scrambled_legs

And the government supplies those maps to everyone so if mapworld is making such huge profit margins, why doesn't someone undercut them and why can you purchase the maps directly from the government for the same price? Get rid of the government subsidization and expect the map retail costs to increase by 5 times or more especially seeing as whoever produces the maps has a monopoly until competition opens up. Either way $50-100 isn't unrealistic for the current water and rip resitant maps we receive now. Mapworlds profits would go down if they continued to sell their personally printed maps for the same price as the government subsidized ones, that's why the retail prices will go up significantly to recoup the losses. The only difference is Mapworld would be one of the only businesses with enough sales to make printing the maps worth while. They would have just created a monopoly for themselves, you couldn't buy them anywhere else. I swear that every time your little gay bear bounces, you lose an IQ mark, and everytime you post, you lose 2.

And the little gay teddy bear speaks again... So why would Map World be fighting like crazy to keep the government from stopping production??? If there was money to be made at the current retail prices, they'd be jumping all over it pushing for the printers to stop. Right now your tax dollars are making up for the production costs, it is not a money making business. If you have some sort of reason for thinking otherwise, I'd love to hear it.

Not sure why it was put into route reports for BC, kinda obvious why not many people saw it. As far as what people were saying on that post about another company taking the images and producing the maps, it won't happen. The government wants out because it costs a fortune to produce these maps and sell them at a fraction of the cost, not to sell the rights to another company. The company most active in fighting this proposal is Map World. If they could take the images and print the maps themselves with no middle man costs, and sell them for about the same retail cost, they'd be supporting it. It's a government funded program to allow the public access to neccessary maps at a reasonable cost. A company might take up printing them in the future, but expect to pay about $50-$100 per chart. As for me, to not have a large size detailed print on water and tear resistant paper is going to suck. I think its worth firing off a couple of e-mails to possibly stop the proposal. Not looking forward to lining up a couple of sheets of paper while trying to hold them in place and not let them get wet so the ink doesn't run and they fall apart. If you plan on spending any time on long Alpine trips where you actually cover horizontal ground, you should be concerned about this.

I'm not sure if someone already posted this but looks like big brother is going to axe the funding for topographic maps. There's a number of personal addresses below to flood with e-mails requesting that they don't.

Maybe they all died during the shoot... from what they said they were doing, I wouldn't be surprised.

Has no-one seen or heard of this. I think some guy posted either on here or live the vision saying that he was making it and it should be out soon. That was probably 6-12 months ago.

You should consider a career in the circus. I met a girl in Vegas who makes a living shooting a bow and arrow with her feet while doing handstands. I met a girl who made a career by shooting ping pong balls out of... oh nevermind. I only use the wires for the draws, I still rack the gear with solid gates. Anyone try the DMM shield biner? It's a wire but the wire twists to avoid the big hook nose that tends to unclip gear. Might be the best of both worlds.

I remember hearing something about a movie being made where they used real life crash test dummies to test ice screws abaklavs etc. The moron that was the test subject broke bones, cracked ribs etc. Did they ever finish this, whats it called and where can I find it?

hhahahahaa... Summarized: "Fuck you guys are morons"... "oh the other day I clipped a draw and for some reason it came undone and if I hadn't pulled the roof I woulda been hurting"... "I wonder why it did that???"... "I can't believe you guys are sitting here talking about this useless bullshit!" hahahaahah... spoken like a true moron. RumR, I think about things a lot while I'm on the ground and bored shitless at work... kinda like today. Catbirdseat might have a point. It seems to make common sense and there is no argument for clipping the other way so seeing as it makes no real difference, why not do it. After shooting the shit with a guide one day he mentioned that solid gate biners fail more regularly than wire gates and why. I started buying wire gates. I still use my solid gates but if there is evidence showing the other one's possibly better, why not do it. Its not any worse and it sure beats ending up wondering why the hell my draw unclipped itself. Did you ever read that testing session that the guys did with ice pro? I think it was in How to climb Ice. In their conclusions they said that they were shocked how many biners failed well under their ratings. It was left unexplained and when the guide showed me how little forced opened the gate on a solid gate biner, I thought that was a pretty good possibility why. I'm not about to be the test subject so I switched to buying wire gates even though there was no accident report that I knew of.

The majority of people roll over the front. It's good to know because if you have no end hanging out you spin it from the top down and it'll appear. If there was no norm, then you'd have to slowly spin it until you found the end and pick it off, or spin it both ways until it appeared. Kinda like grabbing gear from a rack or placing a draw and knowing which way the bottom one is facing by the the direction the top one is facing.

Judging by the survey, there is no "normal," So I'll just keep the draws the way I had them. This is what I was wondering and not trying to find out if there is a right or wrong way.

I must be explaining this wrong. I don't have a problem clipping the draw quickly either way. When you grab a draw from your waste and clip it with the gate facing in or out, you expect the bottom biner to be facing a certain way. If you rack your draws gates opposite then you expect it to be opposite, if you rack the same then you expect it to be the same. Same with clipping the gear gate in or out. If you go to grab it, you expect it to be a certain way. When they're mixed matched then you either have to look or feel to see which way the gate is facing. I can do it quick either way and it was just the matter of having to think, look or feel to see which way the bottom gate is facing or which way the gate is facing that I'm about to unclip on the rack. If it is always racked the same way, you can clip the draws without thinking which way the bottom gate is facing and grab the gear from your rack a lot quicker.

