selkirk

Last weekend was fantastic. Spent Saturday afternoon hiding in the shade or sweating in the sun.

Trad climbers as a whole seem to be a pretty good bunch. It seems to take a slightly more mellow demeanor. Being arrogant and overly aggressive on gear just gets you hurt. First time I was down there we saw a belayer nearly get the chop. The leader kicked off a coffee table sized flake that landed about 4 ft away from his belayer. She wasn't wearing a helmet, but I think in this case it wouldn't have helped anyway. Same trip we say a guy teach his buddy how to belay with a grigri and 45 seconds later start up 5 Gallon Jugs (which based on his shaking legs and wide eyes was near his lead limit). My wife asked him how the free solo was when he got down. Some seriously sketchy practices go on down there. CBS, how was New Testament by the way?

Talked to a fellow at Redpoint over the weekend, who had recently talked to the Falcon Rep. I guess they had to rework the layout as it was set up for printing at Wolverine. (previous publishing company) And god forbid they use the layout from a now defunct publishing house. So the last he heard was June or July 2007 Either that or whenever the DMM versions of the HB offset's come out.

My thoughts exactly..... Anybody wanna argue about the merits replacing putting in two 1/2" bolts, to replace the need to sling trees for belay/rap stations on local trade routes?

Good comparison, but I get the impression that NOLS / Outward bound is course taught by proffesionals, not volunteers / amateurs.

individual RMI guides might have more days out per year than most individual Mounties. But if were talking accident statistics. But if your looking at statistics for the groups as a whole, I'd be willing to bet that Mounties as a group have a comparable number of days out per year (official climbs, unofficial climbs, field trips in the hills, etc.) as RMI and their clients do. And how many people can really afford to shell out a grand for 1 weekends climbing instruction? As an interesting sidebar

RMI certainly has more days on "Rainier" in year, so your right Alasdair, number of deaths on Rainier doesn't show anything. Need to have a broader comparison to be fair. It would be interesting to know the number of injuries/deaths per person days climbing (rock, ice, alpine, sport, cragging) in a year for say, RMI or another guiding service, the Mountaineers, and climbers as a whole. And statistics wizards running around?

Do you think the number of person climbing days is higher with the Mountaineers or RMI?

Unluckily climbing is a dangerous and unforgiving activity, and for some reason the last couple of years has seen a spate of accidents in the mountaineers. That said from what I've seen none of them have been precipitated by inexperienced climbers out for their first trip, and in over their heads. Sharkfin was one of those almost classic climbing accidents, where a set of what were a seriers of seamingly reasonable judgements at the time (But in retrospect may have been less than ideal) compounded, and ended in tragedy. They were in the wrong gully, but we've all done that, there was rockfall, but we've all experienced that. The ultimate cause was that their chosen rappel anchor failed. However, without being there at the time, and knowing what the other options were (if any), it's impossible to know whether there were better options. To say it was inexerpience, or lack of technique, is innaccurate in case. All we can do is learn to be vigilant about everything. Yellowjacket this spring, was a lapse in judgement. It wasn't a first year basic student, but a somewhat more experienced intermediate on 4th to low 5th, easier than what many of us have scrambled before. Could this have been prevented by a longer mentorship, or better teaching? Maybe. How many of you still scramble 4th/low 5th terrain even with some exposure? From what I've read about these accidents (and like many of you I obsess about accidents and causes), none of them seemed to be tied to how the courses were run, or the experience level of the leaders or students. No one was doing anything blatantly dangerous or anything most climbers don't get away with on a semi-regular basis. They were just what the name implied, accidents. Further neither of those accidents were during "organized classes". They were basic CLIMBS, not basic field trips. At that point the students are climbers, granted they're green, and still learning from the more experienced climbers on the trip, but they are climbers none the less. And neither accident happend to a basic student. In my opinion these accidents are no more tied to courses, than a football players blown knee is to his coach. It's an acknwoldged risk of the sport when things go bad.

