matt_m

I've got one of the new CoVer ropes with extra wear resistance. Like it so far - low impact forces. Only been out a few times though. The old style (which can be found on sale right now - watch for them) handled great but didn't wear very well - much improved on the new design i'm told.

Damn - one last thing that these guys mention - Make sure you like the fit! If you don't you won't wear the the thing and then, what's the point? If you haven't noticed - I'm a helmet fan. I've just been involved in a lot of sports (Biking and Skiing specifically) where I once was a "Helmets are stupid" guy. BUT - I've had experiences wearing them that probably saved my life / kept me from being a veggie. Now I actually perform far worse if I don't have one (forgot the thing in another car etc) To each his own of course but I'm a big believer in them.

You need to be careful if doing this rig - the energy absorption in this type of helmet comes from the space between the webbing support and the top of the helmet - if your first aid kit is too large/firm it can transmit the impact force directly to your head essentially negating the helmet you're wearing.

I've got the HB Dyneema and it's great for long stuff - super durable and pretty comfortable. The elastic headlamp retaining system does leave something to be desired though. Check out the Elios as well if you're looking for a traditional hard shell helmet - the headlamp system Petzl uses is great. I've also just gotten myself one of the Petzl Meteors. The "bike helmet" climbing helmet. Wanted something super light for day trips and hot weather. I've got to say this thing is awesome. No headlamp support but man it's light and cool. Personal Rviews aside, are you looking to just get something on your head or for the "safest" helmet out there. I've been involved in a lot of discussion regarding helmets and safety and some interesting stuff has come up. Bottom line though is the soft shell foam helmets are generally going to provide you with the most protection but are the least durable. Hence my ownership of the Dyneema AND Foam meteor. Other info - UIAA certified is more stringent than the CE test (means less impact is translated to you head) good read HERE - PDF as well

PreCip - I'm on my second one... For occasion use - they rock. And at $99 or so - you don't sweat kicking them around like you would the Arc'tryx stuff. PreCip is my choice for everything you just described. Light, h2o proof for when things turn nasty and the soft shell doesn't cut it anymore.

So - I'm planning on trying to replace some old, sketchy anchors this summer and want to do it right. Where might I find that nice, ridiculously beefy chain that's on anchors at index like STP and Davis Holland? You know - the stuff that's like 1/2in plus and could hold a frigate. Very wear resistant. Put that stuff on some nice Fixe SS and you've got anchors that'll be good for quite some time.

Yep - own one. Placed maybe a half dozen bolts with it in granite. Nice and small. Can't imagine the pain in the ass the Hurricane drill is when you have to change out bits ( pecker has a quick release). Planing on replacing some scary bolts up at static sometime this year with it. Any requests? FWIW - Chris MAc and the ASCA crew have mentioned that for any hard core drilling effort - a Hurricane with a small sledge (bigger then a Yose Wall Hammer) is the way to go. check out their site for the details. For occasional replacement - Petzl is great edit: LEt me add to this a sec - The Hurricane has a full size bike grip that's huge. Great for long drill sessions. The Rockpec has a smaller grip that can get a little fatiguing or uncomfortable is long drilling sessions if you have big hands. Your pinky finger will ride on the collet area and top of the hand will be pressed against the rubber protection sleeve.

I think what's being asked here is if the leader takes a factor two onto the the anchors and the belayer is attached to the anchor via a homemade PAS, will that be considered strong enough... Short answer - NO Long answer - You shouldn't just be using as PAS, sling or daisy (worst) as your sole attachment point to an anchor. I use a PAS (strong) AND equalize with the rope in a simple 2 bolt setup common around here. I could go on and on about different ways to build and attach yourself to an anchor but the bottom line is to have some sort of redundancy if at all possible. Now this question does lead one to focus on the great issues at hand... Factor 2s on the anchor are BAD. We're talking REALLY REALLY bad. It's the place where gear can be stressed at it's maximum and thus closest to its breaking point. It is very important for the leader to place a piece of protection quickly after leaving the belay. Some of my more terrifying moments have been on runout slab 20+feet above the belay looking for the bolt. Not as much because of the fall but of the fact that I'd be hitting the belay HARD. Not fun. Petzl had a brief article on other risks associated with falls close to the belay. Petzl Belay Info Only thing they kinda dance around is the higher forces associated with the grigri but apparently, the thing starts slipping (more dynamic) around 4.5kn. Summary - Factor 2s onto the belay are one of the worst things you can do in climbing. Protect yourself (leader) properly ASAP. Use strong and redundant connections to the belay (belayer) and be aware of the high forces you could encounter. I know I'll get some flack for this BUT - Daisies are for personal connivence only - if you like to use an adjustable connection as part of your anchor - like myself - go get a PAS - they're just better for what most people do with them.

