chris_stolz

so it's summer, you are cragging, and you are wearing underwear underneath your shorts/pants and your harness. this is a recipe for foul sweaty balls and waste of moisture that should be going into muscles. commando all the way!

well if anybody finds an entire rack of Camalots, new rope, and Takemine EN-10C guitar for sale in Mt Shasta area, do give me a buzz. I have a crowbar that's been begging to get out at a certain set of kneecaps...

Yea, I think Fern and I got the first ascent of the Happy Boy curtain at WI4 or so. It went something like this: Fern: "I'm not leading that. But I want to climb it." Chris: "Well my crampons are iffy, my picks are loose, it's late, we have no idea what's up there or how hard it is." Fern: "Hm. I guess." Chris: "Plus I'm a massive f*cking pussy, might have to bail, leave a screw, etc." Fern: "Your screws are crap. Old school. $30 to replace. Big deal." Chris: "OK fine but overall it's best not to climb it." Fern: "Sure, I suppose..." [long pause while climbers stare at lovely curtain of WI4] So we climbed it. Aside from my crampons almost falling off and my ancient Pulsar folding like a well-lubricated Swiss Amry knife in the crux, it was fine. Moral of story: if you climb with Fern, she will uhhh subtly ah um "encourage" you on. We are working on a name for this route-- perhaps "Fern 1 Reason 0"? ;-) of course I had to buy her some pie after. I mean, she was prepared to drag my carcass out of there and all.

No but you can run both of those on hydrogen (water plus electricity). You can reform methane into more complex hydrocarbons with electricity. You can run either on biofuel right now. You can make oil from coal for $60 a barrel. And there's lots of coal. You want to talk EROEI? On biofuels - 1.33 for ethanol from corn. 1.92 for biodiesel from soy. I haven't seen the figures yet for non-foodstuff crops but it makes way more logistic sense. China has a lot of food waste. Peak oil is a religion to some people but the idea that the is laughable. Scarcity is the most efficient motivator there is for innovation. The sooner oil peaks the sooner there will be serious $$$ put into replacement energy sources. Even right now at $60 a barrel there is little incentive... which is why OPEC has worked the price of oil back down to $60 from $80. And look for it to drop further. Problems with the "scarcity makes innovation" theory: as energy costs rise, so do developmental costs. Look at the issues in the Alberta tar sands. Every developer there-- without exception-- has seen their costs TRIPLE in the last three years, and this has resulted in only marginal improvements in output. Second, easiest problems are solved first (in all fields of human endeavour; there are no exceptions to this rule) and so the kind of EROEI we get from oil, n.g. and old now-mined easy-to-access coal deposits are never going to be found again. Your correct assertion that there are positive EROEIs for some non-fossil-fuel sources however fails to take into account the fact that these EROEIs are way too low to run anything like industrial civilisation. You had EROEIs of between 10 and 15 during the height of western economic expansion. 1.33 or whatever you get from solar simply won't cut it; even if we could run stuff on 1.33 we would have very, very low-tech world. You can google this topic for much more detailed stats. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source-- all known methods of making hydrogen have negative EROEIs. Show me some stats that prove otherwise. Methane-->hydrogen--> energy = massive loss of potential energy each step fo the conversion, mostly cos you need to use electricity to do this! You *cannot* make oil from coal for $60/barrel equivalent, unless...oil and natural gas are so cheap that it wouldn't be worth it. Coal EROEI, true, WAS over 10 historically, but this has massively dropped due to the easy-to-find stuff being mostly mined out. If China could replace oil with coal, why did they a) sign the biggest business deal in human history with the IRanians for natural gas and oil development projects (I think this one, form last year, is worth about $500 billion)? b) sign about a million memorandae of understanding with every "Stan" country and with Russia about oil development? c) Buy a Canadian oil company and pipeline? d) block any US sanctions of iran for nuclear weapons? e) back every horrible African dictatorship (including Sudan) with whom they also seem to have oil agreements? Coal-- even if it were cheap and abundant enough, which it isn't-- coudl nevr be a mass energy source, as it is too polluting to work in urban areas. note that scrubbed coal EROEIs are around 3-- this is far too low for most uses. Cool when was the last time climbers talked about this?

