Five0

Anyone been up or heard of anyone having a go at Liberty Ridge recently?

t'was hoping to do the same but Hood is bad weather/conditions (and juju) right now. would love to get on some waterfall ice in WA this winter, in addition to N. Ridge of Baker, N. Face of Shuksan, Liberty Ridge on Rainier. would need pretty good weather windows for each of those, but like to ski in and climb fast. any weather windows Feb thru May, i'm on it and will be looking for partners. let me know if anyone's interested in any of the above.

Like you're advice eldiente. i'm intrigued by the "upside down TR" idea, but too much drinking and altitude have made me dumber than the rocks i try not to fall off of - can you elaborate? i get the anchor part, just not the tie-in and self belay end of things...

yep, you're right about FF rob, but hope never to test it on a 2. thanks for the input, yall. you probably won't hear from me again if the system doesn't catch a fall :-) but if it does, i'll let you know.

yep, two (or 3, or 4, ....)pieces equalized, w/ one lanyard clipped to a master pt. and correct me if i'm wrong, guys, but yes i think length of lanyards has everything to do w/ fall factor; if i can't go above my lowest clipped lanyard (roughly 3 or 4 ft, i'm guessing, since i don't have a via set up yet) then i can't fall any further than that, which limits my fall factor. the daisy chain method sounds similar to this, except without dynamic absorption. but i guess if you have 3 of them placed taughtly then you won't generate any momentum.

btw, donnieK, what are BD's new umbilicals? didn't see them on the BD site

yep, no doubt whatever I place is not going to be as sound as bolts but thats a risk we all take when climbing trad and I could always place multiple pieces. not sure about the fall factor versus gri-gri, etc self belays but i do know the lanyards aren't that long so the falls would necessarily have to be short. and, donnieK, i was thinking of using this system only at cruxy sections that would take gear and free soloing the rest. i don't have the balls or the time to solo really hard stuff.

Dynamic. Its got "energy absorption lanyards". Essentially beefy bunjy chords.

Woke up today w/ a hankering to stir the pot a little, maybe get scolded at and hear a rant or two, so I'm throwing out this question: recently I've had the urge to solo an easy route near where I live but my sally-ish tendencies tend to out weigh my own balls (and IQ!), so I've also been brainstorming ways of protecting my skinny ass on the one, cruxy exposed section. What keeps coming to mind is using a via ferrata set up in leap frog fashion eg. place pro over my head, clip one strand of the via ferrata to it, climb above it and place more pro above, clipping the other via strand to that and then removing the lower piece (or pieces) from above, etc. So, here goes....can anyone tell me why this wouldn't work? (I'm sure BD would tell me NO WAY, but the user manual for their via ferrata devices state a 5 meter self-belay limit, meaning use a rope belay if the fall potential is greater than 5 m).