You read stuff like this and start figuring out how much to put aside now for your return to gear slut-dom later.... http://rockclimbing.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=61432 Already have a plan for my Helium upgrade too...

So as part of my semi-wasted weekend - I stopped into the REI insanity and checked out the DMM cams they now carry (Seattle). Man they're nicely put together and sick light. Too bad I have too much gear already - except in the TCU category. I've got one set of Metolius TCUs to orange but was wondering if people had experience with the DMM ones. They seemed to have smoother action and are definitely lighter. Only concern was the metal bar getting in the way. thoughts? and yes I realize that REI only has the 4CUs - I'd find the TCUs somewhere else. Ever in search of more stuff....

You in a white car? Not with a girl - but he's got long hair and it'll be great for mocking him when I see him next if it was you! I was in the green subaru...

Most of us VW Bremerton people are still looking for the magical West Side crag - i'd heard rumors about the quarry too - haven't looked into it though. Is it worth a local clean up effort/befriending?

Yep - After nixing Squamish because of partner malfunctions (read - I malfunctioned and could go!) The plan was index on sunday - but the weather looked iffy so last minute we changed to Lworth (Sunny glorious east side right?_ Nope - comming over Blewett pass is was just horrible. I'm not talking the light misty shit that seattle gets and everyone calls rain. I'm talking ACTUAL manly drops of rain like you get back east - things that require fast wiper settings to avoid rear ending the car in front of you. Needless to say - BAD. Drive through town and see a lot of climber looking types eating B-Fast in the various waffle establisments. Again, not good. Hmmm - what might me dry? Yep - same thought - Drip Wall because it over hangs and I'd stayed dry in a light rain (Misty Seattle Style) back in april. Making the hike up (almost took a slide into the road off the slick slab at the start - yeah, THAT'S a good sign) it's full on wet jungle. Get to the wall and it lives up to its name. Bah! Time to go. On the way back down I pass a party on the way up (TimL? no idea) with the same thoughts as me - wished em luck and we bailed. Back to the car - sunlight is showing back in icicle - heavenly looking we rush over there. Past the bakery, road looks dry, sun is shining. Sweet. Keep driving trying to scope the "driest" area. By 8 mile things turn bleak again so we pull the U turn and park in snow creek. Careno looks like the best chance. Racking in the parking lot - the sun is COOKING me - i mean full 70+ HOT feeling. Sweet I think - gonna be a good day. We get to the base around 11:30 (having rolled into town around 9! - bleh) Rack up below Bale/Kramar since it looks DRY. Right before we get on it - RAIN - not a lot but enough for me to curse several times and long for a good badminton match - ANYTHING that'll be dry and get my heart rate above 65! Wait - Wait - rain stops and sun is back! "Let's Go!" Next 3 pitches are dry and glorious. Mmmm Warm granite. The 3rd pitch crack gives me a little trouble (first real pitch of the day and man that sucker is barn-doory) Get it no problems once i get a placement and am finally smiling as my buddy cleans the pitch. Racking up he's scoping the 4th and heads off - Clips the first bolt and its starts raining AGAIN! "I'm going for it!" he yells, "There's no way were getting shut out of this" So off he goes as the rain continues, light but steady. I clean it climbing some seriously wet rock. Rap down and get ready to say f-it. But wait! Out come the sun to dry up all the rain. So we rap to the base of Nubbin Grubin and sure enough, it's dry. Climb on. We both got it clean on TR (Could've led it but we wanted to be able to bail fast if rain came again) Rapped to the base ready for more when.... Yep - skies open up - East Coast style. shove the gear in the packs and book-it back to the vehicle. Bah! That's it - Mc Ds is calling. We roll into L-town and grab some McNuggets while we dry out. Just as we throw out the trash and walk outside it clears up again! Beautiful and sunny. I've never had such a blue-balled climbing day! Sure enough - as we roll past North Bend on our way home - It's gloriously sunny and warm. What a perfect climbing day.... SOMETHING BETTER BE DRY NEXT WEEKEND!

