montypiton

I'll be in the Icicle on Friday ---

While I am surprised to find myself agreeing with much of what Marks says in this essay, I have a hard time with the concept of drug use as "cheating". Cheating implies that whatever the cheat is doing provides the cheat with a competitive advantage over the cheat's competitors. But if all of the cheat's significant competitors are engaging in the same practice, where's the competitive advantage? I don't practice climbing as a competitive sport. I love the places climbing takes me, and the "big" routes I've done have taken me some memorable places. I don't give a rat's ass about performance records, or somebody else's climbing style. I climb for my own enjoyment, and prefer to climb with partners who aren't keeping score. I've never used O2 or diamox not because I think using them is cheating, but because I think using them is dangerous. Both predispose people to overextend themselves, and diamox has some hazardous side effects. I do, however use modern energy & recovery foods in the mountains.

twelve is about the right age to start... strong enough to swing a tool, and kid enough to get really excited I remember taking my youngest out at twelve - then couldn't keep up with him -- Gibraltar & Louise Falls at thirteen, leading short WI4s at sixteen... but he's too busy teachin' his girlfriend to climb these days to get out with me any more...

1988 - Yosemite Valley lookin' for a partner for the Nose, because mine had developed some foot issue the prevented wearing rock shoes (turned out to be real - he didn't climb for two years). Put out the word in Camp Four, and hook up with a Canadian guy -- says he's mainly a caver, got a lot of aid experience. No worries, says I, I don't expect to be quick - in fact I tend to be slower than average on aid (although I did have a handful of walls under the belt at that time, including one FA in Alaska - Broken Tooth) So we're off - packing my haulbag, I specify lining the bag with our sleeping mats, and packing soft stuff outside, hard goods towards center. At Sickle Ledge, after an afternoon start, I find a hole worn in the bag -- tuna cans he'd placed right against the bag. I bitched, he apologized, we moved on Next morning, in the stovelegs, his lead slows to glacial pace. We get passed. I have a strict rule about second-guessing partners' leads, but in this case I make an exception: "trouble?" gets the response "I've never really climbed cracks before..." Whaaat? Oh - shit!?!? But, the next ledge we come to has a long line of lidded five-gallon buckets on it -- food and drink treats left from the Star Trek movie crew that had only vacated the route a couple of days earlier. We pronounce this a great reason for a rest day... even taking a day off and gorging ourselves, we leave the ledge hauling more food and drink than when we'd arrived. I manage to make a complete clusterfuck of the King Swing - somehow completely miss the intermediate pendulum anchor, and do the whole swing as one humongous pendulum -- takes me several tries. We get passed again... Higher on the route, we stretch a day past sundown. My hookup partner finishes to the ledge in pitch dark. Funny thing is, the darker it gets, the faster he gets... he REALLY IS more of a caver!!! We enjoy a great laugh after that... He draws the Great Roof lead, and thirty - five years later, I swear I still feel the pucker from jugging that pitch. That means I get pancake flake, to which I have looked forward for years - but by this time, I just want off, so to hell with free, "french" is just fine!!! Finally top out, get down a day later than planned (but worth it! Thanks Cap'n Kirk!!!) to find my (now ex) wife camped with some guy in his van... As it turns out, though, I just heard from this climbing partner a month or two ago... after his FORTYY-EIGHTH lap on the Captain! "Pass the Pitons Pete" Zabrock has, since that first dubious wall, become something of a Valley fixture... somehow young Keenwesh got steered to Pete for beta in the Valley last year, my name came up, and I got an email from Pete. I'll be dipped in shit...

Haireball's Ass Clammin' News: Tumwater Canyon: Big News is that the Drip is in. Lookin' fierce, as usual. base cone is about half of climb, but top curtain/pillar only just connects. The Pencil's first pitch has fallen - victim of the same thermal inversion that brought in the Drip. Drury is complete, but quite lean in places. Comic Book Hero, Plastic Fantastic Lover, the Penstock, and additional undocumented ice, are fat opposite Castlerock. The Smear, Silver Tongue, and Fawn Gully all look good at the mouth of the Canyon Scrappy fragments of ice above Hobo Gulch. a wandering line far right (downstream)Dos Hobos is very forgiving classic mixed. Icicle Canyon: 1) acquire a map of the road 2) close your eyes and make a pencil mark 3) drive to the point marked 4) look uphill, and climb whatever ice you see. yup - ice everywhere... even the ice you can't see easily from the road -- park as for the Refrigerator Boulder - walk uphill upstream of the boulder & discover Entrance Exam. Or brave the crossing to Dog Dome for the most concentrated collection of steep & mixed problems in the canyon.

as of Saturday, 1/19, most lines still look pretty dry. we settled for two quickies in Pee Wee's Playhouse area, but wished we'd stayed around the Icicle Canyon.