Oh, and Jens, good on ya for mentoring a new climber!

Accomplishments of folks I've climbed with in the mountaineers (which is an awfully small sample size to begin with, so I'm sure there are lots of others): -Denali (Several folks,some multiple times) -Skied across the Greenland Ice Cap -20k+ft peaks in China, Mexico, and South America (some multiple 20k+ peaks) -Liberty Crack in a day -CNR Stuart in a day -Dierdre-Ultimate Everything linkup -A3 routes in the Valley -3 months a year in the Valley for the last 3 years. -25+ climbing trips in one year -SEWS, NEWS, Lexington, Concord, Lib Bell enchainment -Guiding for RMI -Lots of folks working with local mountain rescue groups -Multiple winter attempts on Rainier (failed due to weather) -Performed initial rescues of professional guided parties that got in trouble. and most importantly -kinder and more giving folks than some of you fuckers. and I only know maybe 10% of the folks in the climbing program. I'd so those things qualify as climbing hard/technically good? That said there is also a set of leaders who are out climbing (moderate objectives that are appropriate to their, and their parties, skill level.) because they like being in the mountains with good people, and they enjoy teaching people to climb. (I've heard the term green-bonding, I think it was used by Ira Spring?) The best way to protect our access and the climbing culture is to teach new climbers. This is also the only group I've come across who's willing to take people with little or no experience, teach them to climb in a safe fashion, and provide them with a group of people to climb with, and from which to draw their own climbing partners. In my opinion, that alone is a pretty special, pretty valuable thing. Of the folks I climb with regularly, without the climbing course, maybe 25% or less would have started without the basic course. (and some of the 75% have accomplishments on that list) And yes, people who have only been belaying for a year are teaching other people to belay (or rappel, or tie in, or put on their crampons, or self arrest). Were not talking rocket science here, and they're not teaching advanced techniques of any sort. And yes it's all supervised. "Teach" may even be too strong a word, it's more like a brief demonstration followed by supervised practice. Of all the folks I've climbed with in the mountaineers, their is one leader I wouldn't climb a skill level appropriate objective with. There have also been 3 students (that I heard about by way of mouth), none of whom graduated their respective climbing courses, or climb with the mountaineers any longer. That's a pretty good record in my opinion. Half the "image" problem is that the image is driven by basic climbs, and on any basic climb, 50% of the people are on their first or second climb EVER. It's expected that they're going to be inefficient. Everyone hear who was dialed on their first rock or glacier climb ever, please raise they're hand? However the climbs are usually good ones to learn on. Everyone has had a run in with a bad local climbing party, and it seems like they all get blamed on the Mountaineers, whether or not it us. On any given weekend in the summer there are probably 10-15 climbs going on. Most of these draw little or no attention whatsoever, obtain their objectives and go home. So the best case impression is no impression, and worst case impression is a party of slow moving basics on an easy route. Oh, and the light/fast seminar might be interesting, and there are on going discussions on how to modernize the course. As with any volunteer orginization it's a slow process.

It's going to be a regular party down there. planning on heading down Tomorrow to scoop all the good routes and retrobolt the cracks

Oops, the shoes are already back, so more like a 1 week turn around time.

"compound the original mistake" First off, how dare you question Fred's choice of bolt locations! That's sacrilage, and calls for immediate bannination!! Second, compounds implies that it makes the problem worse. Which it doesn't. It would solve the problem of a an unsafe belay, with minimal impact. It would still serve as a bottleneck if multiple parties were on the route. Solving that would take another bolt or two

Yep, Ramuta's downtown ships the climbing shoes to Montana to John Ramuta to resole. The time frame seems slower than I remember ( A friends have been out for about a week and a half, and aren't back yet.) I imagine the quality will be the same though.

That's a very insightful question.

