JosephH

The original thread is at: Gear Modifications... Just so there is no misinterpretation of my intent here, let me be clear that the elastic cord in no way substitutes for sling with respect to either loading or restraint of pieces in opposition - the elastic just makes it easier to set opposition pieces and holds them while cloving or otherwise adjusting the opposition setup. Again, the elastic cord just holds the pieces in place while you get it set up. This is particularly handy when a bottom piece of opposition wants to fall out and requires another hand until the setup/slings are adjusted. While there may be times when I allow a little slack in the sling with the elastic holding the pieces together until the sling is loaded, it never more than and inch or so at most - more than that and I rethink everything. Oh, and regarding "in the time it would take to throw an elastic on.." - I don't "throw it on", it's already there, I just drop a sling loop or a sling and elastic loop (note: compared at full lengths, the elastic cord is about an inch shorter than the sling so there is always tension even if an elastic loop is dropped along with a sling loop). I got started doing this to help insure my roped solo anchors hold and aim the way I want them to once I depart from them. Sometimes I would come back down to second the pitch and find all the jostling of the rope had inadvertantly moved things in ways I didn't much care for and the elastic cord kept things in place. Then one day on a pitch I didn't need the elastic draw I ended up using it in an opposition setup and now I carry two draws configured this way at all times just for opposition setups; it makes setting them up a quick, easy, and one-handed affair. You are right, though, I have never seen or heard of another person doing this, but it has always worked well enough for me that I always carry them...

Yes, free protection - mostly on granite, in pairs for opposition on narrower flakes or at large flake tops. I do also use them a lot in opposition with other types of pieces as well. ala: Ken Nichols, that boy has some scary but effective opposed hook techniques. Consult his Rock and Ice artical circa 1987 (I believe) for similar stuff. Cool stuff JH, perhaps a small dissertation on your techniques would be in order, unique and insightful into a realm that is often overlooked or ignored. Thanks, I was actually witness to one of Ken and company's hooking parties back in CT years ago. For all the negative press, Ken was one of the best climbers around, very creative, and fought hard to protect the trad integrity of the areas where he climbed. It is unfortunate he doesn't necessarily interact or play well with others, but when it comes to his intent I'm on his side every time. Marco Fedrizzi here in PDX was Ken's principal protege before I shanghai'd him for some of time I lived in NH and then cajoled him out to the NW. Marco did tons of those hook routes with Ken and the boys, and having seen it in person I can tell you that regardless of how arcane you might think it was, it was some of the boldest and daring climbing that happened in the NE during that time. The bottom line was you couldn't really fall on those hooks, they were more for down climbing to, then gingerly weighting, and then lowering. Some would hold a fall, but between you and me I think Marco would tell you they didn't try to find out all that often - they were all fabulous downclimbers and it is a hell of a skill to have for trad leading. My use of hooks is just straight forward tradwork/rockcraft compared to Ken's whole new elaborate paradigm/system (with many, many custom hook shapes). I started using the skyhooks for free pro after climbing past a bunch of different placements on granite in NH and CO where I could have used one for either the primary piece of pro or for opposition. The first time I used one was at the top of Moby Grape on Cannon in NH where the vertical wall topped out to slabs. The last moves on the wall were on a flake that was topped by a little 3" roof from the slabs above. Between the top of the flake and the little roof was a 3/4" space just wide enough to put the Skyhook in horizontally to get the hook in behind the flake and then to rotate it down into the normal postion - a bomber hook that can't come off. I've since used them in pairs in opposition on triangular flake tops; in pairs of pockets; or in opposing crack lines angled away from each other. And last I use them in combination with other pieces in opposition - usually along with one of the two special trad draws I carry with the double loop of elastic cord complementing the doubled sling. (I'll put up a pic of this tomorrow...). Most of this stuff is just classic "outside the box" thinking and not being trapped by others preconceived ideas of what things should be used for this or that, or how they should be done. Also, in pre-cam days we had to get pretty creative now and then doing lots of stopper/hex stacking (great fun). Just remember that, outside of a basic set of generally accepted safe practices, no one "owns" how things should be done in climbing, not me, not even the guys that invent this stuff in the first place - that's how/why the stuff got invented in the first place. Hell, they'd all be the first ones to tell you to have at it. ====================== Elastic cord on doubled trad draw... One sling loop dropped, doubled elastic cord stretched for hold opposition pieces...

