colt45

Yep, Yuko is a super confident leader (maybe TOO confident sometimes, given that she has only been consistently leading trad for about a year!). I am often impressed as well. She lives in San Francisco and has a pretty hectic job there, and as such probably couldn't get involved in your program right now (although it does sound pretty cool). Regarding your previous ascent--is that 2 hours from the base, via the gully, to the summit, then 1 hour rappelling the route back to the base including downclimbing from the summit to the upper terrace (3 hrs round trip)??

thanks for the beta. I think it would be really cool to get some red rocks (and PNW) times compiled. if anyone has speed info & is willing to supply it, please post it here, or PM me, or send it to Bill Wright (his address is posted at speedclimbing.org). For this it is nice to have details (date, climbers, style of ascent, split times if you have em, url if there is a trip report somewhere, etc) so others get a sense of how it all worked out. I can understand that many people might not be into contributing to this sort of resource, which is cool too, but I thought it would be worthwhile to try.

Climb Black Orpehus, follow the descent down the 1st rapell, and climb/solo back up into the painted bowl via a very easy corner/chimney. You should see chicken lips from the top of the Black Orpheus. Black Dagger should be combined with Nightcrawler (you mixed up the name). It takes minutes to get from black orpheus to chicken lips and is infinetley better than doing solar slab or the likes. So, re: Have you actually done this link-up? I can see how Black Dagger and Nightcrawler could be combined, but getting from Chicken Lips to Black Dagger seems implausable. I was assuming that you were serious about this link-up (and about the times you just emailed) but please let me know if this is not the case.

Now that's more like it!! Are those your solo times? Also, how did you get down from Solar Slab so quickly?? Bill's page has an Epi solo ascent time of 1hr15min by Josh Schwartz, but there is no CTC time mentioned. How about some of the other classics--Cloud Tower, Crimson Chrysalis, Lev29, Black Orpheus to Chicken Lips, etc, etc?

Here is a nice meta-analysis on the topic; it compares the data from a few dozen different trials. (if that link doesn't work, try this one.) Regarding daily dosage for acetazolamide (trade name=Diamox), their analysis indicated that 250mg or 500mg per day is ineffective: "Acetazolamide was tested in nine trials with exposure above 4000 m (mean 4478 m (range 4000-5356 m)) and acute mountain sickness as an end point. Across all ascent rates, acetazolamide 750 mg was more efficacious than placebo (NNT 2-3). Acetazolamide 500 mg was not significantly different from placebo (NNT 7) (table 2). A recent article in the Lancet, however, addressed this point: "In one systematic review, acetazolamide was judged ineffective as a prophylactic at daily doses lower than 750 mg. [71] This claim runs contrary to clinical experience, and probably reflects the strict criteria for inclusion of studies in the review, and the fact that studies with different ascent rates were compared. Trials directly comparing different doses of acetazolamide in people at similar rates of ascent are needed to clarify this issue." This same article also addressed the limited research that has been done on Gingko: "Preliminary evidence shows that Gingko biloba has some prophylactic activity against AMS. During an ascent from 1800 m to 5200 m over 10 days, no person taking gingko extract at a dose of 80 mg twice daily experienced AMS, compared with 41% of people taking placebo.[77] Gingko 120 mg twice daily taken for 5 days before exposure reduced the incidence and severity of AMS during ascent from 1400 m to 4300 m over 2 h. [78] In a third study, gingko 60 mg three times daily, started 1 day before rapid ascent from sea level to 4205 m, compared with placebo, reduced the severity but not rate of AMS. [79] By contrast, gingko was no better than placebo in preventing AMS in trekkers ascending from 4248 m (BB, unpublished data). Gingko's effects may be due to its antioxidant activity. This concept is supported by data suggesting that ingestion of antioxidant vitamins may reduce the incidence and severity of AMS."

Yep, I didn't expect Bill to put our time on the site--I just emailed him to ask what a fast time might be. I did mention to him that our time is definitely a non-record; his reply was: "I feel that way about all of my times on my site. I just put them up there because I like the route and want to draw out the real records or motivate someone really fast to do it." We were NOT speed climbing by any means. We probably climbed slower than usual. What I found cool was that we cut out a lot of downtime, which made the climbing more fun. This led me to wonder what kind of speed would be possible. Hopefully by having Solar Slab at least on the list, people will be motivated to report what is really possible. Of course soloing a route versus doing it roped are different games and I think it is nice to know a time for each. If you know some fast times, email them to Bill!!

