Geek_the_Greek

The sketchiest falls are the ones you don't know are coming, even if they're not as scary as they ones you can anticipate (you don't have time to be scared). Glad you's ok!

Dude, this is the newbies forum. Don't be such a dick. We all know your snotty opinions already.

Are you sure about the height? Alpine select (McLane) says 2904 m. Bivouac.com says 2892 m. Summitpost.org says 2904 m (not that we'd trust that...)

Best soundtrack of any gym site I've seen!

From Squid's link: " THIS BIG HAIRY MAGGOT CAME OUT " Oh man, that is fawking gross. Yet another reason not to join the army.

This debate always comes down to 3 things for me: -I get hot far more often than I get cold (breathability is important). I only get cold when I'm not moving, and getting cold is a good reason to start moving again (unless belaying, cooking, etc.) -if I'm moving and it's not raining (or snowing hard with really wet flakes) I don't need a jacket -If I'm moving and it's raining, I will get wet. Period. If I wear a shell it will be from sweat, and if I don't it will be from rain. Ok, maybe if the wind is howling like a mofo and it's pouring out, like horizontal rain (which quickly turns to snow) I won't be sweating, but that's kind of rare. So the only reason to wear non-breathables (rain gear) would be if you're planning on doing a lot of sitting around. Aid climbing and car camping come to mind. Waterproof breathables never breathe very well when you need them to, but they do block the rain, as well as that rain flakes/snow drops stuff we get a lot of around here. But yeah - if it's raining out and you're working hard, you'll get wet. Line your pack with plastic bags, or use a good pack cover, so that when you stop you'll at least have dry stuff. I dont' think soft shells do anything that a windshell and light fleece won't do, but they sure look cool and are comfortable.

Whoa, dude, that's great style. But apparently, leashless tools with pinkie ledges that support your whole hand are acceptable... "hand jammies" rubber gloves, or taping up for cracks

I use a -12 C (10 degree F) rated MEC bag for winter, and do fine most of the time. I can remember being fairly cold twice: one night in Sphinx hut (Garibaldi lk, BC) when the temp outside bottomed out our thermometer (ie below -30 C), and another time tenting near Mt Sproatt when the daily high was -27 C (don't know what the nightly low was; I survived by agressively spooning my tent-mate, which was ok because we started dating soon after). Of course, I am furry and tend to sleep warm. 90% of the time I use the bag, I just drape it over myself and sleep on my t-rest. (I suspect MEC underrates their bags (as in, they are warmer than advertised) compared with some manufacturers. They are great value.)

No, they were on the North Gully route. When in condition (e.g. last spring), it's a fun snow climb, with a bit of mixed scrambling right near the top, where most people bust out the rope. Right now, however, there's not a speck of snow on the route (ok, there are a few specks low down). It's just rock - loose rock. They were unroped, almost at the top, when he fell and tumbled several hundred feet. SMR and ESAR did the body recovery.

randonnee = AT (alpine touring) = (to some people) ski mountaineering skis ie a ski binding that allows a fixed toe/free heel mode for climbing uphill (like x-country) and a fixed heel mode for going downhill, just like lift skiing. They're expensive, used to be heavy and hard to find, now getting quite common and well-made. Some bindings (Silvrettas) can be used with plastic climbing boots, others can't. The lightest models (Dynafit) need their own special boots, but they're supposed to be good. But what do I know - I'm a tele dood.

I happily climb snow and casual mixed stuff in tele boots, but not real (ie water) ice. The duck bill is a bit annoying, as is the forward stance, but you get used to it. Then again, I'm not that hot a winter climber, so don't ask me. Ok, I'm not that hot a summer climber either, but hotter than...never mind.

The How to Climb 5.12 book can basically be summed up in the above posts: climb a lot, especially on rock (the gym isn't nearly as good as actually rock climbing), but not so much that you burn out or get injured, eat healthy, keep it fun.

Naw, grades are bullshit. No way you can compare the difference, way too much "fuzz". In the language of data management, climbing grades are an ordinal measure, like {strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree}. Everone gets confused because they're represented by numbers, so they look all scientific and measurable and stuff. They're not. Grades are a first ascentionist's best guess of how hard a route was, nothing more (sometimes modified over the years by local consensus, sometimes not). Don't sweat it. If you're lucky, 5.11a is going to be harder than 5.10a, but beyond that, forget about quantifying it. Modeling the effort required for various climbing moves - could this be the next frontier in biophysics? Inputs could include climber height, ape index, flexibility index, sweat gland efficiency, fear coping factor as well as route steepness, average (median/standard error) hold width, rock friction coefficient, etc. etc. Time for the geeks to really come out of the closet!