For the record: Black Power is the name of a rock route towards the downstream (climber's right end of the Candlestein Cliff. Careno Crag is the name of the largest rock formation above the cabins on the road at Icicle Island. Candlestein Cliff is the name from the original guidebook for Icicle Canyon (by Fred Beckey) for the rock formation on which the mis-named ice-climbs "Careno Left" and "Careno Right" form. I do not know why the Beckey name has not survived into the current generation of guidebooks. These two climbs have nothing to do with Careno Crag, and it might reduce confusion if we simply correct the names. -Haireball

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AR Guy mentioned instep crampons -- I'd recommend microspikes or even yaktrax over instep crampons: problem is, instep crampon points engage only when your foot is flat. Most people toe off when walking, rather than place the next foot flat before lifting the rear foot. This results in disengaging the points of one instep crampon before the others engage - almost guaranteeing a slip. It is perfectly possible to self-arrest with trekking poles, but whether you choose ice-axe or poles, thorough practice is obligatory.

Haireball's ass-clammin' report: bridge to Dog Dome in Icicle Canyon went up this week. Eight climbers working that wall on Wednesday. one of the most compact ice-cragging venues in the area, with seven or so lines on a wall only a couple hundred feet wide... mixed lines protectable by summer bolts... Icicle Buttress is getting lots of traffic, including two ascents of R&D (mixed) last week lotsa ice in the Candlestein-Careno vicinity; some interesting mixed lines around Black Power... Both Candlesteins are climbable Pearly Gates saw action as well - three lines doable... The Funnel goes without saying - traffic jam last Saturday... in the Tumwater, two new lines in the Pencil ampitheater got climbed this week, the Pencil itself had a scary looking crack near the end of the first pitch... and that pitch is infamous for falling off at unexpected times... Comic Book Hero and Plastic Fantastic Lover (across from Castlerock) got climbed over the weekend; no sign of the Penstock?!? the Drip has not yet connected, but is close, and may come in by MLK weekend... Drury looks great! breakable crust on approach dictates snowshoes, but snowpack is stable until the next snow -- then watch out!!! - a generous layer of surface hoar is growing... waiting for beta on Snow Creek Wall - seems no-one has made the walk to Millenium Wall recently... weather profile has been promising... temps in the low teens to low twenties predicted through MLK weekend, so come get some...

Well, the Icicle Canyon had its first single-digit temps this weekend, and the Funnel is in, if not obese, so what I wanna know is: "where are all the damn climbers!?!?" The good doctor Shipman and I went to run up there this morning between my school bus obligations, and we were POST-HOLING, for cryin' out loud!!! This being the most popular ice line in the canyon, we really expected better... you know - the locals stay off the obvious popular lines on weekends, and the wet-siders reciprocate by blasting in a good solid boot-packed trail for us to use after they're back at work. SO WHAT HAPPENED!?!? Somebody is obviously slacking! There should be a freaking ROAD to that ice after such a weekend! Can't you guys take a little pride in your craftsmanship? I expect far better service from now on!!!! -Haireball

The owner of a climbing shop in Bend, mid-eighties, showed me a rappel ring he'd removed from the Beard at Smith. It was one of those old skinny rolled aluminum rings. I'd never known, before that time, that those rings were of hollow stock - the entire inner circumference of the ring had been worn through all the way around, leaving a ring of what I'd call aluminum "horseshoe stock". Apparently users, seeing that the inner wall of the ring was worn through, had simply rotated the ring so that the rope would bear on a less worn area -- and this had obviously happened repeatedly over a substantial time period. I suggest it ought to be universal protocol that you never lower a load through a resident ring or carabiner, whether aluminum, steel, or any other material. If the ring or carabiner is resident, the only acceptable descent is rappel. Rather than worry about being polite, I will suggest that when someone chooses to go ahead and load an obviously damaged piece of gear and it fails, that's simply natural selection. Prohibition won't fix that. I've seen guys with forty years of climbing history make some surprising mistakes - witness John Long's recent accident... My regular partners and I make a practice of continually inspecting one another's equipment and practice. A couple of months ago at Frenchman's, Fred Dunham was kind enough to point out that I'd failed to complete my tie-in. That's the same error that put Long in the hospital... I'm inclined to agree that ALL fixed gear is suspect, and ought to be closely inspected before risking loading it. I prefer protection I've placed myself. I have to agree with Mattp about feeling obligated to speak up when we see hazards that can be reduced. If someone takes offense, it's their loss. I welcome it when someone questions something they see me doing. Sometimes it's an opportunity to show them something that may work better than their usual practice, and sometimes it's an opportunity to thank them for saving my ass.