Thanks for the advice and beta (and if I ever meet 'em I'll keep an eye out for the dog) Out of curiousity, how do you get from Chicken Lips to Black Dagger (and how long does that take?) That must have been a pretty good day! Also if anyone knows some faster times for the routes I mentioned please respond! (probably almost everyone goes faster on epinephrine, I mean the other two). I emailed Bill Wright, who maintains www.speedclimbing.org , to see what sorts of times people have gotten. I'm sure that these routes could be climbed at least twice as fast while roped, even faster when soloed, and really really quickly if one were to run the approach & descent and have 'em dialed. It turns out that people have not submitted much info on red rocks times, so he put ours up there for now but it would be cool to get some real record times posted!

I just looked those up in Swain; continuing on Chicken Lips looks like an awesome link-up!! Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't done any of the routes mentioned, but Black Orpheus to Lips in particular looks hard to beat for a "full" day on the rock. This is now high on my to-do list. On the same topic, can any of you suggest some climbs in the PNW that would be good a next step? ie, fairly moderate stuff that is long, continuous and doesn't wander too much where we can get some more mileage with the relevant techniques. Being more the cragging type, I don't know much about the alpine rock routes in the area but I assume that there is some good stuff to try. The only local route I have heard of that really seemed to fit the bill was Slesse but it is probably out of my league for now.

Good points; Jtree is probably a better destination than I realize. I have only spent <2 weeks there total over 3 trips, and my biggest gripe is that I never get in as much climbing as I would like. This is in contrast to Red Rocks where it is easy to rack up a lot of mileage. eg do a classic 10-pitch route, and you automatically do 10 good, 100+ ft pitches in a day! Often I go on shorter trips and want to spend as much time climbing as I possibly can, which makes it difficult to get in the right mindset at a large and complex area like jtree. What I should do is hang out there for a while when I have a big chunk of time to relax & explore!

Thanks for the beta Matt, I'll give feathered friends a try. And I'm always down for more climbing; I may take you up on that offer at some point!! Mike

Can anyone recommend a Seattle-area store that has a good selection of aid/wall gear? And as a bonus, where the employees might be able to give useful advice? (On the short term, I want to grab some cam hooks and don't know if I should just see if REI has 'em.)

There are certainly a lot of routes at J-tree which feature only bolts for protection. However few of these qualify as sport climbs by any stretch of the imagination (eg 2-4 bolts in 100 feet isn't really "sport", it's more like "bolted trad"). Typically these routes are well protected at the crux, but with mandatory runouts on slightly easier terrain. I have heard that josh has quite a few "true" sport climbs in the 5.12 and up range; and I have personally done just a handful of such climbs in the 5.10 to 5.11 range. Below 5.10, I can't think of any routes I have done that would qualify. This is in contrast to the "outdoor climbing gym" areas at Red Rocks, with many crags featuring 20 or 30 tightly bolted routes all right next to each other. Here it is typically OK to fall on any route at almost any time. Some people may not be into this type of setting, but this is why I consider Red Rocks a sport climbing destination, but not J-tree.

Hey high-on-rock, how's it going!! It was pretty cool to run into somebody from Seattle up there. Did you manage to get any more climbing in during your trip? From what I heard, the weather deteriorated rapidly from Christmas on (ie the day after we left town).

Yes, Starbucks!! In Las Vegas, if you want coffee you have to take what you can get. It was a difficult decision, but we decided to go the conservative route and stay loyal to a Seattle-based company. Sending on the morning brew is a KEY part of any successful trip.

And just for kicks, here's a copy of the TR from my first stint in Vegas, almost exactly three years earlier! On this trip we ALSO did Olive Oil (in >15 hrs CTC...), and the first couple pitches of Solar Slab (in 16 hrs CTC......) Red Rocks winter 2000 trip report Reflecting back on these experiences, I feel confident stating that moving quickly is DEFINITELY more fun.