Yeah, good times this past weekend. Bummer I had to keep leaving every evening for work stuff (thus logging in 25 hours of driving in a 3-day period...back and forth between the Grasslands and Crater Lake...shite that part sucked). Hey, check it out, cc.com needs an online dating forum!! craig's list Anyone wearing a knee brace on Saturday?? This could be your lucky day...

IMO: The article actually does have some interesting points. Overall, though, I was struck with the impression that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.... -wrong use of climbing terminology struck me throughout and set off "gumby alert" alarm bells in my mind (e.g. referring to multi-pitch as "big-wall", individual pieces of pro as "anchors", referring to runout as "lead out", etc.) -no evidence that the three people who were killed, thus serving as a supposed example for the study, fell because of broken pieces of pro (it sounds like the pro pulled out to me, rather than broke - a vastly more common occurrence) -some very important points missing from the analysis (e.g. "I am not sure how friction from a zig-zag rope system would affect the analysis" p.9-10; here he is referring to the rope going through more than one piece of pro, and thereby more than one 'biner, each adding friction; another example is treating the belayer/anchor system as totally static, or rigidly fixed to the wall - we all know this to be false, and probably one of the biggest reasons why hard falls are never as serious as they should be (based on calculations). I'm talking about the belayer's body being yanked around on a big fall and the like). This stuff doesn't totally undermine the conclusions, but just reinforces that the engineering calculations for this stuff produce a conservative estimate. This is a good thing. The fact is that for people who are hurt while climbing, very very rarely is it from properly rigged gear failing (no, I'm not talking about open-gate or cross-loaded 'biners or pro pulling out), so it's often moot, in my opinion. But for those who continue to be terrified that they will be killed because of their gear breaking, the article has some good points. It's certainly true that you can expect to be hurt if you take a true fall with FF>1.

Yeah, it sounds like they didn't know the deal with the grasslands. Not that I'm into the whole party-till-the-place-is-trashed kind of scene, but it's too bad they called the cops. That's probably the number one thing that will lead to the end of free camping there.

Yup. From an environmental point, climbing is far from an impact-free activity, and the largest impacts from climbing have little to do with bolts. BTW snowmobiles have been found to have significant effects on overwintering small mammal populations. It seems they frequently cause collapsing of the snow tunnels that some of them use to get to seed caches and the like.

"Preserve respect for their heritage" blah blah blah. Why do you climb? I climb because it's fun and a good challenge. I bet most people out there feel similarly. Who cares if they live in the suburbs or can't climb 5.10a? If we pretend to care about the outdoors that we enjoy visiting being kept in good shape, we must build support for its protection. The way to do that is to encourage others (or at least not discourage them) to enjoy the outdoors too, so that recreationists have some clout as a user group. This has happened in many places, and if climbers continue to battle pettily over issues like bolting, before we know it, access will really be threatened by changes in land designation, development, etc. that will make bolts seem like yesterday's joke. The fact is that climbing is no longer a fringe activity practiced by a few outcasts with dirty beards. So what if the suburban hordes climb at exit 38? Maybe there'll be some resistance to quarrying away the rock in another I-90 gravel pit or leveling more land to build condos, like in Issaquah. And exit 38 doesn't threaten anybody - it's a pile of short, ugly cliffs right beside the freeway, about as far from wilderness as you can get and still have some natural landscape features. It never was and never will be anything close to a historic, traditional climbing area. And why would people assume that climbing everywhere is going to be the same? Do the top-ropers who go to Barney's rubble (some who know absolutely NOTHING about building safe anchors, I might add) assume that climbing Rainier is going to be the same? Or the NE buttress of Slesse? Of course not. What's the worst that can happen? They go to some trad area, realize there are no bolts and leave in frustration. More likely, they read a guidebook for someplace like Index and then figure out it's not the place for them. Most people putting bolts out there on sport routes are not rank beginners, they're usually people with a lot of experience who just happen to have different ideas about what they want to climb than purist trad types. The few exceptions are usually quickly put in their place. All the better. I say we cut the crap, accept the fact that outdoor activities are on the rise everywhere, and it's part of an increasingly health and nature-conscious populace (a good thing, IMO). People will have different ideas about what activities they want to do, and some will be content with bi-weekly afternoons in the gym with the odd outing to Exit 38 or Vantage. Others are into riding horses or mountain biking or whatever. Still others are into heavy doses of suffering, alpine style. I'm not seeing loads of people out there bolting the hell out of the Index cracks or the classic alpine routes, so what's all the whining about? Even things like Infinite Bliss (which is, after all, a new route, not a retro) are the exception rather than the rule. And the argument about that one seems to be based on whether or not it was in the wilderness, and therefore constitutes an illegal use of power-tools. The fact is, the only thing that's really going on out there that's pissing you people off is that there are more people climbing out there, many at a low level of proficiency and with little knowledge of the context or history of the sport. And logically, new developments are happening in accordance with the increasing numbers, in a totally predictable manner. Well, unless you're an advocate of increasing regulation (quotas and the like for cragging), you're just going to have to live with it. Frankly, trad types should be happy that these folks are sticking to bolted areas. If they knew how, many of them would quickly venture over into the trad routes, swarming over the crack lines, like a raging rash...

