JosephH

A+

Maybe they bailed and it was a vain attempt to actually reach the ground with a 60.

Might be, but as a head-banging or classical savant, he's probably one of the only guys here who can reel that shit off note-for-note in a stumbling, hungover coma.

Congrats on surviving jumping on a motorcycle and heading South - that shows pluck, courage, and a sense of adventure. But the mountains are filled with dead strong-minded people. Climbing knowledge and accomplishments are the sort of thing you work on earning a climb at a time increasing in difficulty as you progress. Otherwise, as another inspired high altitude tourist, you'll just be endangering whoever is foolish enough to take you with them on any such climb. There are simply no shortcuts to this sort of endeavor and, like getting to Buenos Aires, it's about the journey - not the destination. And hell, you're young, I'd say take your time and enjoy the ride, there's no need to rush a thing like this.

Well, it certainly explains why 'those in Appalachia' allow their mountain tops and watersheds to be destroyed to benefit wealthy republicans living outside of Appalachia. Don Blankenship has been buying politicians and judges in WV for years. He's old school. P.S. And isn't it amazing that "that only God can change the earth's temperature", but a mere Don Blankenship can destroy entire mountains.

After eight years in a coma.

And maybe you should work on not being so suddenly sensitive.

What a testimony to genius - waves of Rovian vibrations are still permeating through the victimal white males of America (VWMoA) like a tuning fork set for stupid. Thank god they leave a small, red mark in the middle of the forehead so the perpetually gullible are easily identifiable. Karl was the absolute master of stupid human herding.

What a brouhaha. Government intruding into your lives? You're retarded if you're worried about this event. You want to worry about government in your lives - welcome to BushWorld motherfuckers...

Genspires, my mistake, I thought you were confusing 'tying' and 'locking' off - clearly you're not. Across the front of the body (waist) is a gently curved continuation of the rope path and you don't have much of anything to brace your hand against. Diving between your legs provides another bend and allows you to brace your hand against the inside of your thigh. Across the front would be ok if your intent was going to be to eventually tie-off, otherwise my opinion is you're better off between your legs with your hand / wrist braced against the brakehand-side leg. This bracing also comes into play in any case where you have to lower someone any distance as you want the very fine control over the lowering speed that helps provide.

In thirty five years of climbing I've never had the slightest inclination to belay two climbers simultaneously. I don't particularly like climbing in threesomes and when I do it's one at a time. as for tying off to go hands free, it couldn't be simpler, just take the brake hand side of the rope and do a wrap around the side of the rope to the climber. Takes seconds and you're hands-free. Again, you do the exact same unsubstantiated "less than vertical" innuendo when nothing could be further from the truth - hip belaying done right is a completely sound and solid method of belaying on vertical rock of any size to hold falls of any length. Last time I checked rotues like Blownout at Beacon and Yellow Spur in Eldo qualified as vertical. You're right - and belaying two people is certainly one of them.

I like the munter for a variety of uses, just not belaying or rapping, both of which tend to destroy a rope pretty damn quick when done with any frequency. It was fine on goldline, sucks on sheathed ropes. If you were paying attention to the details, the actual complete quote from my first post in the thread was: Both work equally well standing or sitting.

Yes, a) that I can evaluate the merits of any climbing area relative to my interests in climbing in only a few hours, and b) that I can evaluate the merits of other climbers on this board based on a few comments in the "Newbies" forum, and decide they're incompetent at hip belaying. Big difference.

I love the fact that [(victimal) white male] indignation is the last trick in the bottom of the republican bag. But then again, Rove proved that most of the time, it's the only one you need. Nothing plays together quite so well as ignorance and indignation.

Except anyone who criticizes hip belays appears to be incompetent by definition in your book. You're willing to call out genepires despite not knowing anything about what he represents as a climber, and the same goes for others on this thread... Hip belays have their uses, but they have their limitations... Again, which one of you on this thread has ever spent any significant amount of time or effort figuring out how a hip belay would have to be done to competently belay vertical rock? How many of you have used a hip belay on a vertical, multipitch rock climb? Any of you? I can tell from the comments on this thread that folks commenting negatively on hip belaying don't have the requisite experience or knowledge to make those claims. Even your comment of "but they have there limitations" smacks of it. How about elaborating on exactly what those limitations are if that's what you think? What I'm attempting to get across here is there is a wholly mistaken and now deeply entrenched mythology and urban legend around the topic that has no basis in fact.

Yeah, boring. I was at a party of old Valley guys back in March down in Jtree, my first visit there because I'd always avoided it and Vedauwoo like the plague. After one day climbing there I couldn't bail for Red Rocks fast enough - the basic movement was just that, intolerably boring.

