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If you sp-aid it.

Li8On8B1z3U

I don't have any experience with them personally but have read a bunch of reviews. I think they work well enough as long as you don't have to do any side hilling or edging. They have poor torsional stiffness. Alpine boots will be fine for going uphill but the forward lean is really painful along the flats.

Some kids in Nova Scotia were expelled from SMU and charged after shaving a stray cat, dowsing it in gas, lighting it on fire and throwing it off the top of their residence.

It's only an old meaning to you. Your meaning is a new meaning to him. I give up.

Other than the OP it appears that we all use the same set of commands. I've never heard of using 'rope' to mean 'slack'. The point I'm arguing is that it is inevitable with the number climbing areas and climbers in the world that there are going to be variations in language. This can only really be a problem if you get on a long dangerous route with someone you've never climbed with before. The first time I climb with a new partner it is always under safe controlled conditions so that we can get used to each others systems and climbing habits. We'll establish a communication scheme that works for that partnership. That might mean that one of the people will have to adapt and I can tell right now that if I ever climb with Bug that person will be me I also guarantee that if he yells 'slack' I will feed out 'rope'. My beef with the rope tug communication system is that there is no feedback but I must admit that I have little experience with it. Every other scheme has a call and response pattern. The next time I go out climbing I'm going to ask to practice rope tugs so I get a better feel for it. My fear is that I'll mistake some kind of climbing movement for rope tugs and prematurely take my partner off belay. I would rather belay the full length of rope than have my partner unprotected.

I've also heard of tugging the rope on each syllable.

I'm thinking mostly of situations of long or linked pitches where the route goes around a large convex feature of low angle rock. The leader ends up way out of sight with a big chunk of rock in between so it's hard to hear them. In my memory those times were made worse by high winds. I think it's unavoidable that you will get a lot of rope drag with 40m to 50m of rope running over rock let alone tugging the full weight of the rope with stretch. I just haven't found it to be an effective way of communicating and I like to be sure before taking someone off belay. It will continue to be the backup communication method though and maybe one of these days it will work.

I've tried tug systems a few times when there's a lot of rope drag I find it hard to tell if it's a tug or just the climber moving fast over easy terrain. I've always ended up belaying out the rope as fast as it is being pulled out, pausing until I think I'm on belay and waiting a little longer before start climbing. My partners always felt this was best in the situation. I think radios might be the safest method. I agree that a universal system would be safest but I don't think it's possible to create one that everyone will agree on and use even within North America.

Fetchez la vache!

Every region uses a different set of verbal commands. Everyone I've climbed with uses different language and after one pitch we've worked out something that is safe for the both of us. Each examples you gave for the use of 'rope!' has a completely different context. up rope!-> take in rope while top-roping rope!-> I'm about to drop a coil of rope from the top of the cliff. rope!->feed me some slack so I can make this clip while leading I've tried rope tugs before but have found that if the leader is out of sight and I can't hear them then there is usually too much rope drag to feel distinct tugs.

If you wait until April you can get the fancy new redesigned Reverso that's coming down the pipe. I think the BD Guide is killing them right now.

I just did a quick search out of curiosity and the first hit was a report from Mammut about their 8mm dyneema slings. In the first paragraph they state that it is well known that girth hitched dyneema slings lose about %50 of their strength regardless of size. The report is in response to a girth hitched sling breaking in a toprope anchor while the climber was cleaning a route so jugging up and down. That is reason enough for me not to want to toprope on a girth hitched sling anchor.

I'd feel better with two biners between the slings and the cord than with girth hitches (as long as the biners aren't over an edge or something like that). Not that you can generate that much force on TR but girth hitched slings can cut pretty well and fail at relatively low forces. Sling to sling is worse than sling to cord expecially with super thin dyneema.

Oh no, he'll be mean to me!

A darkish amber is good for all round. Rose is good if the light is alternating between light and dark (skiing through trees with open patches). Yellow and light amber is good for low light. I believe the explanation for blue blocking is that the eye lens is optimized for focusing green light and has a hard time focusing bright blues to UV and to a lesser degree reds to IR. I think snow is very reflective in the blue to UV which reduces shadowing and definition in flat light conditions. That is mostly pseudo-scientific speculation though. Can't go wrong with Smith goggles

The disadvantage of the GriGri, Eddy, Cinch etc. for multipitch is that you can't easily rappel on 2 lines.

I too will be making the cross-border trek to Smiff. With the dollar as it is it's like being paid to go on vacation. The gong show known as the UBC VOC will be there as well. Look out!

Although auto-locking belay devices catch more easily they are more difficult to use in general than tube devices especially when it comes to lowering or feeding out rope. You have to control the lever and the rope at the same time. A tube device is more intuitive since you just have to ease out rope. Quite a few people have been dropped when the belayer is lowering for the first time with a GriGri. Tube devices are amazingly fool proof with a little instruction. I've seen a number of, what I consider, improper belaying but I'm also willing to bet they've never had an accident. On the other hand I've seen some scary lowers with a GriGris. Reversos are great but make sure you understand the ramifications of having to lower a second when the autoblock is locked up. Once you know how to use it though it makes belaying a breeze.

Good beer choice. Sounds like a great day out. After reading the CT version of the TR I did a quick search on Urquhart to see if there were any nice routes up that face. Found your old TR. Yikes!

I'm thinking about getting into ice climbing. A few of my friends keep trying to get me into it. I'm a bit of an info junkie so I read and have read everything I could find on ice tools and ice climbing in general. I've read many mentions of modifying picks but most left it at being a personal thing so I thought I'd see what people do around here. Everyone seems to like the Charlet and Grivel swing and a few seem to hate BD saying they are too light. I was curious if it was purely a head weight preference that could be trimmed out with a little ingenuity. I read one review from a carpenter couple who found the BD Viper to swing much like their work hammers making it a natural fit. I guess I've been attracted to the BD price point and curious about why those that hate them feel that way. Opinions on BD tools are very polar. I'll probably go out with my friends and try their tools at first (Quarks mostly). I may have the opportunity to go to Ouray over Xmas so I might give it a whirl there. We'll see.

Anchors is a different story.

I've always questioned the utility of opposing passive pro. It seems to be a technique for marginal placements in order to hold the upward piece in place. In tensioning the pieces to hold them in place you are creating a 'death triangle' of sorts to forces perpendicular to the line of the pieces. If it is set with the intention of an anti-zipper kind of thing this is fine because the forces are small but it can potentially be weaker to a leader fall. I'm imagining something like an overhanging crack where a leader fall with have a large force outward from the wall. It always seems like the first placement has to be magical. It has to hold a leader fall and prevent zippering all while not causing much drag. While a cam may be compromised to a leader fall by rotating I've never seen a cam pop due to rotating into a less than optimal position as an anti-zipper piece. I've seen many first piece nuts pop out when the leader starts to lower while cragging. I've had good success with tricams as a first piece as well. Thankfully, I've never seen a zipper during a lead fall. I guess it's still a good skill to have. You never know when you may need it. I just had a thought. Clove hitch each piece in tension and then use the remaining sling to clove hitch a draw with plenty of slack. This way it is likely that only one piece will be weighted at a time. Maybe I'll just place a tricam, they ARE magical.