I went to Red Rocks about a week ago to do some longer routes. I originally posted this report to the UW climbers' forum; it was a fun trip so I thought I would post a copy of it here too. -------------------- I just got back from a short trip to Red Rocks. Yuko and I were around for four days, and climbed three of 'em. This developed as perhaps our laziest--and most productive--trip ever! Out of sheer decadence, we dropped $39 per night to stay at a hotel. And the big goal for the trip was to sleep in more. The system we implemented to accomplish this goal involved protected simul-climbing. After getting ~150' off the ground, the leader placed a tibloc oriented such that the rope could slide up, but not down. This would (theoretically) protect a second fall from pulling off the leader. The follower then started simul climbing, attached to the rope with a gri-gri but not tied in. This allowed the second to climb faster or slower than the leader, and throttle the rope length accordingly. When the second reached the tibloc, the leader placed another one higher up. Since we had 4 tiblocs and a 60m rope, we could climb a maximum of 1,000 feet per pitch before restocking the leader with gear. The leader had an 8mm trail line, which could be used both for rappelling and for pulling up more tiblocs or gear if necessary--to run pitches of theoretically infinite length. (additional notes: we used locking ovals with the tiblocs so they wouldn't hang up, and clipped the tiblocs short to avoid runner movement from being transmitted to the leader). Day 1: We woke up around 9am, and hit Starbucks. After coffee and muffins, we moseyed over to the loop road. We started climbing at 11:30am, and did Olive Oil (7p 5.7) in a single pitch. 1 hour 45 minutes later, we were on the summit! It was nice to hike out BEFORE dark for a change!! ~4 hours CTC. We even had plenty of daylight remaining to go check out the drive and approach for the next day's climb. Day 2: This time, we got up early--4:30am. The climb: Epinephrine (18p 5.9). Since we were climbing it on Dec 22--which happens to be the absolute shortest day of the year--we wanted to start up around first light. From our hotel it was an hour's drive to Black Velvet, and then about an hour's approach. We simuled parts of the beginning and end of the route, and did the famous chimney section in two 60m pitches. The chimneys took a long time to lead. They are fairly serious in terms of sustained difficulties with limited protection. We hauled both of our packs up the chimney section to make the climbing easier; the leader fixed the end of the lead rope while the second self-belayed with the gri-gri, so that the leader could haul the packs on a tibloc on our trail line without the second just sitting around doing nothing. Nonetheless, it still took us over 3 hours to climb these two pitches! Kind of slow when we only have 10 hours of daylight to work with. Accordingly we topped out right at dark (5pm), having completed the route in 7 pitches total, and had the 'pleasure' of doing the notorious descent by headlamp. We had some difficulty finding the start of the descent, but the rest of it went smoothly albeit slowly, because of the difficulty in staying on track. We got back to the car by about 11pm. 9.5 hours of climbing, 17 hours CTC. hmm... Day 3: Rest! Woke up at 1pm, got some food, saw the new Lord of the Rings movie, etc. It rained all night, making it seem unlikely that we would climb the next day... Day 4: Got up around 8am, and while it wasn't raining the ground was soaking wet. We hit Starbuck's, and did some last minute Christmas shopping at a couple of stores. By 10:00am the ground was still wet but there were some breaks in the clouds, so we decided to drive in and see if anything was dry in the Solar Slab area. After doing the approach we saw that the rock WAS fairly dry, and started climbing at 11:30am. We did Johnny Vegas (5p 5.7) in a single pitch; since the rock was still damp and some holds seemed brittle as a result, we climbed conservatively: 1h 30m to the terrace. We decided to keep going from there, and climbed Solar Slab (7p 5.6) in a single pitch, restocking the leader once via the haul line. This took 1hr 40m to the end of the technical climbing. 12 pitches in just over 3 hours! This was fun. We then rappelled the route (which almost took longer than climbing it...) and got back to the car just in time to avoid a ticket: 6h50m CTC. The simul-climbing worked like a charm. It eliminated a lot of downtime, so that we could spend our time climbing rather than hanging around at a belay stance for at least half of the time. We could then get away with bringing less stuff, and not get cold because we were moving constantly. And our long-route 'to-do list' now has a few more entries. With only 15 minutes required per pitch, a lot of longer climbs now seem more feasible!