Yes, that's a valid concern and I considered it at the time, but the tubing itself pretty well shields the webbing during the application of heat if you are careful. That brown TriCam in the picture was done ten years ago and I've fallen on it fairly often over the years with no ill effect. Need to re-sling it and its brethren now that you make me think about how old it is...

Yes, free protection - mostly on granite, in pairs for opposition on narrower flakes or at large flake tops. I do also use them a lot in opposition with other types of pieces as well.

Dru - I can certinly understand your concern, but I have taken a thirty footer on the one up from this one and at the time it was rigged with mank, knotted, unpadded, and unsecured 1/2" tape (but through the same path which is the real key in minimizing directly weighted sharp edges). This setup is about ten times better. To some extent I guess I've just been leading free routes using Crack N' Ups, small Lowe Balls, and similarly rigged Sky Hooks for so many years and fallen on them so often I really am pretty comfortable with all of them. But that said, folks here should realize we are talking about advanced placement skills developed and acquired over years. You just have to really study placements well and optimize all aspects of it: rock, piece, position, constrictions/topology, rope/fall direction, slinging, opposition, etc. You also have to both choose the right spots and then the right placements in those spots. In the end it all boils down to paying attention to subtle details and understanding the constraints (I know I'm preaching to the chior here in your case, Dru...). For instance, in all but the hardest rock (Devil's Lake say), Ball Nuts in need to be placed sufficiently deep for the "paddle/blade" to travel just long/far enough for the ball to really "set" or lock in place. That means when you place it you don't want to leave it with the ball right up at the tip where it has no more travel available - it stil needs to be retracted a bit when you finish the placement. That's generic to Ball Nuts - but it's also good to recognize and understand that inadvertant design changes made by the current licensees (Trango/Camp, as compared to the original Lowe/Byrne Ball Nuts) resulted in shorter stems, shorter paddles/blades, shallower seats, smaller balls, and a couple of other subtle changes that make them not dynamically "set" or "lock" as well in a fall leaving them more susceptible to pulling out. So either they should only be used for aid or require a bit more care in placing them and you also have to sort of "pre-set" them when free climbing on the small ones. But then again, you might not ever realize/recognize this just looking at the current Trango/Camp versions. Again, it's all wrapped up in some subtleties, both those associated with the placement and the technical aspects of the equation. Probably the best way to develp some of these advanced skills is to do some [C2+/C3] aid climbing where your natural inclination will be to pay attention and study hard. Joseph P.S. Here's the Sky Hooks...

No - probably because I don't typically treat any type of piece differently when it comes to slinging. If I think the rope will adversely affect a placement of any type I either sling it appropriately or put some in opposition.

WTF??? Hey all you need is 5/8" cable and a comealong and then clip into that baby and start walking across it. Get out your static 11mm's in the meantime and start practice walking them until its installed...

It's pretty much all climbable. In a hard freeze year some of the narrow ribbon lines on the south wall up higher and a ways back off 84 between Cascade Locks and Hood River look to run around a 1000' tall. These tend to stick around for an extended period once they set up given the lack of sun. Never been up to any of them, but I had a split living arrangement for years between a [play] house in HR and a [work] apartment in NW and did the drive about a million times over six years. The Crown Point line gets most of the action from what I've typically seen.

Yes, Blake did a first rate job on the bail, and fortunately had a long sling which he quite ingeniously rigged on the righthand pillar. This has a smaller square block sticking out the right side of its top and he (I believe) cloved that block and then draped the body of the sling on either side of the pillar top so the end draped off the left side above the route. Smart thinking... P.S. I have to admit, I think of it as a long layback rather than a crack.

Indonesian Climbing...

