forrest_m

Went to see Touching the Void a few days ago, and on the drive home, it finally occurred to me what Simon could've done instead of cutting the rope. (BTW, I'm not saying that if it were me I would've done "better" than him, hell it's taken me ten years to think of this...) So if you recall, Simon is sitting in a crumbling snow seat, with no possibility of getting any kind of anchor. In the storm, he has lowered Joe over the lip of a huge 'schrund when the knot joining their two ropes comes tight on his belay device. Joe is hanging in free space. The basic problem is how to pass the knot with no slack and no anchor. Here's my idea. The knot is jammed, so both Simon’s hands are free. He takes a free sling and ties a swami belt around his waist. He constructs a 'biner brake on the swami and runs the unweighted side of the rope through it. Now, instead of cutting the rope, he cuts his HARNESS. Weight comes onto the swami and he can lower Joe another 150 feet. Or I just thought of another way that lets him keep his harness: tie a prussik onto the tight side, tie an overhand on the loose side and clip together. Construct a ‘biner brake connected to the harness ABOVE the overhand knot. Now cut the rope between the two knots. OK, I can think of some problems – both solutions would shock load the shitty snow stance, if Joe still went into the crevasse and was still dangling in free space, then Simon still have had to cut the rope and would’ve been left with nothing instead of 150’. If Joe didn’t go in, Simon would’ve ended up downclimbing to the lip of the bergschrund and could easily have fallen over it. If Simon had to wait until morning to attempt to get down, Joe could have died of exposure without the protection of the crevasse. Who knows? But I can’t resist trying to think of some way out…

except that he himself drags his ethnicity into the review in the first paragraph when he says: when he tells us that we can imagine what he's thinking, he's essentially asking us to invoke whatever stereotype we have of movie reviewers who come from poor african countries. This strikes me as a cheap ploy to trivialize the movie, but perhaps it also indicates that as a work of art, the movie isn't compelling enough to overcome his own predjudices. I imagine that the true story of a person who reacts to modern life being "so safe, so predictable, so controlled...." by being sexually or morally adventurous would get a different reaction. The fact that he automatically associates mountaineering with the social and economic elite shows that he doesn't know much about climbing. But we knew that already.

for those not in the loop on this, the Stranger is seattle's way-left-of-center alternative weekly and Charles Mudede is their "intellectual" critic, though he's way too mired in 90's post-structuralist academia-speak to really be cutting edge any more. (the stranger also makes a point, especially in the movie reviews, of including hyper-ironic photo captions apparently written by the editors to poke fun at the reviews) anyway, i think he does have a pretty insightful point when he says: my wife basically has the same comment when my friends and i get together... i haven't seen the film yet, but i can easily imagine that non-climbers might find it boring. that's why big market films that involve climbing (cliffhanger, VL, etc) always fuck up the technical parts, because to a layman, they're BORING and they want to spice them up.

according to the egyptian theater web site it is playing for a week, starting fri 1/23 and ending thurs 1/29

what if there was a "new route log" forum that did not allow replies, i.e. one could post info about a new route, but in order to comment about it, other people would have to start a new thread in the climbers board (or spray). that way people who did not want commentary could still post for the "historical record" and would be somewhat insulated from people's opinions. this would also be easier for the guidebook authors to peruse new routes without wading through thousands of posts. (it seems a bit silly to be so sensitive, but I'd rather have the info than try to change someone's personality...) in general, i think people are apt to report alpine routes but not crag routes on CC. as others have mentioned, i think this has a lot to do with preserving future potential - not many people do multiple FAs on the same peak, but plenty of folks dream of putting up a whole crag full of routes.

wouldn't you say that if a route is published in rock and ice that the cat is pretty much officially out of the bag? the route looks cool. i see two possible futures: either the total number of people summitting garfield will vastly increase, or after a short buzz, people will forget about it and it will be reclaimed by the moss. does anyone know if the proposed closure of the middle fork snoqualmie road is before or after the access point for the route?

so much for "100% fat" oh sure, refute my statement with FACTS, how unoriginal... anyway, 100% fat or no, my personal experience, valid only for me, is that even small amounts of halvah eaten during exercise make me feel like i just swallowed a brick

i highly un-recommend halvah as an energy bar for during the middle of the day. The reason is that it has TOO MUCH ENERGY (the small bars are 800 calories IIRC, the large ones 1200 and it's basically 100% fat!!). My experience has been that it causes complete metabolic shutdown as your body diverts all available blood to your stomach to try to digest this fat bomb you just dropped down your gullet. You can basically kiss athletic performance goodbye for about 2 hours after you eat one. These same characteristics make it ideal as a recovery food, i.e. eat it as soon as you stop for the night, while you are melting water, etc, because it warms you up enormously, easy to eat when dehydrated, lots of calories fast. For a less dry energy bar, I like the balance bars and the tiger's milk bars. (Some people don't like the "protien powder" flavor, but since my granola mom would give us tiger's milk bars as a big treat when we were kids, the flavor just makes me happy...). Here's another idea: Pringles. Yup, Pringles. 1 can of pringles weighs 7 ounces and has over 1000 calories (depends on the flavor). They taste great, so you feel motivated to eat, and it's easy to eat a couple at a time (thus sparing yourself the fat bomb mentioned above) and the can keeps them from getting crushed. A friend of mine completed the grueling Alaska Wilderness Classic adventure race this year with 3 bags of Doritos and 3 cans of pringles as his ONLY food source!