Haireball's Ass Clammin update - Pencil fell down yesterday or day before --- which leaves pretty much no ice around der worth.. temps too warm for flows here or in the basin... pray for cold!

Granpa and Obwan - happy to oblige: I, too, am a prehistoric alpinist. For using the ring-mounted wrist leash you describe, holding the axe in the arrest position, slide the leash to the head of the axe, turn the ring so that the leash comes over the top of the axe-head to your hand, and put your hand through the leash. In this configuration, when you let go of the head of the axe, if the leash stays on your wrist, it pulls on the head of the axe as your hand would if you still had hold of the axe-head. You want to wear the leash so that if you have to arrest, it performs this function. An option that achieves the same objective is to pass the wrist-leash through the carabiner hole in the axe-head (if it has one), and then attach the leash to your wrist. If you do this, you won't have to spin the ring each time you change hands. But if you thread the carabiner hole, you have to take the leash off and reconfigure if you want to swing the axe... Main thing is, configure the leash so that it anchors your hand to the head of the axe in the event of an arrest.

Haireball's Icicle & Tumwater Canyons Ass Clammin' Report; 12/26: still way too warm for most flows - we need a strong melt/freeze cycle. Best News: the PENCIL appears to be FAT! Examination through binoculars from Highway #2 (open again!) suggests it may be worth the walk. However, that same examination shows ZERO AVALANCHE ACTIVITY, which, with all the recent snow, suggests a certain reserve.... The Funnel, perennially "first in - last out" in Icicle Canyon has ice, but is also choked with snow, and shows no evidence of avalanche activity yet, so hold off... Some intriguing looking mixed lines through the Candlestein Cliffs (between Rainbow Gully & Careno Crag) might ease the suffering of the truly desperate. Patrick Hennessy and I wallowed and scratched our way up the Central Gully on Icicle Butt-rest last week, thinking the heavy snow load might at least offer entertaining step kicking, but no such luck. The snow might have made teriffic skiing (10% or drier!), but it certainly didn't support steps, and was underlain by dry rock. Many times we found ourselves grinding helplessly down some slab on picks and points, finally stopping in the next substantial snow patch. We did, however, complete the honestly adventurous four pitches to the top of the Butt-rest... Something new and different: hints of ice on Goat Dome that, with a good melt/freeze cycle, might fatten into something climbable -- worth monitoring. -Haireball

Icicle Canyon, as of last spring, sports a newly configured dry-tooling venue: on the climber's-right wall of Rainbow Gully, directly above the outflow from the main falls, anchors have been constructed on trees/bushes, providing top-rope access to a handful of mossy wet overhung lines. The driest of these lines has a bolt/chain anchor about sixty feet off the deck. This anchor can be accessed by lead (if you're up to it - I've not seen anyone lead it yet), or by rappel from the "upstream" top anchor. The bad news is that the top anchors are not walking accessible: ya gotta climb one of several wet mossy corners to reach them -- easy, but wet/mossy/slippery, I've yet to see anyone do it unroped. The access corners may be less unpleasant when frozen. Thus far, I'm aware of five locals using the area. Jonesing for ice? Join us!

you've got three pairs of sportivas and you're gonna buy yet another pair of boots? let's think again... you think you want to ski in them - of the three you own, the evos will ski best, because they have the beefiest upper. if you're serious about skiing in them, keep the evos and sell the primes and extremes. if precise climbing footwork is more important than skiing, sell the evos, and choose between the extremes and the primes. the only real difference is the amount of rocker to the sole. the extreme has a flatter sole, so the prime will walk more comfortably. both climb well. I like the primes, mostly because after having both ankles rebuilt three years ago, I no longer have the ankle flexibility to effectively engage my front points with a really flat sole (can't drop my heels enough). I've found them warm enough for most North American climbing (Banff/Lake Louise in February, Montana, Wyoming) for winter trips longer than two or three days, I still prefer my old plastic doubles - guaranteed not to wet out and freeze up... and plastics do ski reasonably well...