Finally got a little Canon SD300, sweet! Here are some gear mod photos: =================================== Crack N' Up / Updated with secured dyneema slings for free climbing protection. =================================== Photo 1: Full view; note the swaging for racking... Photo 2: Close up of the front side (the side the shank is bent towards); you can see that the thin metal of the sling loop is padded with plastic electrician's tape and the dyneema sling is secured with a thin nylon line;the exiting dyneema sling is also wrapped with sport tape to both pad it against the metal edge and to keep it aligned... Photo 3: Profile view; note the offset shank that makes these babies work... =================================== TriCam stiffened with electrician's heat shrink tubing so it can be placed like a stopper. =================================== Photo 1: Stiffened TriCam in stopper placement mode; note: tubing available at Radar Electric - don't get it too hot; the trick is to put a thin strip of plastic from a gallon milk jug or liter coke bottle between the sling halves before sleeving with the tubing to make it really stiff... Photo 2: Stiffened TriCam in cam placement mode... Photo 3: Overview of sport tape restraining strip and collar for restricting the head movement and to ensure alignment; Note the plastic shrink tubing needs to come up quite close to the head... Photo 4: Top view of the same... Photo 5: Bottom view showing how the restraining strip is split and finished off as it wraps around to the bottom of the head towards the point; note: keep the tape off the point and, also, really dress the sport tape down good and it will stay good for years... =================================== Ball Nut dressed out for small cracks. =================================== Photo 1: Front view; note the yellow plastic tubing has been heated quite hot and flattened so the tubing doesn't interfer with placements; this also locks the inner plastic wire sheath in place so the ball does less flopping around... Photo 2: Side view of flattened plastic tubing; note: it is a balancing act melting the tubing hot enough to flatten without ruining it and the piece... =================================== Large cam with leashed cotter pin so it doesn't grab on things while racked; note: long thin cotter pins are getting hard to find... =================================== Photo 1: Front view; note: when held in this position momentarily, and the trigger is pulled slightly, the cotter pin will simply drop out and release the cams as you place the piece. Photo 2: Side view...

Forrest is where it's at. I have a couple of hot spare Titons if you need them. They are [triplicates] from a shipment that went to Stephane's Nut Museum in Corsica.

Count me in as interested in old and strange gear - it all needs to come back out of retirement. Why would you retire unbroken metal gear anyway? Can't you carry it all?

That would be the Southern Oregon rock guide wouldn't it...?

Yeah, they are stitched along the length now. We used Air Voyagers in the mid 80's and on one climb called the Wizard at Crow Hill we blew out a whole bunch of them taking wingers off of it onto either an original #1 Friend or before that a circle of equalized brassies. The bar tacks typically blew pretty violently so we'd diagonally and progressively pre-slice the first 5-6 of them insure equalization would have a chance to occur on the web of brassies. Our falls typically blew between 14-20 bars. When roped soloing you should always have one at your [belay] anchor, but I can't think of anytime it would be necessary, desirable, or a good idea to have one between you and your belay device - it would just add a lot of unpredictability to the belay. As I said, they tend to go off loud and fast.

Blake (and other Newbies), The guides and history are full of adventure, passion, tales, routes to be done some day - but every route in every guide book on earth was put up by someone that had no clue if they could really get up the damn thing or not. All they had was just an idea that somehow burned itself into an obsession that led to the attempt. All of you sell yourselves short to some extent by only climbing by guides; never developing an eye that matches/exceeds your current capabilities/skills. The reality is you don't need the guides, you don't need the ratings, you don't need beta, you don't need to know whether a line is even a route or not - as you become competent leaders you are all perfectly capable of learning to scope out and assess lines for yourselves. It is really the quintessential skill that, sadly and unfortunately, many if not most climbers never learn. It is the heart and soul of what [onsight] FA's is all about - not knowing in advance. It has also been the driving motivation for all my years of climbing. For that matter many of us early on really resented chalk because it revealed moves and whole lines in some cases. We saw the clear psychological dependency of it again and again as we'd go to new areas, partner up with random [good] folks, and suggest climbing a line we spotted only to have partner after partner notice there is no chalk on it, dive for their guidebook, and proclaim "there is no route there!". Exactly. And nothing would get these folks up a piece of rock without chalk on it. Or better yet, just wandering off onto an interesting diverging line (with no chalk); that generally sparked all but outright indignation and/or panic. In fact, many of these folks climbed with the guidebook drilled and slung on their harness to insure they'd never climb a new line. The only place that wasn't consistently the case was the Gunks - those fools by and large were up for anything and the stranger the better. Again, don't sell yourselves short - have some adventure, isn't that why you started climbing to begin with? You can always fall back on classics and running around with the guidebook to insure you don't get out of you comfort zone - but then you'll rarely get out of your comfort zone...