Yeah - thin fingers is actually that near the bottom of the crack but it rapidly opens up to nice hands. Uhmm - P1 of Jap Gardens is not 5.9 - Going to the intermediate rap anchors is 5.9+ I'd venture. Going all the way to the top of P1 is 11c (I think the lower 11b crux in the cramer book is actually harder and i think the 11b crux on the full Sagittarius is harder still) that said the mid anchor on Jap Gardens is great lieback crack practice - won't get you ready for thin fingers though.

Set WC Rocks Set Metolius Nuts Set DMM Peanuts Set BD Micros Set DMM Micros Needed - Set HB Offsets Aliens, 1 ea, Blue to Red (Including the new Gray) Offset Aliens Blu/Grn to Yl/Red TCU, 1 ea,, 00 - 3 BD Micros .1-.4 (Don't use much) BD Camalots .5, 2x .75 - 3 , 3.5, 4, 4.5 WC Tech Friends 1 ea, 1, 1.75, 2 - 3.5, 6 WC Forged Friends w/Gunks Rig 1 ea, 2 - 4 Valley Cam #9 & #12 Big Bros - 3,4 Ball Nuts - 1 Set Tricams - pink - blue (1st four) WC Hexes w/ Dyneema - 6-10 ( i think) Heliums on Rack #1 soon Neutrinos on current rack 6 Draws 6 "Triple Draws" with the new WC 10mm Dyneema - awesome! 6 2' Runners I love the fact that I can go Euro with WC or American with BD - Also good because I can do the mental color switch smoothly in my head... Sad though - I'm running out of stuff to buy!

really close together only one anchor clipped. shadetree welded ring bullshit. virtually non serviceable biners. real hard to clip directly to hanger. in summary: dinner plate fish dance dirt napper gear. Those rings are rated to like 3400lbs - not too shabby. Agree on the non-serviceable biner part Best anchors out there are stainless fixe hangers with quicklinks into those really big links of chain - ala the stations on STP, upper walls, index Anyone know where to find chain that big? gonna do some anchor replacement this summer...

Good stuff. I have Greens, Blues a set of customs for my boots and some cork ones for my ski boots (these are essential - wouldn't ski without them) Be sure to try them on with your shoes though as the superfeet raise your heel a bit depending on color thus affecting the all important heel cup fit.

just saw the new suunto x9 with built in gps - sweet! now all i need is one with a HR too and i can tell where exactly in the time space continuum my HR redlined and at what elevation ACtually - for altitude and general cardio training - this coupled with a PC interface would be an amazing training aid

I'd go with the reversino sadly - or amazingly - I will soon own enough gear to have specific, separate caches for each area i climb in red rock long routes (Black Velvet etc) ICe line and reversino Index lower wall - 70m and atc xp gunks - tricams, forged friends, double 8.6 ropes yosemite - offset aliens, etc etc the list goes on an on

Might be Delicious Dimples which really links up some of sparrow and an older croft route (name escapes me) one or two moves in a channel makes it 10c - but its not very sustained.