Coal? Fusion? You think you are gonna run a jet or a logging truck on electricity? You're gonna replace (relatively) clean oil and n.g. with coal? You know, there's a reason why there are laws in most of the industrialised world prohibiting use of coal for heating. You coudl also go to Beijing and see for yourself. I have yet to see a fusion reactor come even close to anything like productivity. Fusion has been "25 years away" ever since I was ten. Ever heard of E.R.O.E.I.? Energy returned on energy invested. You spend more than the energy equivalent of one ton of coal to extract a ton of coal, you stop extracting coal, NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE. The EROEI of every major energy source in the world is in massive decline. In 1950, you got 100 barrels of oil for every barrel you spent exploring. In 2003 it was 3; in 2004 (data suggests but isn't conclusive yet) it was 1. Your oil stocks are going through the roof partly cos supply now matches demand and cos it is chepaer to buy oil somebody else has already found than to drill for it yourself. You think the Chinese are going to run an economy on coal shipped from Australia? The good news about "peak oil" is that it will (hopefully) slowly stop Chinese genocide and the elimination of a very, very sophisticated Buddhist culture which took about 1400 years (in Tibet) to develop insights which the Western world is still trying to catch up with. Unfortunately-- as the US presence in Iraq suggests-- when the energy crunch comes, we don't get rational and cut back and plan to downsize. We fight for what's left. Hopefully the Chinese don't find oil, or cheap coal, in Tibet. My guess is they will slowly find reasons to pull out. Most of Tibet is a desert, high, cold and kinda miserable. A good place for monasteries, yaks, meditating and the occasional massive liquor bender. In a future which is absolutely going to be lower tech than the present, and free of things like antidepressant pills, factory meat, Internet shopping, free universal health care, etc etc, we are gonna need all the low-tech wisdom we can get our grubby little hands on. You can spend hundreds of dollars a year curing your depression or work stress or poor life choices with pills, or you could practice meditation and cure it for pretty much free. You can eat shitfood and f*ck your body up, or you could learn to grow herbs and decent veggies or your own chickens, and live with less. I hate to ever imagine there are "solutions" to problems, but one thing is for sure-- if we were a little more Buddhist (and Tibetan economically) we could be happier, and live more sanely. I mean, when you die, what are you going to remember on your deathbed-- your SUV? Shopping? Your granite countertops and your Creuset cookware?

Hm. Squamish has, what, 1500 climbs in the McLane guide, another 500 or so in the sport climbing guide, at least 500 boulder problems...and you still stuck around Murrin?

Nothing we can do is going to stop the Chinese f**ing with the Tibetans. I was there; the Chinese are the world's worst environmental stewards, period, and that's 1/2 our fault 1/2 theirs. The Chinese who are sent to Tibet are soldiers, Communist Party functionaries and riff-raff from the rest of China (Tibet is considered a backwater and the government has to pay people to move there) ie not the most enlightened of the general population. The good news? The Chinese economy, like that of the U.S. and Canada, is utterly dependent on oil, the production of which has probably peaked. As oil production declines, life is going to get harder and harder for the Chinese. Tibet-- which has been raped of its natural resources, mostly forests, freshwater and some agricultural land in the East, and some minerals-- is going to be low on their list of problems to deal with once the sh*t hits the fan. The Chinese who live in and around Lhasa live in an economy which is heavily subsidised by the State and by oil. They eat food which is imported or grown in heated greenhouses, they drive cars, and their culture is TV watching. The Tibetans, on the other hand, live more-or-less sustainably, eating yak products, barley, and root vegetables, and having had the luck of having Buddhist anti-materialist philosophy pounded into their heads, making them somewhat less acquisitive than their Chinese feudal lords. As life gets tougher, they will be able to live on the land, while the Chinese are going to find that their tacky CK knockoffs, fake Rolexes, cell phones and expensive imported vegetables are no longer part of a functional way of life. The Dalai Lama, pace Moses, might not live to see it, but his kingdom is going to be OK, though worse for CHinese wear. The Chinese, on the other hand, are f**ked.