I agree that the definition of 'mechanized' transport is contrived beyond belief. I think paragliders are banned in wilderness areas because they are considered mechanized transport. What a crock of shit.

The "shitting" is indeed part of the problem. The power-drills (a valid assumption) is another part. And retro-bolting a common hike/walk-off is a third. I'll grant you that preserving historic precedent can be a valid reason.

But it's just convention, right? I mean there's no law out there that says we have to use 200 ft ropes. For instance, Castle Rock (11worth) is fully topropable. All you need is a 400 ft. rope. 7 mm should be strong enough for TR falls, and that would keep the weight down to a manageable level. Set your anchor, rap down while uncoiling the vast amounts of thin line along the right route, and bingo, a 3-pitch high toprope. Man, that sounds great! Personally, I'd rather lead it.

It's also as much a matter of convenience and convention. If all you want to do is climb, and you don't care about leading, well, theoretically it would be possible to TR El Cap. Hike to the top, set up an anchor with a 3500 ft. low-stretch (static) rope, rig it with piggy-backed pulley systems giving a total mechanical advantage of 200:1 or so, have a dozen of your friends take care of the belaying while you climb, communicating to them via radio all the while. You wouldn't have to clip any pro, bolts or trad... does that sound like fun? No, the fact is that we tend to climb with ropes between 50 and 70 meters. There are reasons for this, weight is one of them, and history is another. Rock climbing (cragging) used to be training for alpine climbing, then somewhere along the way it became an activity in its own right. Why? Probably because - holy shit! - someone figured it was fun. It's been going on for over 50 years, and I hate to break it to you, but leading is as much a part of it as anything, even if you can hike to the top of the crag. If you're going to question the basic premises of crag climbing, then you might as well ask "why climb at all?" My arguments stem from the fact that if you accept that trad leading on single-pitch, easily-accessible crags (as has been going on in many places for decades) is acceptable, sport leading on single-pitch crags is essentially the same thing. Getting hung up on something like the fact that there are bolts there is focusing on minutiae, and much of the so-called "environmental impact" argument (against the bolts, remember, not the climbing) is bunk.

I just noticed this thread, and thought I should add one thing. Poles are a super-important part of xc skiing, both skating or classic, way more of a "technical" item than for downhill or tele skiing. They are sized really big. Back when I was racing in high school, they told us chin height for classic, forehead height for skating (measured on dry ground, I think, not planted in the snow). This seems huge, but trust me, it helps immensely with keeping momentum.

This is what bugs me about the whole bolting debate, labeled under the guise of "environmental impact". The thing about rocks is that they're already dead. So "defacing" them by placing bolts is the equivalent of stirring around a bunch of gravel. It is an aesthetic impact, which may be a potentially worthwile issue, but to call it an environmental impact, on the scale of destroying habitat, killing trees/birds/soil microorganisms etc., or pouring your engine oil into Lake Washington is overstating the case big time. Yes, there are many environmental impacts associated with rock climbing that are well-documented. Gardening cracks around here (whether done on the FA or over the years by subsequent climbers - it doesn't make a difference) ranks pretty high on the list, as does trampling ledges (nesting habitat), scrubbing faces (lichen, moss, often takes hundreds of years for them to establish, more in desert areas), and building approach trails. Simply increasing the number of people in an area, with their noise, piss, and smells, will keep a whole bunch of "wilderness-requiring" organisms well at bay (grizzlies, most weasels, etc.). So as for bolts, they are the symptom not the cause. If bolting a route brings crowds (which it certainly can), then obviously it will have a true environmental (ecological) impact. But if the area is already popular without said bolts, there will be no change whatsoever other than aesthetics (like DDD). You can argue the case on aesthetics alone, but that is only a the smallest part of what environmental impact is all about. A good example of what I'm getting at - Burgers and Fries (Squamish, trad cragging/toproping mecca) and the Substation/Write-off rock (Exit 38, sport cragging/toproping mecca) are basically equivalent in terms of environmental impact from climbers (although there are more trees alive at X38). The fact that there are tons of bolts at X38 and not at B&F doesn't change a thing other than from the point of view of aesthetics.

Yeah, PoD is great fun, and indeed, a set of small-medium nuts will do just fine to complement the bolts in a couple of places. Bring lots of draws (16? I can't remember). It's a nice sustained face, well-endowed with edges and knobs, although your toes will be more sore than your fingers by the end. Every anchor has chains, I think, although you probably need 2 ropes to rap off.