miller

yo, just wanted to give a thumbs up for this book. its called "the rock warrior's way - mental training for climbers", and is written by arno ilgner. i brought this up because i remember reading a discussion on this board about the books "performance rock climbing" and "training for climbing" - and my opinion is that this book is really where its at. i was a bit hesitant and curious when i first saw it on the shelf at the local shop, so i grabbed it off the shelf and sat down on their couch to see exactly what a book with a title like that was all about. i got sucked in and ended up buying it. i havent finished it yet but id recommend it just the same. great stuff in there, and even for those of us that are perfect and have no room for improvement, think of it as a lot interesting food for thought. also, i remember a recent thread about the 5.10 barrier/plateau - a lot of people seemed to be interested in that topic. this is the book for you. check it out if you get the chance...

yeah, the dis on fabrizio is totally unfounded - i ran into him sunday night (he is friends with one of my main partners here in CO) in boulder at the marko prezelj slide show - super nice guy. he won an ice screw in the raffle and instead of keeping it he said, "you know, i really dont need this - maybe somebody else would be happy to have this screw" and he let it go to the next name drawn. most folks, and certainly not "selfish money hungry boulder yuppies", would not do that. but im glad to say that others have already come to his defense... anyway, the same partner that introduced me to fabrizio also owns a pair of magic line pants. they are very well designed. my partner is pretty psyched on them. im not sure which model, but theyre a shoeller type pant. climbing in RMNP all winter, he stays drier then i do, and warmer as well. the pants are definitely a bit warmer then other schoeller type pants. the ankles are super tight fitting - meant to be pulled around the boot. my partner loves them - the only thing he has complained about is that they dont have pockets. but i guess to the credit of fabrizio and magic line, they do state clearly on their site that their products are meant to be used as a system.

i would interpret this to mean no more forest pass - could it be true??? does anyone know for sure? SENATE COMMITTEE REJECTS PERMANENT FEE DEMO FOR FOREST SERVICE, BLM, AND USFWS. PASSES BILL FOR NATIONAL PARKS ONLY. Grassroots Effort Moves Parks Fee Legislation In what is being called a 'remarkable victory,' opponents of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program are today celebrating what they see as the beginning of the end of recreation fees on the National Forests and other public lands. Despite enormous pressure from the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to make the Fee Demo program permanent for the National Parks, Forest Service, BLM, and US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee this morning unanimously voted to pass S. 1107, the Recreational Fee Authority Act (Senator Craig Thomas, R-WY), which makes recreation fees permanent for the National Parks only. The bill will allow Fee Demo to lapse for the BLM, US Forest Service and US Fish & Wildlife Service. Fee-opponents in recent days had flooded Senate offices with faxes and phone calls, expressing their general acceptance of park fees and their adamant opposition to fees for recreation on lands managed by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Opponents of recreation user fees came together to prevent Thomas' legislation from being amended and to ensure that it would be moved out of committee as a 'parks only' bill. Gale Norton, Secretary of Interior, lobbied Senators hard in an effort to included permanent fee authority for the other three federal agencies within the Fee Demo program. “Senator Thomas and Senator Craig (R-ID), Chair of the public lands subcommittee, as well as all Senators on Committee, did an excellent job protecting their constituents ownership of these public lands.” Said Robert Funkhouser President of Western Slope NoFee Coalition. Another long time opponent of these fees, Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the WSNFC said: "The Tide has turned, and with a growing groundswell for ending this ill-conceived recreation fee program, it is becoming every more clear that we will soon see the end of fees to take a hike in the woods." The Fee Demo program in the Forest Service, BLM, and USFWS has been recognized as a failure in terms of public acceptance and financial viability. Recent administrative changes to enforcement procedures particularly within the BLM, such as increasing penalties for being on public land without a pass to $5,000, have fueled the growing Fee Revolt taking place across the nation. Contact: Robert Funkhouser, WSNFC 802-867-2298 Kitty Benzar, WSNFC 970-259-4616

does anyone know where i could find this? someone posted it recently, but i cant remember where... thanks!