black velvet approach is more like 20 min but yes, it's cool esp. the routes at the back past epinephrine. you can also do cartwright corner, or chocolate flakes, or many routes in icebox canyon. if tis really hot and you liek to clip bolts, go to mt charleston. it is going to be a total massive bummer to hear this but...you won't be able to climb at The Gallery in Sept. i am sure this will ruin your trip. ;-) buy the roxanna brock guide, NOT the swain (falcon)-- she has better topos etc and way more routes.

OK. well you want to drive in there later in day (ie around 4) cos i think they stop logging at 3:30 or so. or do it ona weekend. get the key. drive up the main road, through active cable site and old camp, and keep going. cross bridge, turn left, and you end up at the end of the valley where you can see Les Cornes, Stenbok etc. park at an obvious pullout of right. follow the alder-full road along the valley floor. you could take the right-hand option (you see this in the mclane guide as a massive switchback below les cornes), or just go striaght, and when you are across the valley below les cornes, drop down across the creek (thrash) and approach up along first old growth and then talus. once you get there, it is fairly easy to follow: the valley is open and you can see where you are going.

OK folks. Don Serl and I cleaned this route today, fixed bolts, moved a belay etc. Thanks to Don who did most of the drilling and to Peder Ourom for lending us the drill. We removed one belay (but left one of its bolts) which lengthens one of the pitches and we now have belay-protector bolts on two pitches. Yes, it's still run-out and intense! -- gear 6 draws and a .75 or .5 camalot. -- Approach as for Snake, then scramble up right to a ledge after top of v-groove. -- climb 1st pitch of Dream On-- the right-most route-- (10a) past 3 bolts to chains. P1-- step right past gear placement, tricky move onto slab, up past 3 bolts to belay (10a/b) P2-- loooong 10b pitch straight up. P3-- crux #1: straight up 11a? P4-- crux #2: step/mantle up and right (small nut or #00 Metolious says Don, I don't believe him), hard left traverse then up (11b) P5-- easy 5.8/9 up to chains P6-- 5.5 to broadway Also thanks to the Access Society for getting folks out to Murrin on Sat. (If every climber in Vancouver or Squamish cleaned ONE old pitch every TWO years, we would have 200 more routes to climb!) chris

Hey Squamish friction junkies-- In the spirit of Adopt-a-Crag, Don Serl and I are going to scrub and replace bolts on Dancing in the Light this Sunday (10th sept). We will be starting at about 10:00 A.M. so you would probably want to not climb the route that day as you will be going around two guys and their ropes etc. chris

Hey Squamish friction junkies-- In the spirit of Adopt-a-Crag, Don Serl and I are going to scrub and replace bolts on Dancing in the Light this Sunday (10th sept). We will be starting at about 10:00 A.M. so you would probably want to not climb the route that day as you will be going around two guys and their ropes etc. chris

Yeah, we met Kai Hirvonen and CAtherine Fraser who were doing that. They said it included two low-angle death pitches (ie climbing on granola) and then one of the finest alpien pitches ever, a left-facing version of the Split Pillar.

