Mentat

Ill be up in the Coupville area the week of the 17th and would like to get out for a day or two day trip. I'm up for about anything. I will have my rack, ropes, Ice tools/ crampions, glacier stuff and snowshoes. If you know any great places I ought to see this time of year, by all means make suggestions! markb.6180@gmail.com Peace.

Frog system hands down, kind of a pain on low angle but overall sooo much more efficient. Quick changeovers, easy pickoffs and simple at the rebelays. Easy to improvise, a mech, prussik, long runner or whatever for the upper ascender and whatever flavor progress capture you have available can be substituted for the croll (shhh... kinda like opt 2 )

Maybe looking into hanging around in the WA area untill the 18th. I would like to climb Forbidden Torment traverse but I'm open to whatever else you might want to climb. Your experienced can be from noob to alpine hardman, it doesn't matter as long as whatever we agree to can be accomplished safely. Mainly just want to get out into the mountains and climb some 5.Fun alpine. You can email me at binder1(dot)618 at gmail.(youknow) and I'll get back to you tonight

PM sent!

Medjool dates and walnut pieces for me. Paltitable, Packable and Potent.

Interested to know what you exaclty did (cooked uncooked rice)??? I was carefull to use a Nylon stocking (simple one from the womens clothing place) and used uncooked rice. This is the the same that Intuition sells with thier home fit kit. Perhaps it would have been better if i directed you to the company. The rice dong was their idea.

Second the Omegas. When you fit them since they have a thermofit liner fit the shell of the boot not the shell and liner. A tight two finger would have worked better for me. When i bought my pair it fit the boot and liner and regretted it, the magic happens when you bake them. Also Full and a half size shells are the same size eg 9 & 9.5 UK. Again fit the shell and mold the liners they will pack out and you'll have a toasty warm and precise (for a) double boot. Socks, I highly recommend only wearing thin polypro dress type socks with the intuition liners since they [liners] don't breath and wont soak up sweat like heavy wool socks. Thermofiting is eeeeeasy, do it yourself. DO IT WITH RICE worked perfect for me!!!! Highly recommend and you wont run into Mitochondria problems. http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/170547-Rice-Molding-Instructions-A-La-Intuition?s=6f27e42cf3f33e5d3ed793b10bb13050

"Did you see any bats? What does one have to do to ensure their safety. I recall seeing something on OPB about humans spreading diseases which kill bats. I don't think the emergengy kit will work in this case." AFAIK If you do anycaving back east where there have been reports of white nose syndrome you need to fully decon your gear before you take it anywhere else.

Fun police, sorry guys. But speaking as a caver listing the location of a cave so the general public can find it is kind a a duche move. Sorryy just saying but cave enviroments are super fragile and besides its kinda something the rest of the caving comunity prescibes to. Props for seeking out these enviroments, they are one of the few places where you can leave any notion of the expected behind, and of course help you develop sick steming and offwith skilzz. It's kinda lame I know buuut it take one shit head to ruin it forevers... And you want to make more caving freinds riiiiiigggghhhhtttttt???????

Were you at the Alabama Hills MRA recert? anywho this is what your looking for: http://www.cmcrescue.com/product.php?CatalogID=1&dept_id=3028&rootNode=0&pid=9

you could go with the mounting plate on your helmet and keep the band for wearing. http://petzl.com/en/outdoor/headlamps/tikka-zipka-tactikka-accessories/adapt-tikka-family

"Although I gave up on TR-soloing with a Grigri a while ago, I really wouldn't consider it with the new model. It's so much more compact that the path that the rope takes through the device is more abrupt." Your photo doesn't seem to support this claim. There seems to be an equal number of tracer twists running over the cam. The body has obviously been retooled but other than making the groove deeper there seems to be very little altered as far as the geometry of the braking mechanism.

ya put down the NFPA guidelines and pick up Freedom Of The Hills

Sobo speaks truth. Bobins are another rap device that you may want to consider, like the Petzl Stop. Also the ability to add or reduce friction is a very nice and safe feature to have. It’s frustrating to have to force feed rope at the top of a 300ft rappel and deal with a runaway train when you reach the bottom or when dealing with a waterfall. I use a stainless mini rack for caving. Again to reiterate, many belay devices are inappropriate for long rappels simply because they are not massive enough to act as a heat sink and quickly become too hot to handle. However racks and bobbins are heavy and unwieldy for short rappels 30m or less so Canyoneering devices usually fit the bill fairly well. For canyoneering I use a Petzl Piranha. They are made of aluminum and are considered a consumable by many especially if you hang out in sandstone canyons. I also have friends who use the ATS and they like it. There is also the Totem which is basically the same as the ATS sans the horns and with a few extra rings, both are a blending of a fifi and a figure eight which isn’t a new idea (Salewa Guide=old) and make for a very useful multi purpose tool.

