eldiente

So do we have a name?

If money was no object I'd climb on 9.0mm all the time. Yes, they wear out fast, but oh my they are such a joy to climb on. I've never felt they are unsafe so long as you retire them early and often. I usually only break out my 9mm for alpine stuff (weight on backpack) or for multi-pitch.

"anybuddy wanna go sport-climbing???" Those look like your typical trad climbers to me. When I think of sport wankers, I usually think of people that look like this.

I've seen way better at Mary's. Really there is this 80 pound meth addict that dances there that can do one-arm front levers from the pole.

Sort of related. The other day I was out at Ozone climbing and saw a man/wife team getting racked up to lead this dirty gully system that was filled with loss chalkstone and brush. Looked 4th class or low 5th. I start talking to them and the man says that this is her first trad lead and that she is learning to place pro. Fair enough. Problem is that every third hold is breaking off and only "pro" she is getting to is girth hitched roots and tipped out cams between boulders. What a horrible way to learn. The poor belayer nearly got the chop from all the falling rock. IMO aid climbing is a great way for a new leader to learn to trad climb. I think the thought of aid climbing a steep splitter cracks intimidates new leaders, but I think this is much safer venue to learn than some low angle crap free climb. Even just leading one pitch of easy aid gives a new climber a ton of experience, every pice is weighted and evaluated right on the spot. Sure a body weight placement isn't the same as a lead fall, however it gives a person a sense of what good pro is and isn't without having to do a "test" fall.

Ouch! That hurts. I don't understand the value of testing pro by falling on it, especially on low angler terrain.

2nd that, solo the SS side. Almost no risk of avy danger, occasional icefall in the afternoon. Even when I go up there with a partner I usually have my iPod on so it is more like a group solo than a partner climb.

Do you have a Topo or pitch-by pitch beta for this route? I've been wanting to get on it for a while now.

Thanks for cleaning this route.

That's rad. You could take a big whip on the pillar and use the banner to catch your fall.

I haven't found a good way to simulate crack/trad climbing while indoors on the bouldering wall. Any suggestions? For a lot of long crack routes I find my upper arms, chest, and back get tired sooner than my forearms do. Especially true for routes with a lot laybacking or OW pitches. I would guess this because these muscles don't normally get worked during a normal bouldering session. To counter this I'll try to do a bit of lifting if I know I'll be doing a lot of crack climbing. Nothing too specific but some combination of; bench press, lat pulls, pull-ups, curls, reverse curls. push-press,dips and push-ups.

A few thoughts. If you follow the workouts from mt.athlete you'll notice that most of the climbing specific workouts are endurance oriented. ie lots of movement done at low intensity. This will indeed get you fit, and helps you build up endurance for long pitches. However, this will not make you stronger. When I think stronger, I'm thinking what is the smallest possible hold you can hold onto for 2 seconds. Doing long traverses on big holds will not help in this area. For example, if your dream project has V8 crux move on it you'll never make it up that route unless you can pull V8. Doesn't matter how many laps you can do, you must be able to climb the hardest move on a climb in order to get up it. Now if you can do all the moves but get pumped when linking it together, then by all means, do some laps to work on endurance. I followed the Mt. Athlete workouts for a while this past Winter. I was using it more as base training getting back into climbing shaped. It worked well for that but it did not help increase my boulder or rope grades. Too much jug hauling. I guess you could try to perform the same workouts on crimps, but even for this your going to have to scale back to stay on the wall for 20 minutes in row as required for the system board workouts. My in-season workout is a mix of 4x4s (4 boulder hard problems, no rest between sets x4) and hang-board. I also like to do laps (or systems) but mixed with harder terminal boulder problems. Ex: do 1 hard problem at max effort, and go right into 5 minutes of traversing/system without letting my feet touch the ground. The idea for me is to simulate routes with hard cruxes followed by easier moves. Another twist on this do the five minutes of system and launch into a set of max effort boulder problems simulating crux moves right below the chains. Overall the best training is real climbing, much more effective then all this rubbish.

Yeah a lot of red necks down there ruin it for everyone. We don't seem to be able to police the place ourself so now we'll have to pay someone $5 to police it for us.

