boatskiclimbsail

I've had a TNF snowshoe for 2 years, usually sleep very cold vs. bag specs (10-20 degrees difference) and have been warm down to -5/+5F in it. Do you close the hood around your head and wear a hat when you are camping below freezing? I have noticed very few people do this, and blame the bag for being too cold. Coming from -40 winters at ground level, cold was also an issue for me in the spring/fall. the Snowshoe works beautifully down to about 0 and past that I got a MH 5th Dimension that keeps me toasty the rest of the way.

I don't understand this either, maybe it's because the crags I frequented while learning to climb had loose rock on them but I've been climbing long enough to be aware of some nasty accidents that have happened at "safe" sport climbing areas. My gunks partner decided to start climbing with a helmet when he took a 35' whipper that led to the ground brushing the hair on his head. I wear a bike helmet whenever I'm on the bike, a climbing helmet whenever I'm on a climb, a paddling helmet whenever I'm in the boat and a skiing helmet whenever I'm on skis. This is all my personal choice, to give up the convenience of an uncovered head for the marginal gain of a possible survival. Not that I understand it, but you will get no beef from me if you aren't wearing a helmet. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that my head is my choice. My kids will certainly be wearing helmets when they start doing the dumb things I do

I always put used oil in the empty quart bottles and write "USED" all over it. I guess Ill have to go with the milk jugs... Maybe they don't know what is in it?

Definite cheers to partners who don't need babysitting Pulling over a chandelier curtain in moonlight (without it breaking off) Writing your name in the snow Greasy bacon cheeseburgers after a week of rice and noodles Making skin tracks that overlook the virigin bowl Sexy hex placements Discovering that a route marked 5.10 is actually a 12 Ice climbing with skis on your back Little frozen pucks of coffee from the espresso maker

As for the canisters, Like every product in every market they have limitations, one if which is cold weather / high altitude. When I use that stove I am usually not hurting for fuel so badly that I need to go and search for it, I bring a few canisters with me... Come to think of it, I usualy do the same thing with my dragonfly as well. Dragonfly is mountain material, but a pain in the *ss to set up on a road trip or when car (beer) camping. I like the cartridge for the simple, warm, relaxation kinda camping. Portland recycling rubs me the wrong way. In every neighborhood I've ever lived in back home, they would take your used oil in the recycle bins as long as it was in sealed containers. They simply won't take it here, not when I lived in SE or even when I moved south of the city.

We had three gemini's break in their first month of (non-hardcore) use over the last year... BD replaced one of them when it's owner complained a lot.

Again, this comes rom running a college outing club... Whisperlite is king. I like my dragonfly but when the whisperlite stops working you can always make it work, even if you cant feel your fingers in -40 degrees in the snow... Ive run both stoves on white gas, gasoline and diesel without a problem. If you wanna go cheap get the CampinGaz cartridge stove (the 270 I think?) its the blue one...

Definately make a wooden one (as if that wasn't already said enough). Fabric "buttbags" will hurt the same way your harness does without a spreader pole. It's personal preference, but I like a fabric strap across the back side of the chair for my back. If you make the four support lines connect high (like at your neck or above) you can adjust how far back you lean and stuff like that.

The duo has an optional to keep the battery pack in a jacket, the "zoom" does as well but they consider it a different headlamp, the "arctic". As for carbide, I had my fill of brass cap lamps and got a sealed Petzl system, the "Ariane/Aceto" unit, which I have yet to have any issues at all with. They are only useful really for caving. I have seen people start themselves on fire with the cap lamps and seen some really big fireballs but I have yet to figure out how they made this happen, I have never had one decide to malfunction on its own (be smarter than your headlamp!). During training everyone wants to look at their rope while rappeling / climbing so we decided early on in the caving program that the leader (usually me) would light the other carbides once they got to the bottom and shut them off before they went up again at the end of the day.

Well if were talking caving there is nothing better than a carbide, but I have yet to destroy the duo, aurora and minimag as backups. This gives me confidence in their ability to perform.

