Bosterson

Brand new BD Camalot Ultralight #4 that has been collecting dust in my gear bin after an injury sidelined my climbing. Never placed, never racked. I apparently bought it in 2019 and the mfg tag on the sling says 2017. Always stored in a gear bin in my basement, so not in UV light or near chemicals etc, meaning it still has its whole cracktacular life ahead of it. Comes with a new matching silver Camp Nano racking biner. $100 cash only in Portland, no shipping Also for sale is a barely used women's Mammut Ophir 3 slide women's harness, size M. Comes with a BD Rocklock belay biner, a Climb X ATC knockoff belay device, and a Climb X chalk bag. I got these for my girlfriend years ago to try climbing and they were basically only used to belay me a few times and have gathered dust since. Like new. $50 for all of it.

Today (3/13/22) is the last day to submit comments to the NPS about their restrictive climbing plan for J-Tree, including a very dangerous sounding proposal to let old bolts "age in place." https://www.accessfund.org/take-action/campaigns/speak-up-now-joshua-tree-attempting-to-prohibit-bolts-in-wilderness

Helping someone clean out some stuff in the gear closet. All items pick-up-able in Portland, cash only. Still available if it's still posted. 1) Black Diamond Raven ice axe w BD leash SOLD 2) Five.Ten Hueco trad shoes, US 9. Well used, still some life left. $10 3) Chacos (I think ZX2 model), women's US 8. Excellent like-new shape, barely worn. $60 4) La Sportiva Akyra trail runners, women's US 9.5 / EU 41. Like new, almost out of the box condition. $70 5) La Sportiva Ultra Raptor trail runners, women's US 9.5 / EU 41. Used but still in good shape, $30 6) Asolo leather hiking boots, women's US 9 / EU 41.5 (proof that Sportiva's numerical sizing is all screwed up!). Not sure of the model, maybe an older TPS 520. Leather is somewhat worn from snowshoes but soles are in excellent shape with tons of life left. $100 7) Stanley food thermos ~ 1L size. $5 8) Gregory women's Maven backpack. Not sure of exact size, maybe 65L? Heavy old beater and well used. $10 to a good home 9) REI Venus 75 women's backpack. Also a heavy old beater but a little lighter and in better shape with medium use. $30 10) misc guidebooks/maps - open to offers 11) Next Adventure flask, 5oz, stainless. Never used. $5 12) MSR snowshoe tails for Lightning Ascent snowshoes. Only used a few times, excellent shape. $40

Some mountaineers say the Valley of the Silent Men is the most beautiful in all of the Olympics.

Trying to reduce the gear hoard of stuff that's not being used. Everything available for pickup in Portland. Shipping might be possible, we can discuss. Note on sewn goods: ropes were stored inside a duffel bag, so no direct light, not near chemicals, but caveat emptor, read descriptions below. All items were stored in a dry basement in a nonsmoking house. Offers or trade for beer will be considered. Ropes (L- R): 1) yellow gym rope (don't remember brand) - SOLD 2) blue Edelweiss 9.2mm x 70m dry treated - SOLD 3) purple Beal Rando 8mm x 30m glacier line - SOLD Shoes (clockwise from top left): 1) Boreal Diabolo, US 8.5. Used in the gym, fair bit of life left. $10 2) Scarpa Origin Euro 41. Got tested out once and then life happened and they were forgotten, so basically new. $40 3) Evolv Pontas lace US 8.5 - well used, toes still intact but one is starting to blow, so could use a resole. Free 4) Sportiva Tarantulace Eur 39.5 - both toes blown but only the very outer rubber, would be fine with a resole. Free 5) Evolv Shaman (1st version) US 9 - well used, right toe blown with small hole into underlying leather. Free Gear (clockwise from top left): 1) CAMP Carvex #9 dyneema hex. SOLD 2) CAMP nuts, #3-5. SOLD 3) blue Mammut 120cm dyneema Contact sling. SOLD 4) green Edelweiss 60cm sling SOLD 5) yellow BD 60cm nylon slings x 4 - SOLD 6) Metolius PA, mfg 2011. Well used but in good condition (no damage). At the end of its life, so could be good for racking or hauling or house projects or something. Free 7) BD Neutrino x 2 (red tape bands). These were left outside for 1 yr after being left behind rapping off a project in the forest. No visible rust, and seem fine. Free 8) BD Neutrino x 4. SOLD 9) Omega Pacific 20kn aluminum rap rings x 3. Never used. $5 for all

The NPS is soliciting comments on a climbing management plan for Joshua Tree. The core issues they appear to want comments on have to do with preservation of petroglyphs/Native American sites; formalizing trails and reducing environmental damage; and bolting. Even though this plan is specifically for Joshua Tree, it seems worth commenting as it's likely at least some components of whatever plan they end up with will probably spill over into climbing management in other parks. NPS link

Awesome! Great photos, as always.

Thanks for posting Kurt, that's neato. Has no one really climbed the full NE ridge yet? (I thought it finally went down in the late 90s, but maybe not the whole thing?) Really cool to see your old photos, I'm sure a lot has changed about how the "scene" is out there compared with when you were there. Side note re Chinese/Tibetans, I just discovered China has made some kind of Chinese version of Vertical Limit (called "The Climbers"), featuring amongst others Jackie Chan (??), which makes propagandistic references to how the 1960 Chinese climbers have to summit "their" mountain... Oy...

The next stage of this saga has unfolded. Sez R&I: "You really will feel special when your friend Becky, who was the first to get endclothing.com’s silver $219 Kong Chocks keychain, can’t afford the Louis Vuitton chalk bag. Dreams really do come true." For the low low price of $1,590.00. They also make a $3,000.00 backpack version: "Inspired by mountain climber's bags, the Chalk backpack is a fashion-forward combination of practical detailing and House signatures." I'm still trying to unpack that sentence. Does "practical detailing" refer to the... ice axe loop?

