montypiton
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Everything posted by montypiton
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clubs like the Mountaineers and the Washington Alpine Club provide coaching/instruction free of charge. If you can't make their formal scheduled courses, just find someone willing to drag you up a climb. I got my foundation in the boy scouts and a college outdoor program. read Freedom of the Hills, then continue to study it as you progress. study knots, anchors, belays, protection, then go out and experiment on "easy" ground. the fastest way to progress is to climb regularly with someone more experienced/proficient than yourself. more than one experienced partner means you get to see more than one way of doing things. my friends and I learned to lead rock and ice by leading on rock and ice - because we didn't know anyone in our home area to follow. I began by practicing on aid lines - which meant I loaded every placement, and the placements were close together. As I became confident of my placements, I began to spread them further apart. It was less than six months before I was leading easy climbs, and once you're at that point, you can progress at whatever pace suits you. regarding gear - buy it as you need it. if you can find experienced partners, you'll be using their ropes. you can start with as little as a harness, and a single locking carabiner. this will allow you to belay or rappel with a Munter Hitch. before you get too far along, if you're doing multi-pitch climbs, you'll probably want to invest in a personal anchor system. you don't necessarily NEED dedicated rock shoes, but you may decide you want them fairly early on. a dedicated belay device is optional, but almost every climber uses one these days. there are lots of options, some very expensive (@$100), some very inexpensive (@$15). ask your mentors what they like, and practice handling theirs if possible. you don't need to acquire piles of carabiners, nuts, cams and slings until you're doing a the lead climbing. Buy the stuff as you need it - and hopefully you won't end up with a bin or two of items you never use.
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good on ya, Jens. I hope you're still up for the Recurve if/when it forms. it's a grudge match for Vern, now, too... -Haireball
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for the amount of time you're proposing, I'm thinking you'd get the most bang for your buck by looking for a concentration of climbing in one area. somebody mentioned the Liberty Bell group, and I would second the Washington Pass area. I'd also suggest the Stuart Range, but focus either on Stuart or around Colchuck Lake. in May you could have warm alpine rock, classic mixed, or couloir ice -- depending on the year. The fattest ice I've ever seen on the Triple Couloir on Dragontail was the first week of June one year back in the nineties. I've seen the same climb "bare & dry" at the same time of year. - depends on the year. I have found relatively dependable "classic mixed" climbs on Dragontail and Stuart in May, but these are "seasonal" lines, varying from year-to-year - not the sort of climb to be found in a guidebook, there-one-year-gone-the-next. With Patagonian and Alaskan experience, I'm presuming you have well-developed avalanche safety skills, and the ability to pick a line and climb it without a topo. Without those skillsets your options may be pretty limited.
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mittens are dead easy to make if you can operate a sewing machine. for my two Denali trips I used a pair of "pile" (you'd use "fleece" these days)mittens that I made for myself, with gore-tex shell mitts (cordura palms)made to fit over the pile mitts. with the glove options we have available these days, I haven't NEEDED mittens in the lower forty-eight or BC/Alberta for thirty years... my got-to-rig for 0-F & below these days is a shell-and-liner combination by Granite Gear. they fit even my great ham-hands generously enough to accommodate a light liner inside the fleece inner glove, making a three-layer-total. I've even tried them with a dry-tooling style glove inside the fleece, and found them acceptable below 0-F. or - you could spend $150 or so at any of the big-name mountain clothing manufacturers, and get a pair or mittens you'll probably never use outside the Himalaya, Arctic, or Antarctic... and if it's THAT cold, you can pretty much forget about dexterity - your hands will be either warm (and so bundled up as to be pretty much useless for anything more than holding an ice-axe or trekking pole), or they'll be too cold to operate after about thirty seconds exposed in a thin glove (less if you go down to skin). You could probably operate a belay if it's pretty simple to rig...