Why in the SAME direction? Ease of use? I thought Petzl's goal in having the gates face opposite directions was to ensure that at least one biner would be loaded in the body and not the gate. Fair point re: tying eliminating the risk of gate breaking, but I don't think it'd be easy to break open one of those double eights after a fall on it, while you're hanging on the rope. A bowline might be easier though. drC yup, ease of use.

word. ive had the same problem solo toproping. unable to find a steel biner at the time, i got one of those biners sold with the plastic thingy to keep it from flipping around and added a bunch of wraps of tape around the top of the spine so that my device cant creep down the spine.

hey steve, unfortunately i cannot provide any written documentation of this and wouldnt know where to look - im sure its out there somewhere if youre really curious... i got this information from someone whos opinion i respect very much, and he is the technical director for the AMGA and a UIAGM guide - i.e. he knows far more than me and like a good subject, i do whatever master says. however, he seemed to be aware of specific cases and also some testing that had been done. im not sure if ENSA publishes their test results/case studies (and if they do whether or not they are available in english!), but if they do that might be the place to look. it didnt take much convincing for me - just think about how many times youve been out tromping around on a glacier and had to adjust your biner to the correct position. if its crossloaded and the gate is loaded, there can definitely be enough force in a crevasse fall to cause the biner to fail. also, the moral of masters lesson seemed to be that two biners greatly decreases this risk, but does not eliminate it. i guess the only way to be 99% certain that your attachment to the rope would not be compromised in a crevasse fall would be to tie in directly.

a single carabiner is widely considered to be adequate for glacier travel, but its not. there have been accidents where they break. i would strongly recommend using two biners, one locking and one non-locking as a backup, with the gates in the SAME direction. i personally dont like the big pear type biners because they tend to flip around a lot more easily. i would recommend a combo like a locking BD enduro with a BD hotwire - they fit well together. you dont want a combo of biners that are mismatched in size because the smaller one can sometimes flip through the big one and create some funky crossloading if weighted. be sure to clip into the belay loop too - if your harness doesnt have one, tie one on with about four wraps of spectra and a double fishermans. also, some people skip the biner clip in and tie in on the rope. you can do this with a fishermans - tie a large bight with an overhand (to keep the actual tie in from getting crossloaded) then tie a regular overhand knot, take the remaining bight and tuck it through the overhand knot and tie another overhand around the rope on the other side. the two knots tighten against each other and are solid. i dont like this system because of escape/rescue inefficiency, but some do. hope that helped!

its still kinda snowy... ive never heard of great bouldering up there (though im not the bouldering guru). it would be worth it to drive to some of the boulder/fort collins areas if youve never been and youre really into bouldering. have you heard of the site frontrangebouldering.com ? maybe check with those guys...

the american alpine institute has a shop - thats probably your best bet for climbing gear. base camp closed down last summer, so otherwise youre left with REI. however, its a pretty quick drive (depending on when you go) to get to MEC in vancouver...

This would make a lot of sense. Stainless steel is much more "noble" in the electromotive series than aluminum. If salt from sweat builds up over time on the pin, it can create a galvanic cell which will cause corrosion of the aluminum. The oxide causes a compressive force which eventually causes a crack to release the strain. The solution is to dunk your biners in pure water every once and a while to dissolve any salt that may have accumulated. They may fail eventually anyway, so it's smart to eyeball all your biners from time to time. catbirdseat, could you please explain this a little better? - it sounds interesting but i obviously dont have the scientific background that you do. what is a galvanic cell? does it form on the steel pin, and if so, how would this cause corrosion of the aluminum?

what up dylan? what is that one move wonder "10d" at smoke bluffs to the right of penny lane? climb and punishment? anyway, some guy clipped the pin at the crux (the wrong way), took a very short fall, and his biner snapped - it was a lucky. snapped right where the curved bit that usually catches the rope (i.e. where the pin SHOULD have been in this case) meets the spine because the nose got loaded. cant say that one was cause for alarm though - he shouldve clipped the pin correctly. but he didnt seem too worried about it because he had backed it up with a cam a foot or two below. but two weeks ago a friend broke a brand new BD enduro biner that was clipped to a bolt on a sport climb. broke in the same place as the lucky in the above story. dont know what the hell happened there!!! - it didnt seem to get torqued and the fall wasnt that big...

i havent been in WA this winter - how has the winter been so far? would you say the snowpack is at, below, or above average? thanks!