One of the Aid junkies that hung out at the gunks once in awhile uses small pieces of 2x4 on slings as cam shims. Body weight only obviously, but much lighter and way cheaper than aluminum. Also I experimented with making my own cams when I was working in a CNC shop, and things start to change dramatically once you get above the WC#6/BD#5 size. I found I could not make things any more inexpensively than the valley giants unless I was to go into bulk production and I had neither the desire to compete or the time and capital to do so. As far as making bolt ons for the cam wings, it is a good idea, but you really need to watch out for the off-axis torque you will see, the axle is likely too small to hold up. I guess if you did it in a "Y": v---new ====== ======| <---old ====== ^---new that it would give you the neccesary stability. I would think it would much easier to drill some holes into the existing wings for mounting, this would be a lot better than trying to fit the lightening holes. You'd be filling an aluminum hole with steel so you're not losing any integrity that way... I made a few sets of cam lobes, and have some scripts, CAD and Gcode for them if it would be of any help to you... Oh - and big bros suck out east, I sold my big two years ago. Maybe I'll give them a try out here. You really need a laser cut parralel sided crack to make them work right. They look really cool though!

I managed my college's outing club while I was a student there and we had nothing but problems from BD LED lamps. About half the time we would send them back (3 or 4 lamps) they would send us new ones but the other half they would send them back with a "sorry" note. On the other hand, we have Petzl Zooms that we have been dragging through tight, muddy, wet NY caves for the last 10 years that are still going strong. My duo has 6 years of abuse on it, and I recently got the 5LED upgrade for it. It works great, especially in caves. I bent the LEDs out a little bit to give a wider range and was pleased with the results. If you're going to be doing anything really wet or otherwise intense I'd highly reccomend the duo. As for a small lamp, I have had two BDs break within a year, and I hate the switch on the tikka. I have had a princeton tek Aurora for a year and a half that got used probably 10 or so hours a week all of last year and she is still on the first set of batteries. They are not water"proof", but very water resistant.

That may be, but you have to remember that leashes are not a fundamental part of the climbing system, merely an aid tool. You can tie a leash that will be sufficient to climb most anything out of 12' of 1" tube. My alpine axe has been leashed like this for years and it is light, secure, and comfortable. Two spins of my wrist "locks" me in and the wrist loop slides up and down the shaft so when I drop it or need to grab the pick for whatever reason it is right there. A leash failing isn't a big concern for me on technical ice. Thats what the third tool is for... I've also made industrial equipment that gets hammered way more than my leashes do out of similar materials and to the best of my knwledge they are all still in service.

"Finding" the stud is actually not an issue. I thought it would be and my first version of the stud had a tapered head for about half its length. Just rounding it and sanding works just fine and I think it looks a little cleaner. I did do some testing with my scrap, I milled a keyhole slot in a plate with a hold in the bottom to tie off to, it held me jumping up and down in my aiders verticaly, and the clip plate bent 90 degrees loading it sideways with almost no damage besides surface scratching to the sides of the plate. The plate held body weight before bending but upon bouncing it started to bend and ended up as an "L" bracket that then withstood more vigorous bouncing. We are talking 304 stainless with about 3 full threads of 3/8-24, this should hold at the very least a few hundred pounds straight out and a few thousand easily loaded on its side as it is. The stud plate is 1/4" thick. The way I attached the stud: -3/8" 304 bar stock, about 4" out of the lathe face -turn the groove, then reduce the stud face diameter -shape and clean the stud face -turn a groove 0.100" wide to 0.280" on the back side of the stud -cut off at 1" from the stud face -thread the back side of the stud (now about 1/2" to the small groove) Now you are left with a profile like: stud face --------v ---_-\ \\====| <-- on center ^-- threaded end which will fit neatly into a hole tapped about 90% clean, so when you tighten it, it feels like pipe threads locking together. Add some red loctite before wrenching to ensure it doesn't move, then grind the back side of the plate flat. The stud and plate are easy to make many of, the clip button was a simple nibbler job with some bends and two holes for the pivot. The clip plate was the biggest pain, with the two wings to bend for the pivot and the three rectangular slots for the webbing to thread through (can somebody say 1/2"x0.050" slotting saw?) BTW, 9/16" tubular if I recall correctly will cinch tightly in a ladder-lock arrangement using the 0.120" stock with three slots of 0.060, 0.060 and 0.130. I wasnt about to cut 0.120" 304 with a 0.050" end mill... For the testing, I just made the keyhole for my own sanity. It wouldn't be time-effective to CNC any of it besides maybe the stud, but that only takes about 3 minutes per stud once you are set up for it. Would take longer to set up a thread cycle on a CNC lathe! Even if you did mill all the parts on a CNC you still have to bend them and grind the stud off and clean up the sides of the clip plate.