Do you really want to get into the the "Is it better to sling and damage a tree, than throw in 2 bolts for an anchor discussion?" I can go there if you'd really like to

Yep. Two belay bolts. (Was at the end of 3rd or 4th pitch depending on how you break it up). The argument seems to be whether they are necessary for a belay. If you knew to look for it, and knew to save right gear, there is supposed to be a gear bealy 15 ft (or meters?) higher. (I can't personally verify the belay and don't know whether a 50m rope would stretch to it). Part of the problem is that there's quite a variety of beta floating around and some of it points to using those bolts as the belay.

My preference would be to replace them. They may not be ideal, and they may not be needed by anyone who's read the "ideal" beta and/or climbed the route before. However, I'd really hate to see somebody get fucked expecting to find bolts, and instead finding a blank corner above a slightly runnout face with marginal pro, not having the appropriate gear for a belay at the stance above. (If their rope reaches that far).

Those bolts are probably 45 m out from the bucket/tree above the 5.9 finger cracks above a slightly runnout face. On a 50m rope, that's about where I'm starting to look for a good belay. If the next belay ledge is reachable with a 50m rope, and is protectable, with what would be left over from a stanard rack, after protecting the preceeding pitch then the bolts aren't necessary. I don't think it's safe to belay from those bolts, and no one seems to contest that. It's certainly not the most comfortable place for a belayy, and may not be the "ideal" place. However the reality is that there is a reasonable amount of beta pointing towards using those bolts as a belay, and even without beta, a completely reasonable set of decisions leads to belaying from those bolts. Further people are using them to belay from as they aren't aware that there is (may be?) a better location 15 ft above. I know the beta the folks in my party had last year pointed to those bolts, and we had a pretty broad range of experience levels, and had done a reasonable amount of reading. Until you've been on a route, beta is often less the clear, so I dont' know about you, but I always take it with a grain of salt and try to make sure that the path I'm taking, and the decisions i'm making are a reasonable, in addition to hopefully following the beta. (I don't actually remember seeing the better ledge immediately above, as at that point I had just left the previous (marginal) belay, and was focused on moving upwards). Do I think they're in a good place for a belay? Maybe not. Will I use them in the future? No. Like Pope, I'll take/preserve the appropriate gear for the next belay, and hope it's only 15 ft above. Does that mean that people won't continue to belay from them out of lack of knowledge about the route? Nope

If all beta was perfect and everyone had climbed the route in the "ideal" fashion the bolts wouldn't be needed at all. It must be nice living in a perfect world. Seeing as that isn't the case, and seeing as they do still get used by people who don't realize that there is a gear belay above (is it 15m or 15 ft? That's a huge difference, and is the gear belay piece specific or is it reasonable to be able to build a belay there with whatever is left over from the previous 5.8 dihedral / 5.7 face pitch?). And just because It's been climbed countless times how it is now, doesn't mean that belaying from those bolts is safe or that they should be left. People get away with all kinds of unsafe practices in climbing because 95% of the time all of our ropes and gear is purely backup, and is never tested. God forbid those things should take a direct fall. Oh, and I'd love to know how replacing 2 bad bolts with 2 good bolts qualifies as "connecting the silver dots". Doesn't Orbit effectively connect the trees for the first half of the route anyway? Would you like me to paint them so they're not shiny I have yet to be convinced that Snowcreek wall doesn't attract inexperienced climbers. That inexperienced climbers (myself included) don't end up using those bolts. That pulling the bolts entirely or leaving them as they are is sufficiently safe. Or that replacing the bolts with good hardware in any way changes the experience of the route.

So did it pre date or post date the Blues Brothers? And of course lets not forget the Honey Hole up on Capital Hill.

Do any of you serious gear heads know if the DMM Xeno and DMM Fly picks are interchangeable? TIA Josh

Am I the polar bear or the dirty old man? dirty old polar bear?

Yep, those are the ones, not the ones that are only 25 m or so above the bush. Those ones are still at least silver colored. And with a 50m meter rope you either get CBS's much maligned 1/2 pitch to the end of dihedrals, or up into the neighbourhood of the shitty bolts.