JosephH

A couple of years ago there was a mother with three cubs she'd bring down to the slough from Hamilton quite a bit and they'd also hang out on the tracks down at the Elk crossing east of the corner about a 100-150 yards. The next year the cubs would come down and sun on the tracks at the crossing moving whenever a train came along and then going back to sunning. Haven't seen any since, so glad to hear some more have turned up again.

Had all mine setup that way, with stiffener cut from large softdrink bottles and then covered with electronics heatshrink tubing. Then I rigged the heads with sport tape so they also work for one-handed placements either cammed or as regular stoppers. Have to admit, though, that I haven't carried them in years as I don't find them all that compelling on basalt; did used them pretty relentlessly when I lived back east and climbed at the Crow Hill, Gunks, Cathedral, and Cannon.

Having bad ankles which turn under towards the inside, I've had dozens of sprains and broken the right one over the years. It has mainly meant I've had to stay conscious of my foot falls more than most and on the right side it has affected my running gate relative to how my foot strikes which in turn leads to some hip joint and lower back issues if I run too long at any one time. But I am talking about a five decade time frame to get to that point.

There was a USA-host family program over the summer where Japanese-American families took in mothers and children from affected areas around Fukushima to allow the children to be outside for the summer. Friends of mine here in PDX were a host family and I had the chance to meet their visiting mother and two children and take the older daughter climbing at PRG. They've gone back home now, but the issue is they had just bought their property and built their 'dream house' and their extended family are all orchardists in the area. The mother is encountering stiff resistance from her husband and extended family to the idea of abandoning their life there for the children's sake. The whole clan has been on the land their forever and because the radiation can't be seen the older and more influential members of the clan think it's not so bad a problem, or that it will get better with time, or are in other forms of denial from being so tied to the land and their family history there. There is also the issue of a great deal of prejudice in Japan against those from affected areas around Fukushima such that on their way to the US the mother had to try and keep their origin a secret while traveling from Fukushima to Tokyo and while boarding the flight for fear of people's responses. Pretty ugly. Overall the young mother is in a real bind with both she and the US host family here trying to convince her husband and extended family that they need to abandon all they have ever known and try to resettle in some other part of Japan and attempt to overcome both the financial hardships and prejudices that would come with such a decision.

Japan is inhabited by the Japanese whose cultural predilections for 'under-reporting' are legendary and have not really changed a shred from feudal times. That's just one of a few places where a cultural and technology mix doesn't work out so well compared to, say, making cars and electronics.

No real news there - it will likely take the better part of a decade to get the situation under any semblance of 'control'...

Yeah, I guess I'm one of the latter and don't care for the 5-pc bolts at all. They definitely turn into a corroded, spinning mess pretty damn fast - at least on this side of the Cascades. I'm down with SS studs and do use locktite(red) on them. Wouldn't consider ever going back to 5pc's. As you said, to each his own.

If you and they are doing it correctly you shouldn't be dragging your belayer anywhere. If that potential is there then you should address it before leaving the ground. Positioning, stancing, and anchoring should all be in the mix at a belayer's disposal. Overall you should think of the belayer as the foundation of a rope system you are assembling a piece at a time on lead - don't leave the ground with with a dubious belay.

I've always just kept the gear bag under 50lbs and checked it.

Sorry, missed the part where you become a flat out liar for the cause, Bill - good to know where your integrity begins and ends. Anyone else?

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It actually was tried...

Yep that's one of the main hunting perches. There are two fledges which have been getting trained by their parents - they're the loud ones. They should be getting run off by the parents any time now I would think. An owl decoy was already tried - apparently it only spooked some climbers at dusk.

There was another one of these incidents recently on Yellow Spur in Eldo. A lot of places and routes have sharp edges and accounting for them one way or another is part of what you have to do before you leave the ground as it's just another attribute of the crag / line.

I suspect that law enforcement personnel consider the whole enchilada a magnet that generates a large number of nuisance calls and they may not really care about the subject matter of those calls at this point. And as 'we' generate a percentage of the calls it may be difficult to substantively distinguish ourselves from the mix of what goes on out there. Probably still worth a reach out, but I wouldn't get my hopes to high.

I don't believe anyone is questioning Kevbone's integrity...

As I mentioned above, triaxial load only occurs and is a concern when the angle between the two sling ends is large, such as when wrapping a horn. In the case of the FFA and many crack constrictions the angle is essentially zero; hence clipping both end is much preferred because a) there is no triaxial loading whatsoever, b) it eliminates the multiplying forces of the girth hitch which force the sling down the slot, and c) it's easier for the second to clean. To each his own but there is zero triaxial loading when clipping both ends of a sling around either of the FFA or similar crack constrictions.

I love ya brother but really you need to stop spraying non-stop beta

That is correct in my experience also. Girth hitching greatly increases the sling pressure on the constriction leveraging / ratcheting the sling down through the constriction. The mechanical leveraging / ratcheting action is not present if you don't girth hitch and simply clip both ends and thus 'safer' in degrees - that doesn't mean it still couldn't break, but simply that your odds are better. Better not to use a skinny sling there, but if you do, don't girth hitch it.

I couldn't care less how people climb, but when I see people making a mistake which can get them badly hurt or killed I do generally tend to speak up.

Girth hitching a large diameter object is a somewhat different issue than a constriction that narrows to nothing, but doing either with 8mm dyneema slings is probably a bad idea. That can be the case in circumstances where the angle of the sling ends coming back together is large. But in the case of the FFA constrictions, and most crack constrictions, the angle is typically very small and so there is no need to worry about three-point loading.

Huh, seriously - wtf?