to remove placements which seemed obviously defective, in the interest of safety. I have on very rare occasions left gear on climbs, but I prefer not to do so. (expensive, and whatever I leave eventually becomes a time-bomb anyway...) ultimately, it comes down to judgment. do I have the background to determine if this resident anchor is adequate for the load I intend it to carry? if I determine that it is not adequate, can I make it so? (reinforce it or back it up) or, am I willing to accept the risk of climbing unprotected? if I can't produce comfortable answers to these questions, then I probably shouldn't be on that climb, and the issue of who's accountable for resident gear is moot.

"Because it's there" - ain't that about the goofiest thing we ever heard? and he wasn't talkin' about no boulder...

One of my favorite fields of study has been "natural-language-philosophy" and the closely related discipline of semantics, so it grieves me to read the statement "climbing increases ones risk of death..." Say WHAT?!? Every human being's risk of death is 100% whether they climb or not. There is no way (short of MIRACLE) to either increase or decrease this probability. Furthermore if any of you think for an instant that you have ANY CONTROL WHATSOEVER over WHEN or HOW you die, let me be blunt - you are deceiving yourself! The ONLY way to CONTROL how or when you die is to SUICIDE! No, thankyou - I'd rather embrace the RISK of LIVING... I believe that any activity that augments my capacity to share love and joy with my children, my wife, and the rest of the people in my life, is a worthwhile thing for me to be doing. So I climb!

Death is not the only thing that can take a parent away from a child. Our society is oversupplied with businesspersons, doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and other professionals who hardly know their kids. I am in the rare position of having a stepson whose biological father was one of my long-time climbing partners. I regularly take my stepson, his friends, and my other sons on climbs that stretch them, and stretch my skills as a parent. I also climb with other adults. Truck-drivers get killed on the highway. Doctors catch AIDS. Policemen and firemen die on duty. Fishermen die at sea, and carpenters die in construction accidents, and professional soldiers sure as hell die in wars. I am going to die one day, and until that day, I will do what I love, sharing that doing with my wife and sons as much as they will accept, and I hope that they, too, will do what they love, with companions they love, as long as they live. If my children can learn to do that - to do what they love, with companions they love - then I will have succeeded, because they will be multiplying love in this world. If Alex Lowe's kids got anything like that from him, then he did not fail them as a parent.

got a few old ropes, got a Coleman two-burner and a double-mantle lantern, got a few old vinyl tarps, got a banjo and some really strange lyrics - guess I'll bring it all...

of the many classic climbs I've thought underrated when compared with Yosemite "representatives", I'd give the grand prize to the Durrance Crack on Devils Tower. At 5.6, I found it substantially more difficult than the Bastille Crack in Eldorado Canyon, which I've heard has been uprated in the ensuing years. Had it been climbed in the eighties, instead of in the thirties, it probably would have been rated 5.8...

"Adventure is just another word for trouble, son, and nobody in his right mind goes huntin' it" - Louis L'Amour " 'Adventure' consists of long periods of boring tedium puntuated by brief moments of abject terror" (or words to that effect) - Eric Shipton