dmuja, this is just a response to the issues that you raised - im not passing judgment on the two climbers involved in the accident. i think the two main problems contributing to these sort of accidents on steep snow are: 1. people underestimate or are not aware of the consequences of a fall on steep snow 2. people are experienced and aware of what can happen but choose to stay roped up because they want to save time and "know" that they arent going to fall. this happened to two of my french buddies in chamonix, and they were experienced climbers. four of us (2 teams of 2) had been climbing a route that had been climbed in pitches. the descent involved a downclimb of about a relatively short, 45 degree hard snow/ice headwall to a lower angled yet crevassed glacier where we would be in glacier travel mode. while descending the summit ridge, my french friends chose to stay roped up and just take in coils to go into glacier travel mode so they wouldnt have to stop and rope up to cross the schrund and descend the glacier below the headwall. one of them slipped, the other was pulled off, self arrests were useless on the frozen neve, they rocketed down the face bouncing and getting tangled in the rope between them, and a few seconds later they were dead, tangled up in their rope below the schrund. this is a prime example of #2 above. these guys were solid, but were so confident in their abilities that they "knew" they couldnt fall on that terrain. also, i would have to strongly disagree with those who say that this practice of being roped up on steep snow without intermediate pro is less common in europe than in north america - i see this sort of thing far more often when climbing in the alps. so i think your decisions as to when to rope up and unrope are spot on. but when climbing with partners i trust, do i ignore my experience/knowledge and stay roped up when i shouldnt? - sometimes...

nice dylan! "sturgerewski" - will you ever be able to refer to it by its proper name again? that is too funny... cheers, todd

gaston, you stated that you know the area pretty well - then certainly youve heard of the O.H.M. downtown. if not, its pretty hard to miss - go to the tourist office and turn around and look at the church - the O.H.M. is the building behind the church. upstairs the nice ladies will hook you up with all sorts of beta and there are two books on the table - one with recent trip reports and another for climbing partners. in the partner book, you can find a partner to do just about anything you want at any level at any time. ive often just shown up in town and found a partner to climb the next morning using that book. i suggest giving that a try the next time youre in town - youll have better luck than you will on cc.com. good luck!

i know its not seattle, but perhaps you could mail order a kit. i just got back from j-tree and saw that the shop "nomad ventures" was selling the old style trigger kits. i have no idea if they have any in stock or not, but if you dont have any luck locally you might consider giving them a call.

its called a "crying tick" because it hangs on to your dick and balls.

dru, that kind of tick is called a "crying tick".

"magical chrome-plated semi-automatic enema syringe" -popular route at lumpy ridge, co

oops, in my rambling i forgot to mention this site - it has an english version. http://home.no.net/bjartebo/main.html cheers, todd

gary, there are plenty of things to do in norway - depends on exactly what you want to do. ive done some alpine routes in romsdal, and in that region you could get into just about anything you want to as far as alpine climbing/mountaineering goes. you asked for objectives and the names dont stick too well because they dont mean anything to me, but i remember doing routes on "venjetindan" and the "romsdalshorn" that were pretty nice. there is a guidebook for that region, but i dont imagine youll find it outside of norway. its in norwegian, but thats not really a problem - names are just names, grades are grades, and the book has photos. all youll need is a map. everyone there speaks english so if youve picked out a nice route based on the grade and the photo, just ask someone to translate the description for you. ive also done a fair amount of ice climbing in norway, and i imagine some of what i did is still in in april, and im pretty sure that certain areas in the north are acutally better in april than during what we consider prime ice season - although may could be pushing it. as far as rock, all of my norwegian friends rave about lofoten (although i still havent been there), and ive seen the guide book - very user friendly, written in english by an american (ed webster). you should be able to get ahold of a copy somewhere in the states. i can only think of one good site for ice climbing in norway, but of course there could be others. i dont even remember the name of the site, but if you search for "is klatring" (ice climbing in norwegian) you should find it in the first few hits. again, memory is a bit faded, but if you can figure out how to get onto the forum on there, there is a fair amount of english, and somebdoy there could probably tell you where to start looking. i started rambling - hope some of that helps. cheers, todd

"that guy must be off route - there arent any tick marks up there..."

good info - thanks everyone. reading through this thread, ive heard a lot about knees and ankles. has anyone used it to help shoulder/elbow tweaks (especially shoulder)? cheers, todd

what up dylan?! where you be at?! PM me or send an email if you be in CO. the office has my info if you dont be havin it. cheers, todd