catbirdseat

At peshastin, as the stone weathers, the surface layers become weak and "spald" away. It basically is in the process of reverting to the sand from which it was made. Underneath, the stone is harder. It's a matter of penetrating to the solid stone via the point of the tricam, versus tearing away the the surface with an SLCD.

All leader falls "shock load" the anchor. If the directional pulls out the shock load will depend on how much rope is out, the same way fall factor is calculated. I could be bad if the follower fell just short of the belay, I suppose.

Lyme Disease

I was up there twice, but I am not missing anything. Those logs suck to ski over.

While we are on the topic of thread resurrection, I have a related question about tricams, and that is are they more reliable in friable rock, that is sandstone, such as you might find at Peshastin Pinnacles. It seems intuitively obvious, since you have the force concentrated on a single point, which will bite into the rock more surely than the lobes of an SLCD. Dru? Hey, Dustin, what tricams did you end up purchasing?

It is because all the good posters have been banned and Dave Shuldt has been feeling nostalgic. You can't blame it on Bronco, either. I think the Thread Resurrector mantle must be handed over to Dave.

Supposing your anchor is composed of three pieces all equalized with a cordellette and you want to belay off your harness using a directional. Do you use one of the three pieces comprising your anchor, or do you put a fourth piece in for that purpose (assuming you can)? Would that be totally anal? I suppose the latter would make a lot more sense if none of the three placements were super reliable.

How did that happen? Pendulum? Slack?

Really nice TR.

On Saturday, an acquaintance of mine took a 30 foot grounder at Peshastin when he fell and all his pro pulled out. He walked away with various bruises and abrasions.

There will be two tunnels for safety reasons so that if some accident were to occur in one, the other would be available for escape. The 1100 cars figure was made up by somebody. Even during construction, there will never be that many truck trips in a day.

You are a wicked man, ken4rd.

Did he mention how close the place is to our favorite Pub Club venues? You can't beat it with a stick.

He was here, but you missed him. You are not fast enough.

Methinks it is better to not fall there and to climb a grade or two below your limit.

...when they keep forgetting your real name even after you told them for the tenth time.

I think that chickenshiite911 was JayB.

Dave, I see you are into phonetic spelling, but it is properly spelled "loozer".

People take it for granted that the studies are well run, but not all of them are. The conclusions can be totally worthless if the study design isn't sound. If you really wanted to get reliable results you would have to have one group employ a prescribed set of stretches so each person did the same with a test group that did not stretch. Any warm up would have to be identical in each group.

My powers can reach all the way into Canada and beyond, so you better be nice to me.

I get the impression that people confuse stretching with warming up. Warming up prevents injuries, stretching before a workout does not. A warm for a runner might be jogging a half mile at an easy pace, for a climber, some easy boulder problems before a climb. In my own opinion, stretching after a work out is more important that stretching before.

I belay with my right hand usually, but I don't think it was the rope. I think it was climbing in the gym. There was a route I did that had a series of two finger holds that might have been the cause.

Minx, I think you did well. On the first pitch of Lightning Crack, I arrived at the belay ledge to find a party of three tied into the bolts. I built a gear anchor with three small pieces that was "okay", but not as good as I would have liked, so when I brought up the second, I belayed from my harness and I used a sitting position with my feet braced solidly. Had my partner fallen, the anchor never would have to be tested, but I made sure I was up tight against it so there could be no shock loading if I couldn't hold the belay stance (little chance of that as my second was a lightweight).

My vote goes to Ray Jardine. He took an idea and refined it until it was practical and then he manufactured it and sold it and popularized it. I read that his first prototypes didn't have triggers. He'd place them on lead and then have to rap the route with tools to remove them. The trigger is the key along with selection of metal, and camming angle. Few, other than sport climbers, would be climbing above 5.10 today if it were not for Ray. Who knows, if Ray had met with an accident, we might all be clipping bolts today. More likely, some other clever person would have figured it out eventually, but Ray was the one.

I went to Peshastin yesterday with several friends and climbed Lightning Crack. My friend, NW, gave me a nice introduction as we walked up to it, "I was here when I saw this guy fell off the crux, pulled two cams out, fell to the base of the route and died. Then my other friend JH says, "yeah cams don't hold worth shit in sandstone. That's why I brought along tricams." So considering that I'm just starting to lead 5.9, and considering I just watched three of my friends thrash the hell out of the crux, that I have only the three smallest tricams, but a good selection of nuts, hexes, and cams, including Aliens, my belayer is inexperienced, do I go for it? I went for it. I figured, "I'll check out the pro below the crux, if it looks good I go for it, if not, I'll just bail." The corner leading to the crux couldn't have been harder than 5.5. I get to the overhanging crack and look underneath, and I see a tunnel through the stone with a pillar of at least 6 inches in diameter. Hot damn! I put a sling around that, using double opposed biners, and extended with another shoulder length sling and voila, totally bomber protection! Now I didn't care what happened on the crux, I could thrash all I wanted. There were a couple of burly moves, but then the rest of the route was a cruise and a lot of fun. If that crux is 5.8, then it is a 5.8++.