ken4ord

The Cobra are great. They're light, swing good, decent spike, decent hammer. The adze are dangerous, so I just climb with hammers. The Quarks would be second, only complaints are they're little heavier and the spike is harder to plunge, but they swing real nice and they are solid. The Grivels are all right, I like they're picks a lot, not really a fan on how the swing and place.

Great slide show man, I had an awesome time. Hopefully all the comments that we had from our peanut gallery weren't too much. Really seeing those shots of Repentance and the Black Dike, sometimes I really miss the east coast. Can't wait to get on some of the stuff you showed from Wyoming. And all the old photos were really cool.

Good times last night. If you didn't make it, you missed out on one hell of a good show. It was great to see all the old images that he had from the early days of ice pioneers, awesome. Then seeing all the shit that is in his new guidebook too, damn made me ready to get on some ice. Hopefully we weren't to obnoxious last night during the slide show, Joe seem to be smiling about our antics. Our antics didn't stop there we ended up taking it to the streets and then hitting Los Lobos or someplace like that having a few more beers, not that we needed them.

It's not Laffy Taffy, but it's allong the lines Knock knock Cargo Cargo who? Car go beep beep.

Damn that is an awesome joke.

Well just don't do what this one ding-dong did that I interviewed and you should be all fine. First off looking at the guys resume, I was shocked 1. that HR even schedule him to come in for and interview 2. how crappy his resume was. First off on the top in bold it said resume, good thing cause I would have been able to figure it out on my own. It had his name and address, that was ok. He had three jobs listed that he had had years, company, position, no other information. He had his high school and college listed and no other information. He had three references name and phone number and guess what no other information. His resume consisted of 11 lines and plenty of whit space. At that point I figured I was wasting my time, but what the hell, we'll see. So I walk into the room and there he is sloached in the chair with jeans and t-shirt on (this is for a professional job mind you). He wave but doesn't make an effort to stand up and introduce himself or even shake hands. So since there was so little information on the resume the first thing we asked was for him to tell us a little bit about himself. "Well not much to say, I am microbiologist.....hmmm I play in a band.......hmmm that's it." I couldn't believe it. It just kept getting worse. On his resume it said he was still at his most recent job, but when he was talking about it he was talking in the past tense. So I asked him is he till working or what? He said that his last day was Friday before, but when talking to other people who interviewed him earlier he said that he was done the next week. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

An photo essay appolgy from half of the country to the world.

Very funny politcal commentary.

Specialed, did you get all worked up with Jeffy's little picture?

Gear fit nice right next to those draws.

The most efficient racking is where you have used most of the gear that was on the rack in the first place. In other bring what you need and no excess. That way your partner rack any damn way they please on the way up and you can do the same when you are seconding.

I have it and it sucks. You can do like someone suggested, extending the front points, but it really sucks and burn your calves pretty fast.

Damn, I guess we should of got a latter start. I would have liked to climb at Index.

It was pretty fun way to kill an afternoon. I got to try out three different leashless set ups. At first I wasn't sold on them, then when I started freaking around with them, matching hands, working in rests, swapping hands, I had fun with them. I would probably consider buying a leashless set up next time I buy tools. LaSportiva didn't get any boots there this time, but a Montrail guy showed up didn't get to try their boots out. They didn't have a good selection of crampons, I was sort of bummed about that because I am in the market for a new pair. The comp was fun, they made the expert climb much harder than last year. The only person to make it to the top was Will Gadd. Only one dude got past the roof most of us just were flailing below it. I guess they didn't have as much free booty as last year from what I heard, still handed out a pack, screw, headlamp, v-thread tool (I think I want to get one of those things looked real handy). The slide show mainly a lot of Alpental shots, and Canadian Rockies. I took my friend who was visiting from the East Coast to it, it was his first time freaking around with tool, he had a blast. Got brew and food with Danelle and Eddie afterwards. All in all a good time.