This always happens at popular climbing destinations. Climbers abuse free-camping and the man has to crack down and start charging a few bucks. This is very similar to what happened around Moab years ago. There used to be unlimited free camping along the river. People trashed it and the gov had to to step and start charging to camp there to keep the place clean. I would agree that it is tough to pay anything to stay in a campground with no facilities, for $5 they ought to provide some services.

Good point, I don't recall ever falling on a back-clipped draw so I can't say for sure how often it would fail. However just playing around with a a rope and a draw hanging from a tree branch, it fails every time I back-clip and pull on the rope.

I'm still a bit confused on this. Am I the only dense one on CC.com? If you backclip the rope, 9 times out of 10 it will fail and you'll fall until you come to a piece that was clipped correctly, or you'll hit the ground. From what montypiton described, his friends backclipped the rope and the predictable thing happened, the rope came unclipped. Did I miss something? It doesn't matter what type of biner you use or what direction the climber moves, a back-clipped draw will almost always fail. A correctly clipped draw will not come unclipped no matter which direction you move or what type of biner is there. On steep roofs or caves it it easy to back-clip as you might be looking at it upside down clipping from below. I've done it several time in steep sport routes. With long slings it can also be tricky to tell if your back-clipped as the biner spins around on the sling. Take a second to pull the slack out of the sling to see which direction the biner is going to hang before you clip it.

I dislike non-freestanding tents. I had one and ended up giving it away to a friend. I'm a bit lazy and the hassle of having to stake it out correctly wasn't worth it. If weight is a concern bivy without a tent or splurge for a single wall tent from BD. Also if you are looking for a tent to take above tree-line a freestanding tent is the only way to go.

I suppose I should add mine too since I sprayed. Dragontail Peak - Backbone Ridge Fin Direct Grand Wall Squamish West Face North Early Winter Spire Zebra/Zion to the top- Smith Rock (come on Oregon needs some love)

I'd like to know more about this story. This friend, did he back-clip the draws and this is why they failed? If you back clip a draw it will almost certainly fail. However I can't see how a biner would unclip if used correctly, and the four of the them in a row would be impossible. Can you explain this? I'm very curious. I've heard of draws breaking when run over an edge but not unclip. Once in a blue moon I well use a locker on a piece of pro if I'm really run out and the gear is way back inside of a crack. However on normal route I really can't see the point in putting lockers on bolts.

Kevin needs to get out more often if he thinks "Blownout" makes the top five of anything in the PNW. Maybe the top 5 at Beacon.

If your high rolling get two sets of draws, one for sport and one for trad/alpine. The super light skinny slings and biners tend to get destroyed from lots of cragging use. Save this for your alpine days. If money is an issue save a few bucks on your crag draws by using cheap biners on the bolt end and nicer/easier to clip biners for the rope. Don't worry about the weight for crag draws, if your draw rack is really weighting you down consider pre-hanging the draws before your red point so weight is non-issue. For your alpine/trad draws go wires on everything if you have a choice. Aside from the weight savings, it is really nice just to glance at a biner and know which side your going to clip through.

I would bet it is dry now, it faces West into late day sun. Might be a bit dirty early season as not a lot of people climb there.

Bill is very wise. Fixed draws on a low angle 5.10 make no sense all. On overhanging terrain cleaning the draws might prove to be a major undertaking so I can see why you would want to leave them up. Some of us that enjoy steep sport lines are grateful to come across fixed draws, no more monkeying around for hours trying clean draws while on rap. Also it is fun to throw yourself at a hard routes that you might not get up. If you don't send, no worries just pull your rope and have a nice day. Again this is more aimed at steep sport routes at developed sport crag.

Taking draws off a sport route is bad form and stealing. If you see several draws on a route it is obvious that the person didn't leave them there as a bail bineer. if the draws have been up all year and becoming worn, by all means take them down and stack them on ground next to the route. I would agree that fixed draws are sort of an eye-sore and should be used sparingly only for routes that is being actively projected at sport crag. Also, just because you hiked a route with fixed draws doesn't mean you get to steal the draws.

The skin up is 3 miles on the trail, very easy walk and you can stay at the TJ hut and spend the night. With a heavy pack plan for a two hour hike to Cloud Cap.