Thanks! Changed the bookmark to https and it loaded immediately.

I have the same problem. Trying to go to the homepage on desktop Chrome, no dice. Go to a subpage and it loads.

I have a Core that's a few years old. For outdoor use I keep it in altimeter mode so I haven't tried the barometric storm warning alarms or whatever. The display seems easier to read than the older Vector model. Nothing fancy but it works well to gauge how high you are on a ridge, etc. The battery seems to last for about a year.

As the Deschutes NF decided to still take the nuclear option and plans to institute a massive paid permit and quota system for the Central Oregon Cascades from May - October, people who submitted comments on the original draft proposal have an opportunity to object or appeal the USFS's decision. Someone I know wrote out a guide on how to do this, which I am quoting below:

If you customize the chart and then save it as a bookmark and then try to open the saved one in a new tab, it also just says "loading plots" and spins indefinitely without loading the graph. Lame.

Awesome, thanks!

David Kantola's weather graphs interpolating NWAC data for the prior 7 days appear to have gone offline - the dkantola.nl URL now redirects to a .cn jewelry website. Not sure what's going on there, but those graphs were fantastic. Anyone know whether they were moved elsewhere, or if there's another source for telemetry weather graphs like that?

It's too bad that his 2nd video - the Cliffhanger Guide to Climbing Gear (featuring the ice screw gun!) - appears to have been taken down via a Sony Pictures copyright claim... https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=seluTSIqoQ4 He must not have ever gotten around to doing the 3rd installment, which I believe was supposed to be called the Eiger Sanction Guide to Training. (Probably something about climbing in jeans with a six pack in your rucksack...)

I think this belt is a good solution for how to equalize the 4 weighted charms on the small industrial keychain. Also works for ~2 ft double strand emergency rappels. This is the perfect setup for those cutting edge buildering projects.

HEY BROS, I AM HAVING A HARD TIME CHOOSING WHICH PREMADE TRAD ANCHOR TO BUY. MEDIUM ANCHOR HAS A WIRE FOR EQUALIZING THE PIECES, BUT THE SMALL ANCHOR IS CHEAPER AND HAS AN EXTRA WEIGHTED CHARM FOR MORE PLACEMENT OPTIONS. THOUGHTS???? ALSO ARE THESE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS CLIMBING SAFE??? https://www.endclothing.com/us/off-white-medium-industrial-keychain-omnf006s182530089100.html https://www.endclothing.com/us/off-white-small-industrial-keychain-omnf005s182530089100.html

The USFS has released a proposed management plan that would require prepaid permits with quotas even for day use in the Central Oregon Cascades. This would massively restrict access, and would affect climbing on all of the Central OR Cascades volcanoes. Comments are due to the USFS by 5/21/18. I just found out that the Access Fund has a page set up to help send in your comments. If you want to read the whole 188 pg USFS proposal, it is here.

Since the math has been bandied about regarding "cumulative risk," can you elaborate on how you're calculating this figure? I have not messed with complex probabilities and binomial series since high school, so I'm a bit rusty, but after some googling, I came across the formula for a Bernoulli trial, which appears to calculate this kind of thing: P(k) = (n!/(k!*(n-k)!) * p^k * q^(n-k) where n is the number of trials, k is the number of "positive" events, p is the probability of the event happening, and q is the probability of the event not happening. The probability of having k events in n trials is kind of a special/easy case when k = 1, since the binomial constant is just n (the other terms cancelling out), so it appears to effectively pro-rate the number of trials by the proportion of them that are positive vs negative, yielding the cumulative positive proportion for all the trials. When I run the math on this, if the p of rappel failure is 0.1% (.001) and we use n = 1000, P(k) = 36.8%. (This appears to be the inverse of the number you got...) I interpret this as meaning that if the rate of rappel failure is 1/1000 (I think it is really much lower than this, at least for non-alpine climbing), then ~ 1/3 climbers would die in rappel accidents if most climbers average around 1000 rappels. Regardless, this does seem to indicate that 1/1000 is not an acceptable failure rate for an event that will happen more than a few times.

Well said, Jon. I am super sad to see things turn out this way. I remember first seeing Marc on here as a kid with a silly banana avatar, who then turned into an alpine superstar. His tick list outlined in the Gripped article is unbelievably impressive. There were clearly more great things to come from him, and this doesn't seem fair. I don't generally get choked up over the loss of climbers I've never met, but this has me crying. I'll just repeat what Jon said: rest easy, Marc. Thanks for showing us what was possible. The next beer is on us.

I agree with DPS. You can also see on the T-Line webcam that the bergschrund is still gaping. The upper area looks like it got just enough snow to dust things and maybe cover over any open cracks, but not fill them in. If there's a big snow dump and the whole mountain gets covered, you could probably go in a month or two without too much to worry about.

I'm at least 85% sure that Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens are actually different mountains. Are they? Please discuss.

1) No. The lower snow is generally soft. The point at which you want traction (early season - maybe top of the Palmer? late season - Hogsback) is the time to put on the crampons. 2) What Ivan said. I've seen people belaying up the top of the Old Chute and knocking large ice chunks down on me and everyone else, totally clueless. Sketched out people can descend and come back another day. 3) I also haven't seen people rappel. If people aren't sure they're comfortable up there (or will be comfortable coming down), they should descend and come back when they're mentally ready. All the ropework up there just makes it less safe for the rest of the hordes of people on the south side. 4) Check the NWAC forecast and don't go unless it's safe, then leave that stuff at home.