Climb: Squamish-Blazing Saddles, Borderline, Great Game et al Date of Climb: 4/24/2004 Trip Report: Since I love the place and I've got another 20 minutes till my graphics finish rendering - Here's another TR... Squam is in kids! And I'm not talking wandering around the Smokes excited 'cause it's a little dry. I mean A LOT of stuff is already coming into climbing shape. Sat partner (Ryan T) and I headed up to the Sheriff's Bade to check out Borderline and Blazing Saddles. Border line was first... The 1st 10b pitch was cool starting off a nice ledge and traversing up the wall left, giving you exposure right off the deck. Some face climbing past the two bolts (all VERY new - Squam has some of the best anchor stewardship around - the locals get major props for taking pride in their cliffs - drop some $$ into the bolt fund if they still need it - otherwise - drop a thank you at the shops for all the good work) Anyway - first pitch is pretty cool leading up to a belay in a corner. Ryan led up the second pitch and STYLED the 11c roof variation. Cool stemming and pumpy laybacking will get you though the roof. Calfs burning I followed the thing clean, although it was touch and go for a bit. Pitch 3 heads out left past a series of bolts with climbing similar to Cruel Shoes. Pull over a lip into an awesome finger crack for another 80 feet or so. Long. Sustained. Awesome. P4 is shorter and pulls a cool roof at 10a ish. That was supposed to be the top of the route but there were bolts above breaching a overhang into a WIDE offwidth. Off I went. First reaction was "No way this roof/offwidth is going at less than hard 11" but Ryan called me out and I found the right sequence and pulled ridiculous moves up and around. More face climbing and bolts leads to a ledge above. You can continue up some ledge along a fixed line, joining with Angels Crest or rap - We rapped down to the start of Blazing Saddles and fired up that 2p as well. Again - amazing climbing with one of the coolest roof moves around - stellar! Do Not miss. Both of these had some foliage and I gardened a little but as things dry out they'll just get better and better. Day 2 - The Squaw The plan for the day was to do as many of the classic 10s over there as we could. Starting with the Great Game. Ryan led up P1, a slanting finger crack ala Exasperator to straight up hand jamming. Man that pitch was pumpy! Not feeling "in the zone" like I was on Sat - I wussied out and just led p2 instead of linking it though p3 (10d). Build and natural anchor right below the dihedral (Very much like Anxiety State). In retrospect - build the anchor probably isn't a bad idea since the rope drag might get you near the top of the dihedral. 2 hard moves near the very top (bolt) gets you to the next anchor below the "reachy" final pitch. I guess it could be reachy for those under 5' 6" but really it wasn't bad - Bomber hand hold pull you through overhanging flakes to a great exit ramp. Walk off the back side to the base. Great Stuff. Next we wanted to start on Birds of Prey and check out Right Wing (There was a party suffering on Pipeline - very cool - I'll do that later this year!) Leading up the LONG .8 P1 I was scoping out right wing - Sadly it still looked wet and dirty - man I want to climb it - may have to garden later this year. Anyway - ran it up to the base of the 10b corner on B of Prey and we finished up that route. We opted to to hoof it down to the car in the apron to either meet up with our buds or do another route - Beer and food won out in the parking lot battle though and we sat scoping routes for out next trip as the sun set on the walls. Good Times, Great Days and Awesome Climbing pics to follow at some point... Edit - Further info gathered tells me the bolts were all original put up by the FA - Seattle-ites all of them - so good job to the locals down here as well. (See addendum in 2001 guide) Approach Notes: Still "Early" Season for Squam so expect some dirt, wetness etc in some of the Cracks - Don't wussy out though - Games on in Squam

When I was up there - the crack wasn't wet but it had some dirt in it - made the off finger that much harder - tried to clean it out a little on the way down but a good brushing is probably due Lovin Arms was a little wet 2 weeks ago before you got to the chimney - not bad. I love index - just need to keep goin there to get stonger! more than willing to help keep stuff clean - just need to get there more so i can explore the other routes luckily - i've got a few friends that are dying to get on things like swim, STP etc - all those upper wall route look awesome - jsut need to be climber to be cleaned!