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Beginner Ice/Mixed climber looking for partner
montypiton replied to Jordon Foster's topic in Climbing Partners
always room for new partners dumb enough to jump on mixed alpine terrain. I may be old, but I'm slow... 40 years experience. email me -- curthaire@nwi.net -
yes, the kiwi-coil is the preferred protocol for shortening a rope between climbers. you did well to tie off the coil with an overhand, however to transmit the load of a fall to your harness, you clip the tail of your overhand-on-a-bight into the tie-in point of your harness. if you've left the tail short, the load should come initially on your harness, and the coil will help keep you upright, like a chest harness does. this is particularly important if you're climbing with a pack of any size, because in that case, you're top-heavy, and more likely to invert in a fall without upper body support. this method also captures the tail of your overhand-on-a-bight so it can't inadvertently work loose.
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I've resoled some leather shoes (Aces) as much as three times (I resole my own shoes). I've found Aquaseal to last far longer than shoe-goo for this kind of patch. These days, I save the rubber grindings from my resole episodes, and mix the ground rubber with the aquaseal for patching rands. It works well, lasts, and is far less taxing than trying to re-rand. If you do-it-yourself with a resole kit from 5.10, you'll have more than enough ground rubber for the rand patch. -Haireball
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Desperately seeking partners for some Teton time. I had two climbs lined up (both through) this board, and both partners bailed at the last minute. I'll be in Idaho Falls (little over an hour from the Park) until August 9, then have to get on the road back to Leavenworth. Objective would be a long moderate route on the Grand, Moran, or Owen. I'm an Old Fart. Sawtooths might be an option, too. Further from I.F., but on the way home. -Curt Haire, 509/433-6401
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How thin of a rope can a guy safely rap off??
montypiton replied to Woodcutter's topic in The Gear Critic
if you go with anything skinnier than about 7mm, for adequate friction the O-P SBG, rigged in the maximum friction mode will work, and it's inexpensive at just over half the price of the BD-guide. if you happen to have an old figure-eight around, you can wrap the rope through it twice, and have more friction than you'll ever need. you could rap on a munter, or even use the old carabiner wrap technique (very old school)using however many wraps it takes to yield a comfortable rate of descent. or if you're utterly fanatical about the weight, leave the harness behind and dulfersitz it. with ski-clothes, the burn might not be so bad. if you opt for the dulfer, saving the weight of harness + rappel device offers the option of upsizing your rope... -
congrats, gentlemen! old as I am, Huntington is still on my phantasy ticklist... !
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I'll be in Idaho Falls on family business for at least the first week of August -- hoping to hook up with one or more partners for some teton action...
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For summer and ultralight I use an old (vintage 1989) NF "Lightrider" -- it was a forerunner of today's "pounders" - a one pound down bag with no side block baffle opposite the zipper, so that you can shake all the down to the top side of the bag for cooler nights, or to the bottom side when you really don't even need a bag... I don't even remember its temp rating, but it couldn't be lower than about forty. You want an ultralight summer bag? FF, WM, Marmot, and others all offer something in 800+ goose down at about a pound. Choose the one with the features you want. Then consider pairing it with a wide-body three season bag for extreme cold. Back in 1991 I ordered a fifteen-degree bag from FF with their "extra-girth-option". It makes a luxuriously comfortable three-season bag with room for the lightrider to fully loft when used as a liner inside it. I've used the pair ski-touring in the Alaska Range in February. The FF bag, at two-pounds-plus, is my "three-season" bag, though I routinely use it by itself for winter trips in the Cascades. And the Lightrider is my ultralight workhorse - its one-pound total has pulled duty for desert trips, Rainier climbs, and even as a half-bag paired with an expedition-weight down jacket on the South Face of Aconcagua in 1990.