I did this one with Merran Fahlman yesterday. Awesome but McLane's guide can be updated, so here's the scoop. APPROACH ETC -- there is a gate now at 6 km as well as at the logging camp. If you are planning on riding your mtnbike in there, budget more food and two extra hours. or call Cattermole and get the key. ALso if you mtnbike make sure you got good brakes. -- you can't drive along the 610 branch, as it will trash your vehicle. park just off mainline -- do NOT follow the righthand option to approach les cornes off the 610. Much better: walk straight in on main road until you are at a point directly opposite to the old growth which extends down from below Les Cornes. Thrash dwon through the replanted clearcut and cross the creek for 15 min., then up through the old growth (easy). The righthand option works, but it's heavy alders and is much longer -- there is no water on the route or on approach above the creek. THE CLIMB -- is 11 pitches, not 18, if you have 60 m ropes. -- is 5.11a on crux not 10c, but easily aided (crux is something like Kangaroo Corner in Smoke Bluffs) -- needs set of nuts, 2x camalots from .5-#2, 1x #3 & #4, #5 if you are a chicken, also long slings, 2 60m ropes -- P1-5 follow the ramp system, and when in doubt stay generally to climber's left. End of P5 cross to right of ramp (easy slab; no pro) belay at base of nice straight-in grey 5.9 corner (all 5.7-5.8; terrible rock on first 3 pitches; run each pitch to full 60m; lots of spots to belay) -- P6 climb corner, head left along off-width with the odd grunty move, belay at base of orange wall (or 10m below at blocks in exposed cool position). -- P7 climb amazing overhanging blocks, a short nasty off-width (look around...) and hand/fistcrack; belay on nice ledge (short pitch) 5.10c? an amazing pitch -- P8 head up finger crack or right up flake then back left, traverse across left to 2 tree ledge. -- P9 the crux-- 15m of VERY sustained 11a technical stemmingup and right of two tree ledge. lots of small nuts. easily aided. continue above in obvious 10a cracks until a bolted belay is reached rightwards in a fine position --P10 up and generally right past a short lieback to a belay above a chimney -P11 bouldery fingerlock start then shoot straight up to top of arete (a rope stretcher) DESCENT -- au cheval is fine but scary -- don't do final tower; head down to climber's left at first notch -- 2 60m raps into gully -- descend ~100m, take descender's left option at two gullies, some 4th class downclimbing to slings -- 60 m rap off end of rope -- ~40 m rap -- downclimb ~50m -- 10m rap -- this has REALLY SCARY loose rock. if you are climbing with or you meet another party, do the descent as one party, as you can easily kill people with accidental rockfall (I nearly did); alternatively wait till others are WAY out of the way before descending).

yeah, the last move is way way harder than 10c.

OK. Here's one from the campfire. Back in the day, in the Valley, if somebody died on a route, they would unofficially close the route for a year. So this guy dies by decking onto a ledge and a year later, Yvon Chouinard and [insert name] go up to get the body/skeleton/whatever. It is Chouinard's lead and he works his way up to the huge ledge on which the body is supposedly laying. Chouinard pulls the mantle, disappears, and the rope stops moving. There is silence for many minutes. Finally, "F**k!" comes Chouinard's voice. "What's up?" yells the belayer. "His jacket's a size too small!"

I was just there. If it was baking hot in the sun, the shady routes were perfect. On cool days,you follow the sun. And since there are about five billion routes there, you should have no trouble finding places to climb. You can get a mini guide for Castle Rock at the Almo visitor's center (Yaniro's Splitter 5.11a looks stunning-- we got rained off at the base, argh). I would recommend getting the full guide, not the mini version, for Cty of Rocks itself. chris

The belayer was not wearing a helmet. They were on a route just to the right (I think) of Jello tower. the route was left of Angel (10b) and right of Canary (5.8). They said it was a 5.7 or so. I read somewhere that there is actually about 18 litres (!) of blood in the human body. Whatever-- get a serious cut on your head and you bleed quite quickly. I have now seen two accidents (involving experienced climbers), and both involved serious head injuries. One person decked; the other caught the rope with his foot and got flipped and had his head pounded. I always wear a helmet now. I got a Petzl Meteor. It is so light you don't feel it, and it is well ventilated. I take it off at belays when it's hot. No, I am not a sponsored climber or Petzl rep. As nearly as I can tell, they call them "accidents" cos they happen despite the best planning and precaution. And since, at the BEST of times I have only one brain, I am gonna keep it in a nice safe place. I should also have added in my initial post that the Leavenworth Sheriff's Office and the Fire Dept. were very fast and very professional in their response-- good job, folks. chris

