Dane

Dude I have done all kinds of stupid shuff. Including cutting trees and brush to get to a climb. Logger's Ledge on Castle Rock was named for a reason. There was once grass at the base of Damnation and Angel. Not like this is a new discussion or one dead stump really matters. It is the IDEA that matters. And it needs to start some where. I haven't added bolts to trad lines or out right chipped a hold. But I have wanted to. It is a fine line. And I dry tool now if I am capable of the pull up. Most of that in the alpine if I do leave a mark..few will ever see it. Generally, like 99.9% of the time there is no mark to see. I'm climbing in France right now...easy enough to see the end result of what "out of control" environmentally is here. Be happy to supply the picture. Old school these days. I still burn my TP and bury my shit under a rock. I don't shit on rocks, stir it up and hope that Gawd will magically blow it away before the next climber comes by. I don't generally trundle boulders or knock loose stuff off a route unless it is actually called for. Back to "the stump". Leave it or chop it...just beware of why you decide to do one or the other.

You are going to freeze your ass off this time of year. There is still snow in the valley floor. When the sun is out around noon life is good...hard frost here when it is clear like last night...when it rains or snows ..and it will life will suck. Ice is hard in the gullies..verts. You could store sheet in the bike "lockers". But I would rethink the tent thing and get into a hostel. Save the tent for up high to avoid the cost of huts....but dude the camping there is above 10K and full on winter. It is the middle of ski season here! The storms that roll through up high will make Alaska in May look easy. We were stuck last week on the Midi for two days after a bad forcast (a dozen of us half guides and mtn Police)...if you were out side and unprepared for a full on Alaska blow you would have died. Simple as that. People were pinned down in huts all over the range that week. @ 50 to 100 Euro a night. It is winter climbing here now and will be through April. More so than the Rockies (Canada )this time of year because of the added height of the peaks. Huts and the lift WCs are what makes it possible to climb here in winter. That and being acclimatised, fit and fast. But today it is almost summer in Chamonix. Good luck on your trip!

What is laughable is some here are so clueless as to think that what ever fits their current idea of "OK" is anything more than a momentary whim. The original poster recognised the fact. Climbing is selfish...hell we all know that. Taken to the extreme what we get is chipped and drilled holds, denuded bouldering areas and jacked columns of basalt or flakes off an alpine wall....'cuz it was "OK" at Index or Vantage. Lot of good reasons to leave a stump. Common practice in almost every environmentally aware situation in my yard according to King County or on an sub alpine hill side. Only one reason to wack it. The boulder has been done already...no one died. Seems the rest of us could put on our big boy pants and climb it (or not) with out removing the stump. I suspect most argueing for stump removable (like i give a shit about the stump) would also argue adding fixed pro to previous routes is OK. If not for the stump, how about a nice chipped hold so we can avoid ground fall from the lip? Fook it, the boulder is too hard and I might get hurt on the landing...just bolt up an aluminum ladder them most of us will be saved the humiliation and pain of failure. Fook the stump it is in the way of my ladder. Same knuckles that want to chop the stump likely leave TP strung across hither and yond as well cuz some one has to clean your ass for ya. How about climbing sheet and leaving ZERO impact? That ever occur to anyone? That way your kid's kids might get a chance to climb something "new". Beautiful aint it? Oh, sorry come back in 50/100 years. Washington state btw.

"I hate tearing up vegetation for something as selfish as climbing a rock" Seems you answered your own question.

http://www.wildsnow.com/backcountry-ski-museum/silvretta-404-backcountry-skiing/silvretta-404-mount.html First picture in the link shows the 404 in Purple. The small purple lever mid sole of the binding (just above the Silvretta label) unlatches and rotates to unlock the heel piece which in turn can then be adjusted for boot sole length. You can easily do it by hand, no tools required. Small windows below boot soles that tell you if you have too much or too little forward preassure. Easy and quick once you realise how to do it. I did mine the other day (from BD Primes to Spantik) while waiting in the queue for first lift on th GM. DIN? Better find a chart for your boot sole length, skill and age.

>Because of the diameter of the sewn loops, it looks like you can't girth the BOA to both your harness and tools at the same time. Incorrect, it is easy to girth hitch harness and tools. > don't think you'd want to because that means you couldn't easily disconnect from your tools. Correct, but then I never pull my leashes while climbing...never have. YMMV, mine hasn't in several decades. ...and assuming you girth the tools and use a biner for your harness Nope, not the way the Boa is designed. Three girth hitches, 2 tools and 1 harness. >seems a little slower than unclipping Ya think? If you plan on clipping and unclipping, for what ever reason, a Boa leash aint for you. As a "spring loaded" umbilical system I think it is a better mouse trap than the two competitor's models or I wouldn't be using them. I like the simplicity. But they aren't for everyone.

Deal via Pal Pal is open for 24 more hrs from the time of this is post...you snooze you loose. Price includes mailing them to you in CONUS when I get home. Julian, yes, they will girth hitch on most tools including the old Fusions. I used them on a mixed climb this morning and really like them. Never moved my tie in point on umbilicals any way so I like getting rid of the "metal junk" all together. Blue ice web site covers it better but this may help as well: http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/search?q=Boa+leashes I like 'um a LOT! Blue Ice and Cold Thistle...how can you go wrong! Yes, the block on the left is part the concrete foundation on the Midi. Which means a coffee is close by

btt

I've had several ask. If you are interested in a set of Boa leashes I am leaving Chamonix in a few days, back in the US mid April. I'll mail them when I get back to anyone that pays me for them now via Pay Pal. 26 Euro to my Pay Pal address: rdburns@cnw.com

Never thought of that but makes sense. Still doesn't solve the problem of wire gates snapping off the shaft though.

