miller

ushba basic ascender. pretty much bomber, no chest harness necessary, and hands free (just tie up the leftover rope at the bottom so there is some weight). using a locking steel biner isnt a bad idea - otherwise make sure you trick out a regular locking biner so that there is no possible way of it crossloading.

word - dru is right - that dude is crazy. nobody in the audience is safe! i recently saw his show. its more of a stand-up comedy show based on climbing. definitely not the traditional, slide show style "this is my bro on pitch 5, here is a shot of the summit ridge, this is our base camp..." sort of show. check it out if you get the chance.

we're getting way off on a tangent here... been to cynical pinnacle too - youre right, turkey rocks did get scorched but im 99% sure they reopened it, although with a different approach. i think of turkey rocks as being similar to vedauwoo, but half as good and twice as far away... the black is a place you could give me some beta on - but maybe we should PM or change the topic of this thread to "todd and dylan going back and forth about shit that has nothing to do with city of rocks" =) have you ever done scenic cruise?

yo, been climbing in this neighborhood for several days a week for the better part of the last 6 years! looking for some new scenery and i thought, "hey thats a place ive never been to..." but 12 hours, dang!!! i was assuming it wasnt that far from SLC. sounds like ill be getting a few more days in at the local spots, which is cool...still intimidated by the edge, currently fearing the lift of the raptor closure (which is my best excuse for not doing it...) whats the bummer about turkey rocks? - that jawn was open last i heard...

what up dylan??? yah, i meant the people's republic. about 12 hours??? - dang!!! is it worth it for a few days? - i have to head back to the fort before going to bham - wont be in bham till end of may...

it is good. for cragging. now is great. later is hotter. then it cools off again. what boulder area? lummox, thanks for the info. and yeah, i guess i didnt make that very clear - i meant from the boulder, co area - about how long does it take to get to city of rocks from boulder, co?

i have about a week between may 14 and may 20 and was thinking about going to city of rocks. ive never been and havent heard much about it, other than that it has good climbing. is this time of year a good time to go? does anyone happen to know about how long it takes to get there from the boulder area? thanks!

i must suck at doing searches - cant ever find anything... a week or so ago someone posted a great photo of a boyscout winning an award - know where i could find that? thanks!

...but a clever poem =)

exactly what is it that you dont like about the french? not speaking for you, but most americans who would make such a statement would answer "politics". lets change the perspective: does it piss you off when you see people burning the american flag, and threatening to kill all americans? same shit man - ignorantly judging a nation full of decent people (hey, there are assholes everywhere) based on the actions of their politicians...

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