Red Rocks has it all: steep sport, incredible multi-pitch trad, rad bouldering, a few classic aid routes, and warm weather. And if you never venture into downtown Vegas, it's even a reasonable town with a nice library, quality gear shop, and lots of cheap restaurants. J-tree is a good destination also, but tends toward rough rock with serious run-outs, and has little to offer beyond single pitch trad and highball bouldering. I like josh, but red rocks is the BOMB. From Vegas it's only 3.5 hours to Bishop, which offers even better weather. This area has a lot of bouldering, of course, but also killer sport at the Owens River Gorge. And Zion is only 3 hours away if you're into aid and want to be somewhere different for a few days. In the past I have occasionally hit several areas on the same trip. However I find that I have the most fun, climb more, and improve the most by sticking to one venue. At Red Rocks you could start out at a sub-maximal level to get used to the area, and work towards some of the famous classic routes that might push your limits near the end of the trip.

I just got back from a trip to Red Rocks myself! We did Olive Oil, Epinephrine, & Johnny Vegas/Solar Slab. On Solar Slab (afternoon of 12/24) we met someone from Washington who mentioned the Cascade Climbers website--was it one of you all?

Thanks for all the input! Here's an interesting article on the topic a friend sent me (it's from Will Gadd's website): article Even for jug hauls I think there is still a lot of technique involved. An example that comes to mind is a guy I knew in Chicago who used to be a 5.12 onsight climber, messed up his elbows and didn't climb at ALL for ~4 years. Then he joined some friends of mine on a trip to the red river gorge, where he decided to try a route--and totally walked a sustained 100' 5.11d endurance fest with no technical crux (it's called the Return of Chris Snyder for those interested). I had tried this route while in fairly decent shape and got completely shut down (half-dozen falls due to the pump!!) He was able to finagle a rest almost anywhere and pulled it off without trouble. Of course he probably had some residual strength from his past climbing, and as mentioned earlier: as long as technique doesn't suffer, it makes a lot of sense that more strength is always a good thing.

So would 5.12 be the point where strength becomes necessary? When I started climbing I was stronger (overall, and for my size) than I am now. And every time I have wanted to bump up my climbing grade, I initially thought that I would need to just get stronger. But moving to 5.9, then 5.10, then 5.11, seemed to involve a simple improvement in my footwork and sense of body positioning. So once again, I anticipate that if I want to move on to being comfortable consistently sending 5.12 or even 5.13 I will need to get stronger--and I am wondering if, once again, I can get there just through a better understanding of the subtleties of footwork & technique. I don't know many people who climb at this level so I don't know what to expect. But has anyone gotten up there and found a "limit of technique" where gaining physical strength is REALLY what is necessary to move on? I realize there is a mix of technique and strength that will be required at higher levels of climbing, and that certain types of routes will inherently require a lot of power. But at what difficulty (if any) does the "strength component" become overwhelmingly important???

Any thoughts on what difficulty level the average person can achieve before strength becomes important? Example: I have climbed with a dude who can crank out a couple of 1-arms but has trouble sending 5.10. Meanwhile another buddy of mine is not strong at all, but is motivated and has solid footwork: he onsights 5.12a. Basically I am wondering if training ever helps for climbing (more than just getting out and climbing some more!)--how far can ya go on footwork alone??

I have had the Salomon Function for several months, and they rule! Stable and comfy for longer approaches, & they climb well on moderate terrain. Plus only $35 at rei.com....

thanks Dr FA. I'll give it a try!

Could you fill me in on the beta, Dr Flash Amazing? I've been thinking about that route a lot, and hope to get on it again! Here's what I have in mind: left hand on 2nd bolt clipping hold, right hand low on the arete w/ right foot on the arete & left foot flagging a bit, move the left hand up to something, then bump the right hand up to the good pinch on the arete, maybe switch feet and then reach up left to the horn. Switch hands, and clip the bolt! How does this sound?

The climbing was definitely good. (incidentally the winery was good too--free alcohol!) I didn't know that a hold broke; where did this happen? The pitch grades on the Swain topo all seemed accurate.