tvashtarkatena

What does this contraption do? I'm picturing a forlorn pyrate suspended over the Thames in an iron maiden, but that would probably be more than 200 lbs.

Don't sue me if it breaks! Best of luck, brah.

Nice job on the marathon!

I assume 200lb is the load. Don't know if this mod is possible, but here's one way to reduce the stress on that stop line if that becomes necessary. Running the stop line under the pulley and tying it off the the left might even be better if the minimum angle (the larger the better) isn't breached. The force on that line is 200lb x 300mm/pulley radius the way its built right now. If this is too elaborate, increasing the stop line pulley radius (see above) would help. Or you could just reverse the system and put the load on the stop line - putting another stop line on the top end of the lever. Load on the load line would be 200 lbs, the stop line quite a bit less. You'd also get much less travel, though. Cables often break at one of the ferrules (crimp points). Make sure the angle between the two cables as they come together at the ferrule is 60 degrees or less and use the proper size crimping tool for the ferrule might also solve your problem if that's what's going on.

Post a sketch. I have a hunch what your problem might be, but can't really discern what the system looks like from the description.

The OP is inquiring about cord, not slings. You can (carefully) knot dyneema cord safely.

Dyneema has a higher breaking strength/dia, doesn't absorb water like nylon, slips a little more (proper knotting can prevent failure here), and isn't nearly as elastic as nylon. Googling will produce a ton of info. Compare the two for your app (static or dynamic). 5.5 nylon is pretty thin stuff to catch a fall with.

By day 3 of being stuck in a 2 man you'll shoot a baby in the face for an Arrested Development rerun. Hell, you'll shoot Baby just to get your partner to stop recycling that story. And you should always be prepared to shoot your partner for over Instagraming your ugly ass.

The approach should cure that quickly.

Public policy made EZ.

Ice is categorized by "Fuck You"s per minute. Styrofoam (this is more a category of snow): 0 FUPM. The lead may be delayed while the leader rubs one out. Plastic: 0 FUPM. You're indoors. They may be old people and children about. Dinner Plate: 1-10 FUPM x 2 (both leader and belayer). Belayer should wear a face mask to protect against blood spatter. Snice: 10-infinity FUPM - usually directed at belayer for wussing out and occasionally punctuated by a Doppler shift.

"All Obama appointees must pass a battery of tests we wouldn't have a prayer of even cheating on because our intellectual and emotional intelligence was completely calcified by the 3rd grade." - House Republicans

Did you guys exit just the to the right of Pyramid in this photo?

Meh. Get stoked. NZ is a whole new environment - crafty mountain parrots, beech forests, tree ferns, and my personal favorite, hook grass. If it rains, don't pout, just go kayaking in Doubtful Sound with these guys: Kayaking the Fjordlands Just do what we do here: Be ready to cherry pick your weather, consider the use of aircraft to save time (OK, that's not what we do here usually) and go for it. Note that NZ topos include covered bivvy (typically boulder caves) locations. My guess is that you'll remember the blackflies a lot more clearly than the rain. BTW, although traffic can be sparse, hitching is pretty easy down there. If you rent a car, don't speed. They take that shit very seriously.

Meh. This is just a Northern Californian's to do list.

Aspiring has significantly dryer weather than the Cook area. You have enough time to make a run at Aspiring proper - WELL worth it. FWIW I had some rainy weather and some great weather during that time period and was able to get a ton of alpine climbing done. Really glad I brought the gear. I had no vehicle at the time but, being based out of Wanaka for weeks, it wasn't much of a problem. That becomes harder with a larger group of course. If you want to splurge Wanaka has a paragliding school.

Where do you live? I've got topo maps of the whole area - did a bunch of hiking/climbing in there.

If you go in on a chopper with 3 other folks it's pretty cheap. I did it the day before we left. You can usually arrange a much cheaper flight out - they like to keep those machines full both directions.

Mt. Aspiring and surrounding area. There's a hut up there - chopper up (1 hr) or walk (2 days). Wanaka is a nice town to hang for doing stuff in the Aspiring area. It's a good place to find partners.

In terms of both pain and pleasure, this was one for the books. The descent was...educational.

Trip: Colonial Knob Job - THRASH RIDGE Date: 3/23/2013 Trip Report: “And that’s Betelgeuse, and Bellatrix next to it. Rigel is lower right, and Saiph to the lower left” “How many stars do I need to know to get laid?” "Nevermind." When you ski with Mr. Kaplan, there are 3 things you need to know beforehand: 1) There will be suffering. 2) Only warm, direct sunlight brings him back from the dead. 3) There will be powder. Thousands of feet of stokaine powder. The Colonial approach delivers a martyr’s worth of suffering, at and in both ends, but, as discouraged as we’d become after a wallowing defeat on day 1, our perseverance on day 2 rewarded us with a spectacular, sunny, windless camp perched directly over a gigantic basin full of 2000 vertical feet of untouched powder. The gheyer the music, the greater the stoke. By the time we’ve worked through belting out the SwedishTechno and into Hall and Oates or some other 80s shit, it’s time to either drop in or rub one out. Flexibility and adaptation improve one’s odds of attaining satori in Washington’s back country. Rather than crossing the sketchy traverse from Colonial Knob to the Colonial Glacier, we opted to stay put and ski the basin to the NW. Sometimes, it pays to laze. That, and JackingTheBox’s Supreme Croissant Sandwich is arguably the most fucking delicious post-thrash replenishment device of all time. A few pics. This is really just to get JoshK to weigh in with the good stuff from that groovy new camera:

I've got short pointy skis for waterfalls.

Postholing is more interesting than skiing? And here I could have saved myself all that money.... Skis are just stretched out crampons with the points cut off, no?

As in "I'm awesome"