tempo

I ended up with a gift certificate for X-Mas for VW, so I now have a membership there (ok...so the certificate just covered the membership fee) and so far, I'm pretty happy about it.

I'm going to be at VW in Seattle tonight from about 5:30 until 7:30-ish. So far, my potential and regular belay partners are unavaible...anyone want to go? Drop me a message (currently I'm climbing 5.8 - 5.10b. At least the 10b is the highest I've tried so far)

Current schedule has been to go Monday 5:30 on and on Wednesdays from 5:30 - 7pm-ish...or 8-ish to closing on Wednesday. Some weekends would also work, I'm in town every other weekend...and on those weeks I'd also be available Friday. I'd also be interested in anyone who wants to drop me a line at my above email in the event that they're looking for a partner on a random night at the gym or who I could contact just to see if they might be there...nothing regular, just hit and miss.

Whoops...my fault. Seattle VW.

I am likely going to be visiting VW most Mondays between 5:30 and 8pm...if anyone would be interested in meeting up there and trading belays on 5.8-5.10's drop me a line at speyerj (at) gmail (dot) com I could also be persuaded to meet there at 6:30am every so often for morning belaying if someone was interested.

If only there was ANY way that non-UW students could use that climbing wall I'd be on it in a heartbeat. But last I heard it's strictly UW students and faculty...my mom is faculty at UW but that counts for ZERO last I heard. Anyone who can correct me is welcome to...as I'd love to use that wall. It's 5 minutes from my house as opposed to the commute to VW or SG.

How bad of a crowd are we talking about? If I show up on a M/W/F evening or early afternoon and want to do some climbs am I going to be spending most of my time waiting in line to do one route? I mean...that's what I had to do at camp when I was in 5th grade...stand around for 1 1/2 hours for every climb I got to do. That's not a workout, that's a waste of time.

Are you saying that you would consider tying in directly to the belay loop with your rope? Not just using it for belay?

Another thing that came to mind the other day at the wall...when I was taught the dogma was that you A) always tie in directly to your harness...not to the belay loop and B) when belaying, put the biner through the tie-ins, not the belay loop. (B) has always ALWAYS bothered me...why have this loop there if nothing is ever tied in to it? Is it just for looks? So the other day at the wall I saw, for the first time, a guy on the wall and instead of being tied in to his harness, his rope was tied in on a locking biner through the belay loop. The thought of that scares me...but it made me rethink (B)...why don't folks clip into the belay loop and belay from there? It seems like it'd work fine...

So when I was taught to lead climb (sport), my instructor always said to put in the quick draw first and then clip into the quick draw. I've always done that, and accepted it as fact. The other day though I was noting that when using an aid to clip into a bolt beyond reach, you clip the quickdraw to the rope first and then place the quickdraw. Is there any specific reason why you wouldn't want to clip the quickdraw to the rope and then reach for the bolt in a normal situation? I once had a lead climber get half way up a wall, place a quickdraw and then while reaching for it with the rope lose his grip and drop. I then had to go up to retrieve the quickdraw hanging there...and that meant leading the rest of the wall so I could top rope and retrieve all the gear. I now find myself thinking back on this situation and wondering...why didn't he clip the quickdraw to the rope before reaching for that bolt? I've never seen anyone do that (clip the rope then reach for the bolt)...so why don't they?

Any other opinions are welcome of course

I have never been a bouldering person (that may be changing soon if that's what I have to do to work off-season) and my biggest enjoyment is gaining altitude...if you were going to judge soley off of the roped routes (or potential leadable rope routes) what would you think?

I tried to look at an archived post...but it appears to be forbidden. Does anyone have any input on the merits of Vertical World vs Stone Garden in the Seattle/Magnolia/Ballard area? As the season gets cold, I've resolved to not let myself go through 6 months of no climbing this year...Thoughts?