Yes every part of the leash was fabricated from stock. All the steel is 304 (including the bolt) with the exception of the button part of the clip, which is 316 and the spring, which is just regulr spring steel. The stud is threaded 3/8-24 and it is loctited into a shallow tapped hole in the plate. The webbing is as you describe, it is 9/16" tubular with about an inch worth of the "tube" part removed to protect the underside of the screw part of the clamp. I added this as an afterthought because the stud plate was touching the composite surface and I was worried about getting it scored/cracked. I had plans for a fourth revision which added a layer of teflon to the back of the stud plate but I ran out of time and haven't gotten to it since last season. The tolerance you speak of is exactly the reason this design went through three revisions, there is a delicate balance between the size of the stud, the groove where the plate fits and the size of the keyhole slot. Basically it is weighing tradeoffs between the ability to slide the clip on/off, how well it rotates and how tightly it fits, and then all of these factors when the tool has been at -30F for a few days... The clip bears almost all the weight straight down, on the long axis of the clip so any wear that occurs will be on the top of the slot, not the sides. I do have drawings and specs on the dimensions of the stud and keyhole, as that was my biggest problem. The picture of the keyhole is badly blurred, the hole gives 0.005" clearance around the stud face, and -0.015" on the back side of the stud so you cannot clip "past" the groove. The slot has 0.020" clearance around the groove which allows a freely rotating but not loose fit. The difference between the hole and the slot on the clip plate is something like 0.360" vs 0.250", and is more than adequate even if it were to be weighted sideways. The clip plate is 0.120" 304 and remarkably stiff and tough. I'll look for the CAD when I get home if you are interested.

OK, I guess I'll post them... http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/hanging.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/hanging_clip.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/stud.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/clip_bottom.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/clip_top.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~moyles_kd/tempweb/wristloop.jpg A few are blurry but you get the general idea.

pm me your email I'll send out some pics

Handrawn plans, I can take pictures of them if you want but you'll need some serious machines to turn the stud and mill the plate out of 304... You'll also need a serious sewing machine to make the wrist loops.

Integral designs stuff is _bomber_. I woke up in my favorite bivy once with 2 feet of snow on top of me and didn't know it until I zipped open in the morning and it caved in on me...

After finding out how badly BD wanted to rape me for a pair of androids I made a pair in my shop and at the same time fixed the only beef I had with the production ones (they would not spin freely if they twisted a certain way and the balance was too high when the tool was hanging). My personal preference, but I rarely use my cobras for alpine.

If I end up going home to NY for xmas, I will be looking for ice partners in northern VT/NH.

In my experience running a college outdoor program and from what other guides in the area I came from have also found, the really really problematic part is the clevis pins that attach the binding to the shoe frame. They for some convoluted reason use an aluminum pin, which after 2 or 3 years of rental use, shears because two stainless plates have been rubbing a groove into it and it becomes a toothpick in the middle. I would sugest heading to your local marine shop and getting 4 stainless clevis pins to replace the aluminum ones for about $3 and maybe an ounce. Both the classic and the ascent have the same problem, both otherwise work fine. I like the heel lifter in the ascent. It's not worth $80 but you can't get it any cheaper. They are all over the place used for cheaper than new classics anyway.

Vancouver BC or WA

I'm from the east coast where we ski ice more often than snow, and even in packed hard skin trails the crampons I bought for my diamirs don't do a hell of a lot. I didn't really think the system through when I got them, crampons don't glide (duh!) so it is more like slogging your skis back and forth while wearing crampons. I usually decide that rather than do some kind of balancy shuffle just to start walking with regular crampons. Haven't used the diamir ones in years.

I was on a caving trip in WV and we came across an english fellow with a custom device he had named the "Rappel Stein". Pretty much a steel biner welded to a steel beer stein. Theory is you wrap the rope around it like a drum brake. He was still working the bugs out like the fact that the beer is warmed by the time you reach the bottom.