I've used , home made tie ins, then girth hitched umbilicals, the BD Spinner, (in three forms, standand, bent biners as John comments on and the newest stronger gate version) Grivel in two forms ( flat biner and current locking mini) and the Blue Ice version which is a simple girth hitch. Only the BD version snapping off tools that I am aware of. Grivel used then ditched the flat biner wire gate idea 5 years ago. It seems silly to use anything that isn't at least as strong as the webbing in the umbilical or obviously unreliable for the intended purpose. Extra swivels and non full strength or unreliable biners are unwanted on my kit. Easy to over think this. But no real reason to do so imo. Blue Ice version:

Cord is the answer. Even the "new" Spinner with a much stronger gate ("duh") doesn't do it. Blue ice and Grivel figured that out a light year ago.

bump.....

I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I'll look into it and get back on a PM early in the week.

Hell, talk fast and I'll buy you a pair of BI here in Cham and bring 'um home for you. I have a pair of all the commercial sets available...old and new. The BI set rocks.

Thanks Cale. No matter what size you got, it is worth taking them into Sturtavants in Bellevue and having them molded. It make a world of difference for the better. Awesome boot.

Buy a pair of Blue Ice umbilicals.

Sounds fun...sorry I'll miss it. Hopefully Jeff found some of the photos useful. Next year may be you'll widen the scope to "world ice" :-)

>how do the baruntse's climb? better than 99.9% of the people climbing in them >is there a marked difference in their performance compared to the nepals? dude...it is a dbl boot. Of course there is marked difference. Dbls are way better on endurance ice and most pure, technical ice, They aren't much worse on anything hard, desperate and thin. They are clunky. All dbls are. The 6000 being the least so. But if you can climb hard desperate and thin in temps you need a dbl boot it aint going to matter to you. The Baruntse is best described as a Nepal in dbl boot form. It climbs technical ground better than the Spantik, not as good as the Scarpa 6000 and is likely as warm or warmer than either. I know the Baruntse design is more reliable than either. La Sportiva likely sells three pair of Spantiks for every one pair of Baruntse's...and THAT is silly! Buy the Baruntse of sale and save yourself some hazzles and get a better liner. Few knowledgable climbers take a single boot to Alaska or a leather boot for that matter. Most use a single boot in Patagonia during their summer (our winter) season. There are a few exceptions. Take a look at Colin's Haley's or Jon Griffith's blog for some insight there.

No worries. Fun engineering questions? Add up the surface area of the single bolt plate on the new Fusion and compare it to the surface area of the side plate for the old Fusion. You then stop at the back of the plate instead of the back of the blade as in the old design. Obvious the surface area has changed by a fair percentage. Then imagine how much more is required of the single bolt in that design.

Petzl claims 3mm but are actually 3.2mm. The thinner the pick the easier the penetration. Which is why most prefer the 3mm Laser in BD tools. I find the stock Laser easy to get in, hard to get out in comparison to Petzl.

No the pick profile doesn't matter much. Although it can help. I'd done all kinds of shit to picks and generally prefer the standard BD and Petzl profiles. Even though they are so different. Angle and pick thickness does. Worth trashing a set of picks if the ice is really hard by shaving the pick down but you risk them breaking much easier when you do that. Pick weights make a big difference on water ice and almost none in the alpine with Petzl tools unless of course you are on really hard ice.

Right on. The chrome bolts are new and done for cosmetics. Generally not what hard chrome is used for in the metal industry. But not unheard of either as long as you know the down sides like hydrogen embrittlement and added lubricity. Bolts need to stretch to work. Any engine builder knows how head bolts work. Ya sorta, but not really. Obviously, as a totally different pick head interface bewteen tools. Jessica had it right the first time. One bolt instead of two. On every other BD tool there ARE essentially two bolts holding the pick on not just one. Think not? Trying pulling the back bolt and climbing on your BD tools. One actually does most of the work but the second supports it. The single bolt interface of the new Fusion is good and easily up to the challenge. The two bolt design is basic over engineering. Which I like in a climbing tool. Add hard chomed bolts (which among other things makes steel "slick") and polished stainless steel to the mix and you have a bolt that can loosen with use. Easy enough to fix or avoid.

Thanks Mick. Here is a new one for me. I had only seen Petzl picks bent from dry tool indoors with big boys doing figure 4s on the last inch of so of the pick. No longer the case. I bent a Nomic pick a few days ago climbing mixed here I've never seen these kinds of conditions, rock hard ice, rocks in the ice and lost of dry tooling on any think that will hold a pick. It eats picks like a grinder. Any pick. At some point how great your technical tool is doesn't matter in this stuff. (pure water ice is different) May be just how long the head and shaft will last and how easy it is to change picks is more important. Now I see why there is a 3 year warrenty on the Nomic

Jon (in the UKC article) has climbed a lot of serious alpine ice and mixed. More than most. His partner Will Simm (with a similar resume) has been using Cobras for a couple of seasons. And he does just fine on them. But Will mentioned he would rather have Nomics and was lusting over my Ergos the other night. Cobra is a good all mtn axe is the general consensus. I've used them myself. Decent tool that can easily climb harder stuff than I ever will. New Nomics and Ergos will be worth the wait. Tools are so good these days all of them will climb if you are up to the task...just some climb better than others. Weight? These are the actual weights. Petzl Nomic with mixed pick/weight 1# 6.8oz / 648g..less pick weights is 1#6oz or 616g. CT hammer is another 30g and much more user friendly than the mini BD hammer. Black Diamond Cobra or 1 lb 5 oz (mini hammer) / 600g Apples to apples here? hammer to hammmer/ 646g Nomic or 600g on the Cobra...less than 2oz.