I'm 52 and it has made a lot of difference in an old rotator cuff injury and shoulders/elbow in general - little or no problems this past year and I've been climbing pretty hard the second half of the year. It does take about 3-4 weeks to kick in to a noticable state though...

I have a bit of an odd take on guide books. I generally only use them to figure out where a new climbing area is and that's it - I don't want to know anymore. I'd much rather walk the rock, scope lines out, and just pick the most interesting things to climb; guides really screw that up. You might try it sometime; don't worry about what anyone else thinks about the rock/routes, pretend no one has ever climbed there and just approach it unseen with your own eyes and judgment. Don't worry about ratings, pro (bring a rack), or anything else. Go, scope, climb. * Will you epic and bail sometimes? Sure. * Will you not get off the ground sometimes? Absolutely. * Will routes be easier than you thought sometimes? Sometimes. * Will you get scared pissless sometimes? You're only human. * Will you climb harder than you ever thought possible because you didn't know how hard something was? Likely, at least on the good days. Look at the book on the drive back home (if you must), who knows maybe you'll surprise yourself...

That's the spirit Blake! There's definitely no need to let gear languish the way it comes out of the box. So, yeah, I modify the following gear: Ball Nuts: a) [Carefully] melt the outer plastic tubing really good [bubbling] and flatten it so it locks the the smaller, inner wire race tubing in place and so the outer tubing doesn't obstruct placements of the smaller sizes; b) On new Trango and Camp BallNutz you should grind the paddle/blade corners to a round chamfer else they tend catch and hang up badly trying to place them in tight spots - this was an inadvertantly oversight when both licensees of the original Lowe/Byrne Ball nut design started manufacturing (along with a couple of other minor details hopefully to be corrected in the next year or so). Tri-Cams: stiffen the webbing with electical cable heat shrink tubing (Radar Electric or URS Electronics); sport tape the cams back to the webbing so that when holding the now stiffened webbing like a stopper you can flip the cam to either the stopper position (uncammed) or in the camming position (folded back); this allows you to place it with an extended reach like a wired stopper and also place it like a cam by just pushing it via the webbing into a crack. Larger cams: all have thin, long, leashed cotter pins for pinning the cams together so when you're climbing they don't hang up on things while racked. Crack N'Ups: Thin wire swaged to the top so you can rack them in the beaks down position; dyneema slings through the hole from the cammed side up around the anchor head, then tied in place with very thin nylon cord; #2s and #3s have plastic tape under the dynemma to keep the sharp edge action down. Metolius Cleaning tool: drilled to accept sewn shoulder leash; point ground ala Opdyke into a small, sharp claw for cleaning out fine cracks (for ballnuts, brassies, and Crack N'Ups. Not a mod, but: A couple of my doubled trad draws have matching doubled loops of elastic/nylon cord along with the doubled sling for setting pieces in opposition where the bottom one won't stay "set" on it's own; the elastic cord keeps the two pieces in tension and so in place until they get loaded by the rope going by or by a fall. I'll have a digital camera in a few days and I'll edit this to add photos...

[TR] Blake and I had a great day out at Beacon today inspite of the near-nuclear east winds - they seem pretty strong this year and really build instead of dying down as the day wears on...

Where are you...?

I've been in an out of shape and climbing a dozen times over 30 years - it doesn't always hold the same emotional bang for the buck at all times. Then I come back to it and get back in shape (like now). Getting in shape or losing weight (close to 30 lbs this time) is easy - deciding to do it is a bitch. I know I've decided when I realize this is the last SuzyQ I'm going to eat for a long time. Like I said, after that it's all easy.

How about "Finite Chopping"...

Beacon / Monday 12/27 9am - Any takers?

I should add that I typically do the first pitch with pro not clipping the bolts which, with all due respect for the FA party (who bolted it for community service), aren't really necessary. That said, the pro is small in spots so small, brassy wires and/or ball nuts come in handy.