Well I didn't start this to bring up a safety issue about the top biner. Up until now I thought it was only the bottom biner that mattered, interesting thought though. Not to sidetrack the thread but that might be related to another issue with solid vs. wire gates. When you fall with a solid gate biner it often hits the rock and if it hits in a certain way the weight of the gate can cause it to pop open slightly. It's not a danger of the rope escaping but it does change the strength of the biner from closed to open. A wire gate doesn't have enough weight to cause it to open. Try taking a tired solid gate biner and tap it on the rock with the gate facing up. You can hear the click of the biner hitting the rock and the click of the gate opening and closing. The real reason I was asking is when I had my new partner switch the the gates to the same side, I kept messing up the clips. When I cliped the top biner I thought the bottom biner would be on the opposite side. I ended up having to reclip it or not realise it and climb with the rope over the gate. Also I would rack the gear with the gates in, he would rack it with the gates out so after the third pitch it was mixed match and you had to hang for that extra second while you tried to get the gear off. I was trying to see if there was a "normal" way of doing it so I wouldn't run into this problem with most new partners, but judging from the survey so far that doesn't seem to be so.

I guess you missed reading the whole "just wondering" part. I just found it a hassle when a few of the guys that I was climbing with wanted to switch all the draws around to face the same way because that was what they were used to. Then when I clipped the rope I kept forgetting and had the rope running over the gate. I was "just wondering" if there was a commonplace way, that way I could try and change my habits to get used to racking that way and clipping that way. It'd make it easier with these random partners. Before now I only climbed with a couple of guys and they all did it opposite to my new partners. Thanks for the taking the time to make a dumbass survey instead of simply selecting what you do moron. 3100 posts and still no life eh?

I've been climbing with a lot of partners lately and just wondering what the most common way is.

Planning on making the trip next year and want to get the beta on what areas to visit and what guide books to purchase now.

No-ones mentioned it so far so I thought I'd see if anyone else has heard of this. Instead of a simple overhand (EDK) or a simple overhand with a second overhand tied right above, has anyone done an overhand with two loops before feeding the tails through. I don't have a camera handy so I'll try my best to explain it. You basically do the same knot as one half of the Double fishermans but with both ropes. So instead of doing the overhand with one wrap around and putting the tails up the hole in the center, you do 2 wraps around and put the tails up the hole in the center. One half of a double fishermans but with both ropes at the same time. Anyone following that has a camera, rope and knows how to post a picture on here? Someone showed me this one but have rarely hear of anyone else doing it.

Anyone know of any good sites to buy large approx. 3' by 4' photo prints? Art.com has large photo prints but very few really good quality shots for the price.

Hey Ivan, Maybe if you quit your habit and started putting your weed money toward child care you'd find that you can actually net a fair bit with two working teachers in one household.

???????? Well you proved you can type the same words over and over but other than that your brilliance is lost on me. Do you study a route topo and decide how many long and short draws you need. What about a MP with a straight crack followed by a wandering face climb? Do you carry 14 short and 14 long draws??? Do you have 3 foot long draws???

Turning shoulder lengths into draws is a great idea. No that's not what quickdraws are for... you can't expand a quick draw to stop the drag over a roof, or make a wandering route's protection safe. If you want a regular draw, use it like a regular draw. If you want a runner then open the gate and let two loops fall out before clipping the rope and you have a runner. Not sure how that's any slower than taking a sling off your shoulder where it's caught your rack, jacket, pack etc. I know many people that only climb with this set-up and don't use any draws.

Not sure if this made it to this site but this guys nuts. It's like freesoloing/freefalling/sprinting/gymnastics/buildering... I think they call it free running. Don't ask me what the story line is, something about hating Fido cell phone coverage I think. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=515642196227308929

The worst case scenario is that your partner falls clipping his second piece while you're at a hanging belay. He has a factor 1 or more fall which launches you hard enough upwards that the upward piece fails, and the upward pull causes all the pieces making up the downward belay to dislodge. Now, both the climber and the belayer are hanging off the first piece that was placed on the pitch and in a world of hurt if it releases. I think in reality the amount of force ever exerted on an upward piece and the possibility of a belay with a cam or two, to completely dislodge, are slim to nothing. I wouldn't waste good gear on a bunch of upward pieces. An exception might be a belay consisting of straight nuts and only suspect upward placements, then you might want to place 2.

Interesting note on BD Half Dome helmets, not exactly the toughest in the line-up: http://www.thebmc.co.uk/safety/tech/articles/tech_a10.htm I thought I remembered hearing something about MEC pulling these helmets and waiting for the redesigned ones to come out this year. I gotta agree that these huge mega-mart gear stores have to give you their satisfaction gaurantee. They came in and wiped out all the mom and pop stores so the least they can do in return is give us lower prices and a better return policy.

Freakin' UK Security should be banned. Securicor Cash Services, a company out of the UK took over Canada's Loomis Armoured Car company a few years ago. I was working for Loomis when the take over took place and right away staff was cut and Security took a back seat to saving a few pennies. There was talk about one man crews and eliminating the drivers that waited in the truck while the crew filled the banks in the middle of the night. I used to work this run between Montreal and Ottawa and the amount of money that was on board a truck with 2 crew was stupid. I told my boss that they needed a tail car and he blew me off. Well not even 4 years after the take over this happend: Good thing they never paid someone $18/hr for 4 hours twice a week to ensure that something like this never happend. Hell that could have cost $5,000/year and they only lost a reported $13 million (probably more). Gee I hate to say I told you so. On a serious note, the crew got very lucky and at some point there will be a disasterous robbery and the familys better get millions in compensation for the assinine policies of this company. Of course the company is blaming the crew for this robbery taking place.