A boot with a RIGID sole will make more difference than a new pair of crampons. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover what your Contacts will do when you mount them on a real ice-boot...

Good luck, Mark - I hope it stays pain-free for you. You guys are worrying me. Both of mine were rebuilt in '09 after the Big One. I'd rather not have to look forward to seconds in another decade...

I disagree with those who insist a wrist leash will not assist with self-arrest: configure a SHORT wrist leash to originate from the opposite side of the axe-head from your hand when in the self arrest position. In this configuration, if your grip fails in self-arrest, as long as your hand stays in the wrist loop your arrest is maintained. I have taught and practiced self-arrest with groups ad nauseam as a guide/instructor for forty years, and I can assure you this assistance is real. I haven't found it that much hassle to change hands when changing traverse directions, but evidently, some do. Having said that, I have no problem with those who choose to entirely forego the leash. I have had friends lose unleashed ice axes, in avalanche events, and my boss's brother died in the Early Morning Couloir (N. Sister) in 1986 when he failed to self arrest, so I leash, but I don't insist my partners do... I would recommend against a tether to the harness, because the loose axe tied to you at arm's length may do an enormous amount of damage to you. With a short wrist leash, at least the head end of the axe is at your hand, and less likely to puncture you. I would, however, caution you about your choice of partners. Unless your roomie is a climber the caliber of a certified professional guide, I'd be vary wary of a partner taking such a rigid dogmatic position. On the Hogsback route on Hood, which I've climbed dozens of times, I've encountered ice where I've had to use the axe for more than just a cane exactly ONCE, over Thanksgiving in 1989. Most likely, your axe will stay in the cane position. Lastly, I would strongly suggest taking some time before your climb for practicing self-arrest on a "steep" slope with a safe runout. Ideally, you want to practice arresting with the axe in either hand, sliding feet first and head first, on your belly, and on your back. While you're at it, try arresting with a second person roped to you, sliding past you from above and pulling you off so that you have to arrest the two of you. Absent that level of skill, you're essentially depending on your partner to function as a "guide": to not fall, and to catch you if you fall.

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I've climbed predominantly on twin and half rope systems for about twenty-five years, and I never worry about whether the lengths match perfectly. Belaying, you're not likely to notice a six foot differential. Rapelling, if you're worried about rapping off the end, simply tie or clip the ends to your harness. Ever notice that it's not possible to feed a rope end through a belay/rappel device when that rope end is clipped or tied to you? We all will die, but none of us has to die stupid.

superfeet corks - designed for downhill ski boots, but work GREAT in rigid mountaineering boots. spendy - yeah, about $200, but my first pair lasted 21 years, several pairs of alpine boots, and I happily replaced them last year. only usable in RIGID boots, though - you can downgrade one model for a custom-formed superfeet insole that may be used in more flexible footwear - about $150, and worth every penny.

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I believe kurthicks has given the appropriate, perhaps definitive answer: a cordelette is a MULTIFUNCTIONAL tool. I've used mine for creating a 3:1 hauling system for supplying tension to "portly" following climbers, for prusiking, for escaping a loaded belay, cut up for rappel anchors, and yes, occasionally to build belay anchors. I generally carry 6mm, one full-length (20' - I don't think metric) and one that has lost some to rappels and is growing steadily shorter. The self-rescue protocols that the AMGA teaches in their guide certification curriculum assume two cordelettes. Regarding equalization: Arnor Larson, who founded the Rigging for Rescue school, performed exhaustive testing on various equalizing techniques, and determined that "equalizing" anchors generally do NOT equalize when loaded. Consequently, R4R distinguishes between an "equalizing" anchor and an "equalized" anchor, and recommends pre-equalizing the anchor then knotting the equalizing sling so that anchor elements are isolated from one another. This practice permits the anchor elements to share the load equally, while preventing the failure of one or more anchor elements from shock-loading the remaining elements.