catbirdseat

I've done the same thing and it helps a lot actually.

In all seriousness, I don't ever remembering the H2S fumes being all that bad. As long as you don't stop and take a break near one of the vents, your exposure should be minimal.

Don't use a belay biner. Use a standard locking D. Belay biners despite their name, are designed for rappelling. They are wide on one end to accommodate two strands of rope without pinching the keeper loop. It's the wideness that causes the shifting about you experience. In belaying you have one strand. There is no need for an HMS type biner. So try the Petzl Am'D, but don't use it for rappelling.

Epoxy-n ow there is a great idea. On all of my offsets, the nut slides up the wire so you have to pull it down before you can set the nut- not the most convenient thing when you are gripped.

The brass ones? The ones that chime when you swagger?

Time will tell. After I've climbed several routes, I may get an attitude adjustment. A lot of the same crowd that put up the JTree routes put up the ones at Tahquitz. I think their attitude was sometimes that a single hard move on an otherwise easy route shouldn't cause the rating to go up. Oh, and don't call it the YDS. Call it the Decimal System.

Acopa JB

Bill you should always post a disclaimer whenever you say, "I have two sets of 'em". It should read, "Warning: Gearwhore. This person has two sets of EVERYTHING."

The falls don't look like they'd be really clean.

If you are a leader who has (the generally bad) habit of clipping high, which I do sometimes myself, double ropes have the advantage that if you blow a clip before falling, the extra rope you've pulled out will be of no consequence, provided you used the other rope to clip the last piece of protection.

Here is a suggestion on how to make your website better. It needs a summary in addition to the daily log. The summary would be revised from time to time and include the highlights of the voyage. It would allow newcomers to quickly come up to speed on the progress of the trip.

Smith Rock has had both free and pay camping for a long time. I don't think that they are mutually exclusive arrangements.

I've drilled a few holes in basalt. You can tell when you are in sound rock and when you are not. First step is take your hammer and tap on the rock. Listen to the sound and feel how the hammer bounces. Any underlying plates will absorb energy. When you say "plated" I think of Vantage, not Tieton, although Goose Egg Mountain has some plated rock.

I have not had that much trouble with rope management. You just stack the two ropes together and they come off the pile together. If you have to do a hanging belay, just stack them across your tie-in the same way you would with a single. I usually climb with a single, as it is simpler, unless there is a good reason to use doubles. Among the reasons: 1) the need to do double rope rappels, 2) high likelihood of having to back off of a route, 3) high chance of rock fall or sharp rock, 4) route wanders, 5) party of three. Yesterday we used doubles for our party of three. It allows the two followers to climb at the same time. It's faster than having the second drag a rope for the third. Just have one person head off first and then the other can follow along behind. Each cleans the pro clipped to his rope. If one climbs faster than the other, he can clean all the pro, assuming no traverse, of course.

Trip: Tahquitz Rock - The Uneventful, 5.5 8-pitches (900 ft) Date: 6/7/2008 Trip Report: For Jimbabwe and I this was our first trip ever to Tahquitz. For our third climber, Dylan, it was his first multipitch trad climb and his third time climbing outdoors. We arrived at the Humber Park trailhead at Idyllwild at 9:30 with nice weather. There was a huge group of backpackers from the Outdoors Club getting ready to head out. There must have been at least 25 of them. The approach took about 30 min. and upon arriving at the toe of the NW Buttress we met a friendly Spaniard gearing up to solo some routes. We saw him a couple of times throughout the day. Once we were quite certain we were in the right place, I led off under belay by Dylan, while Jim finished fashioning a new pair of tape gloves. The first 5 pitches were quite easy, with some fun climbing, particularly on pitches 2 and 4. We learned that Tahquitz pitches tend to be quite long. We thought we were stretching out the 60 meter rope, but in reality we were pretty much matching the pitches in the topo. From our belay we watched some climbers off to the right do some things I wouldn't do. For example, reaching the tiniest of ledges and immediately calling off belay before building an anchor. One time I saw a guy on lead, standing 50 feet above his last piece of pro holding a big coil of rope and yelling down, "Is that all the rope!?", again unanchored. The crux pitch of Uneventful starts near an unusual J-shaped tree. The guide calls it a "chimney" but it really is a left-facing dihedral. The climbing on this pitch was really quality and protected well, but I wouldn't call it 5.5. It's at least 5.7, as long as you don't count the 5.8 move it takes to get established in the corner. I found a bail biner on an old angle piton. This was after the crux move, but before the intimidating roofs. These are not as hard as they look, as there are nice features for your feet. The Uneventful is the longest route at Tahquitz and finished at the very summit. Nice views up there! Dylan thought the area was reminiscent of Austria. The descent was via the North Gully and was straightforward third class. There were two places with a couple of fourth class moves. Tahquitz is easier to get off of than Snow Creek Wall. Our time from start of climb to summit was a very slow 6 hours, which I'd counted on with our early start, so we were back in town in time for supper. Gear Notes: Standard Rack to 4", double 8.6 mm ropes.

John, you need to make a better case for your point of view if you hope to get any support. Do you mean to say that merely by opening a pay campground they are signaling their intentions to close the free one? Your link doesn't support your assertion.

Luminescent fungus. That's a good one. It reminds me of that Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black where they used luminescent worms in a Nalgene bottle as a lamp. At least you weren't being chased by monsters.

If you want to anchor, but are concerned about a hard stop, just tie in with a bit of slack. It will allow some give, but limit how far you will get hauled. People don't generally anchor on single pitch sport climbs that start from the ground. Occasionally, routes will start from somewhat exposed places, and of course this includes multipitch sport climbs. So naturally, you'll want to anchor in those situations. These sort of anchors are protecting more against falling downward than upward. In any case, the tie-in should allow for some upward movement by the belayer when catching a fall. I was belaying a friend recently on a trad climb at Joshua Tree at Rock Hudson. The start of the route was really low angle and then steepened. I thought about anchoring at first because of the horizonantal component, but then decided not to. My partner fell on the steep part and I got pulled a couple feet forward, but didn't lose the belay or hit anything. But, I wished I had anchored in this case.

Methinks a true newbie wouldn't be using words like "stance", or even "quickdraws".

You were right about it being the Germans. I.G. Farben was the same company that supplied Zyklon B to the Nazis, if I remember correctly.

Sport climbs are mostly pretty steep. You stand below the leader, but not where he/she might land on you. If he falls, and assuming he's clipped at least one bolt, you should be pulled straight up, not sideways. But you should ask someone with more experience than I, like maybe Raindawg.

Eventually a majority of us will be driving plug-in hybrids that get the equivalent of 100 mpg. When those come out next year, a lot of the tech nerds will want to upgrade and us dirtbags will have some affordable used hybrids available to buy that get 50 mpg.

The important take home message is that there is not significant performance difference and you can use the two terms almost interchangeably.

I've wondered from time to time what is the difference between Perlon and Nylon used in accessory cord and ropes. Turns out Wikipedia has the answer. The difference is small and has more to do with how the two are made than with their properties. Nylon is Nylon 6,6, the condensation product of 1,6-diaminohexane and 1,6-hexanedicarboxylic acid. Perlon is Polyamide 6, the ring-opening polymerization product of caprolactam. It was developed by I.G. Farben in the 1930's to get around a patent. The only difference is in the order of the amide bonds. Perlon resembles a natural polymer in that each amide bond are oriented the same way. Despite the fact that we and vendors might call their product "Perlon", I believe most of what we use is actually Nylon 6,6.

My cell phone has an LED. I just push "clr" twice and hold. I've no idea how fast that would drain the battery.