Wastral, actually I am. It actually took us quite awhile before we trusted stitch plates for vertical multipitch trad; we knew, used, and trusted our hip belays. We did in fact use hip belays on roofs from hanging belays and I wouldn't hesitate to do the same today. We led Foops in the Gunks that way and held plenty of solid falls on hip belays at home, the Gunks, and in Eldo on them during that time. The notion that you need a device to safely hold falls of any length is entirely a modern myth. The increasing lack of competency with the technique over time, though, has clearly bred the entirely mistaken notion that you can't give a 'real' belay without a device - nothing could be further from the truth. No device is necessary at all to provide solid and safe belays on vertical multipitch rock. But make no mistake about it, and as Wastral says above, competent hip belaying - on vertical rock or alpine - is a technical exercise where you have to stay engaged and pay attention to the details. Hell, I forgot my harness (with ATC) a couple of weeks ago and led Blownout at Beacon tied into the rope, belaying with a hip belay, and rapping off on a biner brake. When I'm in Red Rocks and climbing with Larry DeAngelo we do multipitch FA's back up in the canyons on hip (me) and shoulder (him) belays. It's a basic climbing craft and sadly one that, along with stancing, is all but a lost art. Do I use a belay device? Sure, I use a Kong Ghost, but it's strictly a convience, not a necessity, and certainly not one my climbing is in any way dependent upon. P.S. One technical note relative to your comment about burning your back sans shirt or coat. In a proper hip belay the rope should never be higher than the top of your pants, i.e., should never be up on your waist. You want it down on your hips between the thigh socket and the crest at the top of your hip, there is a notch between the two and that's where you want to keep the rope.

Wanking sounds like what you folks do when hip belaying as opposed to providing a sound and solid belay that can be counted on. As for 'well-rounded', I have zero interest in being well-rounded, I only have an interest in climbs and movement I consider creative and interesting and just don't find the vast majority of granite to fit that criteria. From a pure movement perspective I find granite particualarly boring. In the end, I'm more than open to valid criticisms of hip belaying, but not from people who aren't competent doing one.

I'm saying that a hip belay with a single non-locking carabiner through your harness loops on the side of the rope going to the climber is absolutely as solid as any device of any kind. From your comments here I can tell I wouldn't want to be in the position of taking falls on you doing a hip belay. Ditto for several of you guys. Again, hip belaying, outside of some wank alpine version, clearly hasn't been a part of the culture up here. It's pretty much the same with the Beacon crew as well, none of them have any real experience with getting technical with hip belaying or holding big falls rock climbing with them.

Pretty hard to climb without belaying and belaying half the time if you're climbing with peers. And yes, older folks have different perspectives on various topics as well. A lot of it has to do with rock type and morphology - old granite climbers tend to view 'anchors' as a very different thing from old sandstone climbers. For me anchors are strictly a backup to my stance and belay unless it's a hanging belay. But then, almost all of us old guys from that thread often arrived at a belay with either no, one, or two passive pieces back in the day. You had to make do with stancing. And stancing is all but a lost art today along with real hip belaying. As far as flight time goes - in the 70's we climbed steep and roofs - falling happened way, way more than not falling. On the new line I've been working nowadays that's still the case. Bottom line, with a single non-locking carabiner I can competently belay any multipitch rock route and wouldn't hesitate to either have my leader take repeated 50+' falls on to it or take those falls myself (at least if my old partner or someone as competent was belaying).

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=731822&tn=80 Your point? Read that entire thread if you want a valid perspective on the topic of belaying from a number of different older and very experienced folks.

This is factually incorrect and you appear to be another who never learned how to do a decent hip belay. The NW is filled with alpine guys so I have no doubt that what passes for a hip belay up this way among that crew is pretty sketch. But I'm strictly a rock climber and hip belayed multipitch .9s-.11s exclusively on hip belays for a decade including lots of big falls and falls directly on me off the anchor. Again, it appears to be a case of few folks, particularly in the NW, ever really learn how to do them - probably never a part of the culture up here. From what I keep reading I'd be mad too if I got to the top of a pitch and found any of you guys hip belaying me. The amount of FUD and misinformation on hip belaying here is somewhat surprising from a crew who claims to be otherwise competent.

It might if one doesn't know how to do one. Well, then I'd say it's likely you don't know how to do one. "Well understood" appears to be the challenge - it shouldn't be used unless you are going to put the time into learning how to do one right. Again, a munter is a suck thing to do to a rope. Only do it if you can't figure out how to do a hip belay or the weight differential is too great.

I only link them when I'm rope-soloing because I'm feeding the rope out of my backpack so there is no drag. I don't run them together when I'm with a partner.

Hmmm, you do this move way differently - way to the left and from the look of it with a lower approach. Just saw someone else do this the other day for the first time. Looks maybe much harder as I'm thinking you wouldn't get as good a use of the diagonal crack at the apex? Do you then also stay to the left side to get established standing just above there or do you do a straight-on mantle?