If you have stiff enough boots/bindings on the splitboard, you can ski down mellow terrain in skin mode. The plastic boots I use for splitboarding work pretty well for ice climbing, too. Quite stiff, crampon-compatible, rubber sole, but a lower cuff and not too much forward lean angle. I agree, I have a Split Board and it rocks. Good floatation, they climb really good with those big ass skins, it is pretty manageable put your board on your pack climb an ice route with it (within reason). The only downsides to Splits are; in hard pack conditions they have a bit of flex to them making them hard to edge and having to piece them together (not much of an issue once you get use to it though, now I can rearrange my board to whatever mode in the same time skier friends are dealing with their setup). Spits ski pretty decent, I have skied on pretty flat terrain with a 50lb sled behind me for 14 miles, downhill skiing with a split is sort of wobbly, but whats the point when you can ride downhill.

If you have stiff enough boots/bindings on the splitboard, you can ski down mellow terrain in skin mode. The plastic boots I use for splitboarding work pretty well for ice climbing, too. Quite stiff, crampon-compatible, rubber sole, but a lower cuff and not too much forward lean angle. I agree, I have a Split Board and it rocks. Good floatation, they climb really good with those big ass skins, it is pretty manageable put your board on your pack climb an ice route with it (within reason). The only downsides to Splits are; in hard pack conditions they have a bit of flex to them making them hard to edge and having to piece them together (not much of an issue once you get use to it though, now I can rearrange my board to whatever mode in the same time skier friends are dealing with their setup).

Climbing is always going to be there. So do other things while you got the chance. It blows that your injured, but make the best of it. There is more to life than climbing, not much more, but there is still other things to do. In the past I used the down time to read, check out music, smoke tons of dope, lift, ride my bikes, cook good food, hang with non climber friends that I would normally not see that often, go to movies, sleep in, go 4 wheeling, look for unclimbed cliff, hike, all things that go by the way side when I am climbing. Hell we live in a great city for stuff to do, go out and do it. Those are all the things that I have done when I blew out my knee, when I blew out my finger, and more recently when I sprained my foot and wrist this summer.

Idex looked a little damp on Sunday, but L-town was dry and we saw some sun too.

I had some fiends using long lines, all of them stopped because it was a bitch to haul up when the rope was all paid out. I guess you could always cut a 120 to make two 60's if you didn't like the long rope set up, but then you are left with two double that are the same color. From what I remember I think Sterling is going to be making an 8 something bicolor for the application you are talking about, that might be the way to go, if youwant to try it out, that way if you don't like the setup you can just go to two different color 60's.

I use Patagucci cappiline socks, they come in different thickness for different temp days. I can't stand wool, even if it is smart.

Did anyone ese get on this thing, or are you guys the onlys now?

I hear ya, I hope to stay away for the next several years.

I saw that one, believe or not that wasn't even the funniest scene in that show.

If you are saying you oppose locking biners on the rope end and then have locking biners opposed and connect to them for the rope to pass through you are not doing yourself any favor. What you have done is added two extra elements to your system that could fail, not that locking biners fail. My point is sometimes simpler is safer. The more complicated you make a system the more chances you create for error. If any of you can get a biner to disengage from a bolt with rope tension, then you have powers beyond mine for fuckin' up. For that matter if you can get the rope to dissengage from a set of correctly opposed draws on a top rope anchor, I suggest you give up climbing and take up water colors.

It is easy to replicate the gate opening by hanging on the draw and moving the draw by hand. It is extremely difficult to get the gate to open with rope tension. It is next to impossible to get the biner to unclip from the bolt with the rope tension. The two draw idea is dumb. The top draw biner get cross loaded, levered across the bottom biner, it looks like a good way of ruining your biners. Iann's got a real good point we should really practice safe climbing, locking biners on both ends of the draw or quick link. Where quick links have not had an offical study done in climbing application, I think we will all be safer with locking biners. Wait, I was just thinking climbing can be dangerous, stay home so that you do not risk injury.