Bill_r_i

Here's the latest press release on it http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3244/ You can call the sisters ranger station, they should be able to tell you.

He wants to go sometime toward the end of December or early January. Have you considered finding a different partner, a different hill to start on, a different time of year to get into volcano climbing, or perhaps all three? Good luck. Current thread in the OR forum. Yes, I am taking everything into consideration.

He wants to go sometime toward the end of December or early January.

I guess where that's where I was confused because that's what i thought as well. I have no problem making and using a leash but he was making it seem like anything i used needed to be able to support weight and really do more then just make sure the ax doesn't slide away.

That was the plan I'm just going to shorten the tether and put a wrist loop on it.

Yeah we are are roping up, and we will have some pickets but im not sure if he intends on using them for the ascent. So pretty much if he slips ill be the one to have to catch him.

He was fine with my tether up until yesterday, he was even going to make one too. But something changed his mind saying that anything other then a wrist leash would be unsafe. I don't mind using a wrist leash, I'm just trying to figure out his logic because I did a lot of reading across various forums, websites and the freedom of the hills book, and the only safety concern I read in any of them was the dangers of having an out of control ice axe flying around on a leash/tether while in an uncontrolled slide.

I get the impression that if one of us was to lose grip and slip on steep ice that if the pick was still stuck in the ice the leash would be able to hold us...

My climbing partner isn't really giving me the option to experiment and use what I want, He's saying if I want to climb with him I WILL have a wrist leash. He says it's because he wouldn't feel safe if I chose to tether my axe in any other way that isnt a wrist leash. I have a tether that I made out of some tube webbing and some stretch cord that hooks to my harness so I can switch hands and he is saying its unsafe because those loops wouldnt support weight. Which, from what I understand, isnt the purpose of a leash/ tether anyway...

And that's what I had found in all the reading I've done and why it didn't make any sense when he listed it as such a huge safety concern that he wouldn't climb with me if I didn't have a wrist leash. I don't have a problem using a wrist leash if it would make him feel more 'secure' but i would love to hear from the more seasoned people as well, it seems to me like he's relying to much on something that is simply supposed to prevent tool loss.

I'm gearing up to climb mt.hood for the first time with my roommate who has climbing experience. I've spent a lot of time reading up on different forms of ice axe leashes and a lot of people, including the Mazamas suggest attaching the Ice axe directly to the climbing harness, which I have a tether to attach the ice axe to my harness. But recently my roommate said he wont climb with me if i'm not using a wrist leash, saying that I wouldn't be able to properly arrest a fall if I didn't have one, that I wouldn't be able to maintain a proper grip on the axe while climbing the steeper pitches, and that in the event of a fall if let go of the axe that the leash would help hold it in place. It sounds like he is relying on the leash to help support weight during the ascent. In all the researching I've been doing online and in textbooks, I've yet to find anything about using the leashes in this fashion. Everything I've read says it's pretty much just there to prevent loss of the tool, not to actually act in any life saving capacity... With that being said, I was wondering if there is anyone out there that has relied on the leash to be more then just a system to prevent tool loss?