Rad

Finally getting a POV camera for skiing/boarding, climbing, snorkeling, caving, and family fun. Wondering what hardware and software y'all recommend. Priorities are image quality and performance, rugged, easy to use, and versatile. Thx Rad

perfecly said Ditto. I'll add that cheating implies competition, and I don't see alpine climbing that way at all. Not surprised that Twight does. His note reminds me of certain over the hill climbers who decry bolts used on 5.14 routes because back in the day, when climbers were real men, they climbed 5.10 on goldline. Now they lurk on the internet looking for bolting forums to dump their ideas. Live and let live. Climb and let climb. sickie Besides, Twight hasn't said anything new that Messner didn't say, and live by, decades ago.

Look at typical forecasts before you go. We were contemplating a family trip to Zion next summer and saw that July is the month with lots of thunderstorms and flash floods. You can have blue skies overhead, but if it rained in the mountains upstream you can be hosed, literally.

BACK on topic: 1 - A 15cm calf tear that kept me from running for 6 months. 2 - A $5000 medical bill for an ultrasound that confirmed said tear wasn't a deep venous thrombosis (fancy name for clot that can kill you). The bill should have been $150 so now I get to fight with health providers and insurance companies to straighten things out. It will probably be June, 2013 before the paperwork blizzard has cleared. 3 - Epic uphill, in the dark bushwhack from hell while lost in Cananuckistan. This caused us to change objectives but we still persevered to have an awesome adventure. 4 - Being psyched to climb with an old partner only to find he's two number grades stronger than me and does free-solo-warmups on my hardest routes. Ouch. 5 - Overloaded with two nearly full-time jobs during the best summer alpine rock weather window the Cascades has seen in a decade. On the plus side, I found a new friend and climbing partner, stayed mostly injury-free outside the calf, and achieved the top 5 from the other thread.

This is not the droid you are looking for. The Force INTERNET can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.

Something old, something new, something undone, something glued

Work consumed more of my time last year than in years past, but I feel fortunate to have done the following top 5: 1 - FA of Blade Runner, a striking clean, overhanging face at Shangri-La at X38 with a devious bouldery crux. Without a doubt the hardest pitch I've ever climbed. Definitely worth repeating... 2 - NE Buttress of Slesse in perfect fall conditions. 3 - Roan Wall (Centerfold) and Salish peak (scrambling because we weren't fast enough getting to and up the Roan wall). 4 - FA of Science Friction at Shangri-La. 5 - A bunch of great powder days with kids, wife, friends, and by myself. Extra 1 - This doesn't count in most people's books, and it really doesn't make my top 5, but I've definitely enjoyed climbing indoors regularly at SBP. Extra 2 - I had a few work travel trips and got to visit climbing gyms in different places. Some are great (Planet Granite on the SF peninsula), some are OK (Rockville, Maryland), and some are atrocious (Vegas). Nonetheless, it's always interesting to sample new gyms and setters.

"Petraeus" sounds an awful lot like "betray us". All In is now going to be a best seller where before few cared. We are a nation of rubberneckers who love to see the carnage of personal failures. There are a slew of bad jokes about how God gave men a penis and a brain but not enough blood to operate both at the same time. It's amusing when reality is more crazy and corny than the trashy fiction.

Sounds like a good project. Regarding Dallas, don't worry about paying him back for showing you cool crags. Pay it FORWARD to the next generation!

You mean the first one on the main wall with the credit card edges? Loved that one! So much easier than some of the "10b" slab pitches at the end of the route, but maybe that's just me.

The biggest challenge of our time, perhaps of the century, is finding a way to meet the world's growing energy needs in a sustainable fashion. I find it shocking that reps are urgently worried about leaving our kids and grandkids with a lot of national debt, but they don't seem motivated to make sure we leave them a healthy and habitable planet. Although he's not saying anything during the election, perhaps because swing states have seen gold and jobs in fracking and preservation of coal industry jobs, Obama understands the monumental energy challenge we face and is prepared to do what he can do deal with it. He invested billions into renewable energy research via ARRA, raised fuel efficiency standards to unprecedented levels, tightened emissions regulations on coal plants, fought against the tar sands pipeline from Canada, and provided loan guarantees and other incentives to renewable startups. He will do more if elected, likely via the EPA if the legislature is still an incompetent and constipated body paralyzed by its own poisonous rhetoric and short-term thinking. So I'll add an important #4 to Darin's list: 4 - Deal with the reality of climate change and the energy challenge. Mitt would have us burn copious amounts of fossil fuels of all flavors and shut down all hope the US will lead the renewable energy revolution. Clean coal is an oxymoron.

From reports and photos of people here and elsewhere, I see climbers go out of their way to put protection in rock, perhaps because it is stronger, faster, and easier to place.

Could be a hard experiment to control as friction plays such a huge role. Soft snow = more friction. Poky climber = more friction. Some self arresting = more friction. Then there are a lot of variables with regard to the placement. Rock is more amenable to these types of analyses, but knock yourself out and let us know what you learn!