I'm posting this on rockclimbing.com and gripped.com as well. On Monday Aug 31 two climbers were beginning the route Midway (5.7?), off Logger's Ledge, at Castle Rock near Leavenworth, WA. The leader (experienced) climbed about 15 feet up, realised he was on the wrong route, attempted to install pro, and, when he could not find pro, tried to downclimb, and slipped. He decked, and his belayer caught him (and was knocked down), but the leader smashed the back of his head on the rock. Blood was gushing out of his head. The belayer had a seriously broken finger and probably a concussion-- he was incoherent for about half an hour, sick etc and basically unable to move. My partner and I found them a few minutes later. We stabilised the leader and manageds the bleeding, my partner went for help, and we helped the Sheriff's Office and the Fire Dept in getting these guys off the exposed part of the ledge and down to the ambulance. We also received assistance from another party who luckily were certified in wilderness first aid. Both climbers survived. The leader has written with some info about what happened. So we can all learn, here is the gist of his info. 1) He wasn't wearing a helmet. 2) He had not installed pro on an "easy" (for him) section of rock (probably 5.5 or so). 3) The doctor told him he would have died of bleeding if we hadn't helped, as the volume of blood loss was really high. Imagine three or four two-liter jugs of tomato juice, and you have an idea of the volume of blood loss. The accident had temporarily rendered his belayer unable to hlep him. 4) He was off-route and it was baking hot (slippery). 5) The belayer's catch probably help him-- leader might have broken his neck on a rock if he hadn't been caught. anyway. luckily it all came out to moderate injuries...but if there hadn't been other parties right there to help, there would certainly have been a fatality. chris

MEC sells these excellent perscription shade systems (I thiunk they are called the MAX sunglasses). You buy the front shield (pick your colour) and the optical insert. Take the insert to the optometrist and for about $60 they put in your perscription. This system allows you to use one optical insert and as many colours/densities of shiled as youwant-- I have a dark grey, an orange, and a clear. The best system, and it rocks for cycling etc too. The complete set-up (frame, 2 shields, insert, lenses for insert) costs you about $120. CHeaper and much more versatile than getting perscription shades (of which you need to have at least two pairs for long days). chris You want these: http://www.mec.ca/Products/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER<>folder_id=673693&PRODUCT<>prd_id=575533&bmUID=1090997909366 and these http://www.mec.ca/Products/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER<>folder_id=673693&PRODUCT<>prd_id=575537&bmUID=1090997899138

Anybody want to get out midweek in Squamish or within a day of Vancouver, BC? I lead 5.11 trad and 5.12 bolts but will happily do whatever. Have car gear etc. email me srstolz@yahoo.ca chris

Hi there BC and NW U.S. ice climbers-- If anybody is heading up to do Oregon Jack, please respect the local landowner's issues by NOT crossing his fence. He is somewhat upset with ice climbers-- this is why. They have a field used for growing hay in the summer. This field is fenced in to keep out cows. Ice climbers cross this fence, which destroys it. The land is rough up there, and you have to pound posts by hand, and it's massive hassle for this guy to constantly have to re-stake and re-nail his barbed wire. The landowners have put up a bunch of signs, and people STILL cross his fence. He asks us to please go AROUND his property, which is easy-- just follow the road up until the fence starts to angle away from the road, then follow the fence uphill until it disappears (it gets steep up there). You can then move down and left toward the base of the climb. Respecting the guy's property will add a whole five (5) minutes to the approach.