JosephH

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?

The other night someone took a fall on the .10 start side of 'Free For All' which resulted in a broken [older] Mammut skinny sling which was girth-hitched around one of the two rock constriction points. Apparently the fall was arrested by a stopper in the base of the first large opening. Hopefully the leader wasn't hurt, and if not was lucky as this was a potential ankle breaker if the belayer wasn't right on it. Would like to know who this was in order to get a read on how old that sling was. As a side note, those constriction points shouldn't be girth-hitched with any thin sling material for exactly this reason. If you sling one of those constriction points it's way better ( and easier for the second) if you put the sling over the constriction and then clip both ends of the sling with one or both biners instead of girthing it.

I was kidding. Had the first season with lots of folks up to the high anchor, second with Shane tackling the biggest roof. Third season (last year) Shane went to Boulder / San Fran and I both never found anyone I felt comfortable going up there with and didn't get in quite good enough shape to do it before it started raining. Shane's is busy building a house now and I've yet found anyone else I'd be willing to go up on that pitch with besides him or Karsten. Trying to get in shape to give it another go this year - may or may not happen. Turn sixty next summer and may try to do the Diamond after having being invited out by Jim Detterline when he was at Beacon. If that happens I'll also try to wrap it up then if it doesn't happen this year. After that? Screw it, I'm getting to old for this shit.

Look, I know we're not friends, and you don't care for the way I do things, and we're in a back and forth argument about shit. But to quote James Coburn in Payback - "Man, that's just MEAN..."

Totally cute, Ben. Just a heads up that stuff does come down directly on the base of 'Rhythm Method'. While working on 'Menopause' I've cleaned up the whole base area one day and come back a week later to find new stuff down there.