Climb: Leavenworth - Rattlesnake Rock and Drip Wall-Various Date of Climb: 4/17/2004 Trip Report: Chasing good weather but wanting to keep granite flecks in my bloodstream - the crew headed to Leavenworth. I usually have mixed feelings about L-worth - I love the town and location but often feel like I'm being teased. You often hike a nasty trail (notable exceptions of course) to get 3 decent climbs before you repeat the process. Obviously, Snow Creek and Castle (Midnight etc) provide bang for your buck but Castle looked swamped and Midnight is closed right now. What to do? "Hey, have you guys been to Rattlesnake Rock?" Nope = so off we went. Did almost everything there - cool, cool place. Sport climbing routes from 10a to 12 something on featured rock. The rock was a little mossy in places but Rock n' Rattle and the 11a to the left were personal favorites with amazing yellow rock and great moves. Packing up for the day we browsed the book and noticed Drip Wall - Stout but with a short approach we planned to check it out the next day. Park in the small pull out river side just down river from the dam. Approach is straight up the slabs in front of you till the trail appears. 10 minutes and you're there. This place is amazing! Streaked, over hung granite with a waterfall at one end. Some of it is a little damp right now but things on the right in the book are good to go. No pictures (forgot camera this trip - doh!) but those who want some hard amazing climbing owe it to yourself to check it out. There are a bunch of route to the left (Still wet) that look amazing and hard - anyone know about them? One project looks SICK! So I'm psyched because I know there's good hard craging in L-worth. Good times Gear Notes: Draws - 10 to 12. One or two long ones. 60m rope. Camera! Approach Notes: Rattlesnake isn't bad right now - it'll get worse as it dries out. Drip wall is a "new" trail so stay on it if you can so it cuts in properly - also, some blow down near the top that a sierra saw would do wonders to clear up.

Climb: Squamish-Angels Crest, Peasants Route et al Date of Climb: 4/10/2004 Trip Report: Awesome weather lead me and many others up to Squam last weekend. Sat. we got on the Apron early to get some "first of the year" outdoor pitches in. Ran up a climb called "Delicious Dimples". Heads straight up of the ledge right of Diedre crossing Banana Peel and incorporating two other routes pitches (Need to go look them up...) Well bolted and newly scrubbed - Good stuff. A little bit of a squeeze but the "dimples" stuff was fun. Down to the car, ran to Climb On to grab some offset aliens (in stock!) then right back to the base of the grand. Saw one party just heading up the Split Pillar but we were there to do some of the lower classics I had not done yet. Exasperator had a friendly group on it so we jumped on Peasants Route per their recommendation. Good two pitches - clean with good thin corner climbing. One or two damp spots but nothing to fret over. 2 raps with a single 60m. There's a bolted line on the arete just right of the route that looked interesting and not all that hard but Exasperator was free so it was time to step up. I'd been wanting to get on this climb since my first time in squam last year but never did for various reasons (Grand Wall and Cruel Shoes twice including being at the base of the split pillar and watching David G fall to the ground) Anyway, partner led to the first anchors and gets pumped out of his mind - I lower him clean the gear to the 1st bolts. Next pitch worked me for all it's worth - man those are thin finger pockets! 10c! Hell - I thought the Grand was easier than that. GREAT CLIMBING THOUGH - Bring small TCU (00,0,1) and small nuts - #1 camalots for the top. Ran back to the car and then back to the Apron for a fast run up Diedre - Soloed the first two pitches them simuled past a cool party (thanks for letting us pass!) through the dihedrals. Never done Diedre but it seemed like a low angle version of Unfinished Symphony's two 10d pitches - Good Stuff! Day Two - Angels Crest. Leave the apron parking lot around 9:20am and start heading up trail off the road. Soon discover (like many I'm sure) that we took one trail too early and so got to check out the base of the Sheriff as we hiked to the buttress start. 4th class to the start ledge and start everything off with a cool Tree shimmy. The 10a traverse was great and everything was DRY. Several more pitches of good climbing (green as the book says but adventuresome and fun nonetheless) brings us to the forest below the 1st raps. The trail splits right and left - go left - right just cliffs out. Climb along the ridge with great views into North Gully and down onto the sound. Finish up with an awesome top out and then for fun we ran down the backside trail (gets us to the pub faster!) Approach Notes: DON'T try and descend the North Gully - Friends of ours did it the day before and said it's a bona-fide death gully - way worse than it used to be. took them 5 hours or so!

Going to have to second this - I've used, abused and loved both Sportiva also has jsut introduced a low top G-tex approach that's caught my attention