I wish the injured climber a speedy and full recovery. I wish to thank everyone who took time and effort to assist in rescue/evac. I wish the rest of you good luck in rationalizing to yourselves that something like this will never happen to you because you're too (choose one or more: smart/sober/experienced/young/old/hairy).

Amen. Life is what you make it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I disagree. There are soft 10s at both 32 (Mambo Jambo) and 38 (the two you mentioned). The 11s are pretty consistent between 32 and 38: At 11a: Primus or Overture or Architect Rally (38) vs Disincarnate (32). At 11b: Negatherion or Tea Time (38) versus Gold Rush or Little Hitler or Situation Room (32), At 11c: Canine Patrol (38) and Godflesh (32) are both soft. Giant and the 11c next to Tea Time at Gun Show (38) are more on the mark. At 11d: I haven't climbed lines at this grade at 32 so won't comment. At 12a: Culture Shock (38) doesn't feel easier than Bust the Move, Rainy Day Women, or Lay of the Land (an excellent line that deserves more attention) at 32, but that may say more about my lack of stamina than the ratings. But more disturbing to me is that this elitist attitude keeps strong climbers from going to 38. Many crags at 38 have better rock than 32 and there are plenty of hard lines up to mid-12. Don't believe me? Let me take you on a tour or PM me for beta and a list of routes to hit. I'm biased because friends and I have invested effort in developing some of the newer lines and want to see them get more traffic. What bothers me is the implication that softly graded routes are somehow lower quality than ones graded harder. Or that sandbags must be good. That's a load of crap. Whether I call a route 5.9 or 10c doesn't change its quality and it doesn't make me more or less of a badass. The quality of a route doesn't have anything to do with its rating. The only purpose of ratings is to give the onsight leader a sense of what they're getting into and provide some benchmarks to measure our personal progress. Sorry for the rant. You hit a hot button.

Come out to Shangri-La crag at X38 Far Side sometime. You'll find about a dozen high quality routes (yes, I'm biased) in the 5.10-12 range that are more in line with Index LTW than the rest of X38. PM for info and/or tours. I'll work on getting it on Mountainproject this winter.

Ratings are subjective, but Mountainproject allows climbers to post ratings and so develop an average. This should help smooth out the softies and the sandbags.

Great TR. Love the Wind Puke name and your adventurous spirit of exploration.

Severity will depend on the nature of the solvent, the concentration to which gear was exposed, and the duration of exposure. Sounds like your diligence minimized the latter two. When Dru tells you to send you his gear for testing, you know you're OK.

From Wikipedia: "Taxonomist C.H. Merriam was the first to recognize Kodiak bears as unique and he named the species "Ursus middendorffi" in honor of the celebrated Baltic naturalist Dr. A. Th. von Middendorff.[4] Subsequent taxonomic revisions merged most North American brown bears into a single subspecies (Ursus arctos horribilis), but Kodiak bears are still considered to be a unique subspecies (Ursus arctos middendorffi). Recent investigations of genetic samples from bears on Kodiak have shown that they are closely related to brown bears on the Alaska Peninsula and Kamchatka, Russia. It appears that Kodiak bears have been genetically isolated since at least the last ice age (10,000 to 12,000 years ago) and there is very little genetic diversity within the population.[5]"

Nobody does. No matter what your level, you ought to be able to succeed on projects at least two letters harder than your best onsight. The fun and crazy thing is that your "limit" is just your "current limit", and this is mostly in your mind. Break on through to the other side....

Nice. Onsight is great, but there's a different sense of satisfaction that comes from becoming intimately familiar with a route, finding a solution that is uniquely suited to your abilities, and then honing those abilities to meet the challenge. While onsight is given the highest regard, in some ways it's the least involved type of climbing: walk up to a route and lead it and walk away. Projecting a route takes hard work and perseverance that can make success more sweet. I've got my own obsession to complete before the rain flies. Nice work getting yours done.

Thanks. This route is a prime example of a long outing for a bunch of moderate alpine rock, but the position and ambience are first rate. I'd encourage other parties looking for some good rock pitches to follow the variations we did. It'll add three nice pitches that are right on or just left of the crest. Hard men and women should take a look at the South Face again, perhaps starting near the base of the bypass ramp. The granite is impeccable for 1500 to 2000 feet and there's only one reported line, which is on the left side of the basin.

Yes, but not a 3 pitch route, which is exactly my point. If they said, they OS all the pitches, not the route, then it would be a correct statement. Calling a route OS is bullshit. That's what they are saying. You are just a dump Polack. Try reading this in English. They climbed all the pitches onsight, and except for one 30m pitch aid pitch, all free. Pretty obvious. If you had less sand in your vagina and got laid more often you wouldn't be so worried about this. Canada 1, Poland 0. BTW, it's not the climbers making any claims, it's the media outlet who put together that website.