One suggestion I'sd like to throw in for consideration is Blue Waters Canyon Pro, STRONG and light but not cheap! It has a dual sheath that likes to slip the first few rappels and once the sheath is worn in its fine. Did I mention its light? Oh and it has a firm hand so its not a tangled mess to handle and the negligible elongation so it slides glassy smooth over rock, so if it gets stuck you can really reef on it and it may just pop out! I’ve also hear of people using it for glacier line. People make great dynamic anchors and you have the luxury of using a terrifically static line to build haul system or to prussic up without losing efficiency of stretching a dynamic line or the rope sawing through the lip. Which brings another issue to light! The more static the line the more resistance it has to abrasion because it’s not sawing itself on a sharp edge. http://www.bluewaterropes.com/home/productsinfo.asp?Channel=Recreation&Group=&GroupKey=&Category=Canyoneering%20Ropes&CategoryKey=&ProdKey=37

Typically circus rigging is more nautical than what climbers use. Also I have some friends who are circus performers and it’s not an outdoorsy crowd. Make him a NOLS dude. Cavers are familiar with rescue rigging if they are a trip leader since they need to show some sort of credential to a ranger to get the key to a vertical cave. Or he could be a canyoneer since there is also an emphasis on small party rescue. But if hes hanging around all the cool climbing spots then I'm sure he would know a few tricks.

When someone is killed it’s no longer an epic, it’s a giant F&*$ up, and the mistake usually wasn’t made when the person died. The Fates of many are sealed with small mistakes; it’s like a house of cards. If someone is killed its often tragic if someone is a victim of poor leadership but otherwise most people have an intact sense of self preservation, and when working at personal limits one must be accepting of the risks. This engenders a bushido morality which is why you seldom hear the word tragedy to describe unfortunate consequences. Everyone has their own definition of epic. Its personal but I use the fun scale (type I, II, and III) and use epic for those "adapt and overcome" situations.

Carrying three ropes is a bit excessive but I understand what you’re getting at. You would only be able to lower to the length of your longest rope, and this technique is exclusive to single rope rappels. I feel there is an advantage because it simplifies setup at the rap. All too often have I had the conversation “can you see the bottom, where is the next rap station.” Throwing a contingency on and letting the last on rappel rig the pull down (remember it could be extended with about anything on your person) may streamline the retreat/decent and frees you from clutching the beta in a death grip. There is no exception for being able to ascend rope at any given moment, but why prussic up X meters of rope just to move the block and reset? Many of us have heard of climbers epic tales of raps gone wrong or fatalities. While fatalities on rappel as an immediate cause only account for about 3.2% of all mountaineering fatalities I would agree that rope management skills like this are somewhat esoteric. In a canyon this could be make or break. So I agree that this is another tool in the toolbox, and possibly a more elegant solution to having many knots in the rope. http://www.summitpost.org/mountaineering-accident-statistics/658474

Just curios if anyone ever uses what are called contingencies or releasable anchors. When confronted with a rappel of unknown length they are helpful because if the rappeler finds them self at the end of his rope he can lock off and be lowered from above at the anchor to make it to the ground or the next anchor. Usually this is accomplished with either a munter/mule or a figure eight block. While the climber is being lowered and the contingency block released the belayer holds his partners life in his hands. So it may be wise to throw a prussic in the system and mind it while lowering so there is less risk to be dropped. This saves the trouble of toying with multiple rope markings and the time spent guessing and second guessing rope length.

If you brought a malion rapied (hardware store quick links are cool too) for the anchor you could just take the pull side and tie a clove hitch on the spine of a carabiner. There would be less bulk for getting the block stuck in a crack or hung up on a horn. Thread drift @Wallstein you may already know but the blue water rope you mentioned has a technora sheath which is special because it has a very high melting point. I’ve seen valdotain’s made of the material so that you could rappel on a nylon rope with a valdotain tresse. They could be useful if you need to retreat off a route quickly since you could have two rappeling at the same time.