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Castle Rock: Mr. Clean, Mrs Clean, Clean Love, Brass Balls, Crack of Doom, Devil's Fright, Devil's Delight, MF Overhang, Vertebrae Icicle Butt-rest: Forking Crack, Cocaine Crack Givler's Dome: Bo Derek, Bondage Alphabet Rock: Z-crack, Meat Grinder, Hindquarters, Alphabet Soup Little Bridge Creek Rock: Arms Control Deb's Crack Condor Buttress: Condorphamine Addiction These are all well established -- most have been considered "classic" at one time or another. They see far less traffic today than they saw in the 'eighties, because most are NOT bolted. Condorphamine Addiction is the glaring exception - a multi-pitch bolted sport-climb drop to 5.9 and you get the Bone, Damnation, and Canary (5.8 in the guidebook, possibly a sandbag) at Castle, and Dogleg Crack at Alphabet Rock, plus Poison Ivy Crack and Ski-tracks Crack in the lower Icicle canyon by the cabins (Icicle Island. All except Condor Buttress & Givler's Dome is roadside stuff, ten minute or less approach.
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for the price of most altimeter watches, you can get a decent GPS unit that will give you a lots more information than the watches do...
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your rope is nylon, so pretty much any mild detergent will work. gentle cycle (mainly because you'll get less tangle than regular cycle), low heat. air dry (a no-heat dryer cycle is ok, but you'll spend hours untangling your line) woolite and no heat is a pretty good inexpensive recipe...
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for general alpinism, I like to carry a multi-tool (Leatherman or Sog - I avoid Gerber because I've broken every blade on two of them) -- just because I sometimes need more than just a knifeblade. specific for climbing, & just cutting webbing or cord, I sharpen one edge of my nut-tool, and slide a section of air-compressor hose over it for a sheath - one less tool to buy & keep track of...
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Most single all-round mountaineering boots are warm enough for winter in the Cascades. I've not needed a double boot until well below 0-fahrenheit. Sportiva, Scarpa, Technica, Boreal, Vasque, Lowa, Hanwag, Raichle, Kayland, all make excellent boots -- try on as many as you can find, and buy the one that feels like you were born in it. For a newbie, I would not recommend the integral neoprene gaiter style. I've seen too many friends rip the snot out of them. Warranties are of little value when your gear fails two days from the road... A seamless leather upper like the Sportiva Nepal will outlast anything else, but will also be heavier than synthetic. Ultralight-high-performance must be balanced against long-haul durability.
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don't forget college outdoor programs -- many offer high-quality instruction, and often don't require that you be an enrolled student. they can be a great source of partners, as well...
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Has anyone actually rapped with a dulfersitz?
montypiton replied to keenwesh's topic in Climber's Board
Dulfer was the first rappel I learned forty-three years ago, and in 1972, it saved my life when the knot on a swiss-seat failed and I detached from my brake setup. Fortunately I had routed the rappel rope from the brake between my legs and then to my brake hand. On a dead-vertical rappel, I stopped myself sitting in a bight of rope, looped the brake rope over my shoulder and completed the rappel as a dulfer. Todd Skinner could have done the same when his harness failed, had he routed the rope between his legs. I have taught rock-climbing for both amateur and professional venues since the seventies, and always insist that my proteges learn the dulfer as an emergency technique. I still frequently use it on winter climbs when I'm in a hurry. -
Fixing small holes in stretchy synthetic clothing
montypiton replied to PandaExpress's topic in The Gear Critic
I use a fine needle & thread, baseball stitch, and don't bother with any adhesive or coating. quick, easy, seems to last... -
Seeking rope recommendation,Denali West Rib Cutoff
montypiton replied to jesselillis's topic in Climber's Board
I'd go with the smallest HALF rope you can find -- just don't drop to a single TWIN. If all you're using prusiks for is to get out of a crevasse, go with 4mm slings -- they're only carrying bodyweight. modern (current) dry treatments may be more durable than you think - I'd spring for it if I were you. -
I'll admit that virtually no one digs snow caves on Denali, but in the two seasons I spent there (admittedly a LONG time ago) most of the old hands, and all of the climbing rangers, were building igloos. They are easy to build, and far warmer and more stormproof than any tent. My second season, we didn't even take a "basecamp" tent - just a bivvy tent for use in places where tents shouldn't be. For all our glacier time, we built igloos -- it's nice to be able to sit around inside in you underwear when it's thirty below outside... if I were to go back to Denali (and now that I'm an empty-nester, I'm considering it) I would not take a tent for glacier camping - I'd build igloos,