history repeats itself! another dislocated shoulder on the synchro descent

that seems unfair to those of us with summer birthdays. think if i complain, they'll style me a free ticket? unless they want to defend a lawsuit for conception-date discrimination...

i was talking with my wife last night, and came up with the analogy that a beacon is like having an unreliable parachute in an airplane. it might help you, as a last resort, but it wouldn't make the idea of being in a plane crash more appealing. in contrast, a rope is generally reliable tool, used virtually every time you go climbing. i've never used my beacon in earnest, and i hope i never have to try.

??? maybe we should just say "M-style" and leave it at that? i assumed when someone says m-hard that crampons and ice tools were used.

ade - i think he is referring to the "knifeblade crack" at the end of the original NY Gully route that you and I avoided on our final pitch. see this thread for more discussion. I understand "free" in this context to mean "without etriers", since we all know that ice tools and crampons are aid. the "direct headwall" route, which i would understand to be something like "from the dead tree at the end of the first (leftwards) traverse, go straight up", AFAIK, still belongs to the realm of speculation.

pu, you don't give any criteria for what you consider the "best", but here are 3 options that I have personally tried. i went on a backpacking trip in the pasaytan this fall with my wife, it reminded me what an amazing area it is. we saw 4 people in 5 days! FWIW, next time I go in there to climb, i will probably choose the long-but-flat option 2. shortest: ashnola river road approach, i think it's 8 miles to lower cathedral lake, the first couple on a good trail. we drove from seattle on our first day, so we started pretty late, like 1 pm. hiked for ~1.5 hours, left the trail and bushwacked 'til about 7 pm. the next morning, we got up to lower cathedral lake around noon, it's good trail from there to cathedral pass, about another 1.5 hours. most of the off trail travel is ok, but there's a lot of lodgepole pine forest that makes you feel like you've been sent to hurdler's hell. with an early start from the car, you could definately do this in one day. BONUS: no horses on this approach easiest: drive way, way around through omak and parts north and zip in along the boundary trail from the east. after a short grind up to sunny pass, you are traversing relatively flat ridgelines above treeline for many miles. I think this is the longest distance (around 18 or 20 miles, IIRC), but it goes very fast due to the amazing scenery and modest elevation gain. i know people who have done this in a single day with light packs; as a 2-day backpack it is quite mellow. BONUS: best scenery, but lots of rednecks on horseback in summer. some of both: from north of winthrop, follow the chewich river trail to remmel lake (~11 or 12 miles), then cut cross country from the lake, over the shoulder of amphitheater mountain directly to cathedral pass. (you can stay on the trail, too, via cathedral lakes, but the x-country route is beautiful and easy). There are a variety of different trailheads you can start from; starting from the east side (windy creek) cuts off some distance, but since you have to drop down into the Chewich valley, youl'll have to climb back up to your car at the end of the trip. Parts of this route were hit pretty hard by fires this summer; travelling through these areas is cool or creepy, depending on your point of view.

Ade mentioned wart-hogs once. Please explain what they are. Also, am I correct in assuming that the Russian screws are for bailing or for screwing into ice filled cracks (which will ruin the screw), when all else fails? first hit on google:

i've seen the first half hour or so of high ice. cool: scenery, retro gear (gerry down vests, anyone?) lame: story, acting IIRC, four hotshots are making the FA of some rad face, but also bring along Jansson's girlfriend who has never climbed. Two of the guys get killed in an avalanche, but they keep going. The rock looks like black choss, but it must've been good enough to do the rigging for the film crew... someone told me that the movie ends with bad guys, explosions, a helicopter crashing into the mountain, but I never saw the end.

Colin placed one of those Ti knifeblades on inspiration last winter and I could not get it out despite a fair amount of effort. It vibrated a lot but wouldn’t move at all – I think it absorbed all the energy of the hammer blow in vibration. Maybe I could’ve yanked it with a funkness? We left it as a rap anchor. I agree with the comments that the Ti pitons are good last-resort anchors for adventure climbing, but I’ll stick with Cro-Moly when I’m expecting to use pitons. I usually carry 1-2 short KBs, 1 long one, a medium LA and a baby angle or two. The angles are great for weird rock, getting anchors into icy pods, etc. You can sometimes get really good placements in shallow horizontal slots by straddling the upper or lower lip within the V of the angle piton and pounding the pin in parallel to the direction of the crack. I’ve done this a couple of times in cracks that were too shallow or filled with ice to get a cam into, as long as there’s some kind of projection for the piton to catch against. The short KB’s aren’t very confidence inspiring, but they don’t weigh much either. A lot of times in very compact rock, they’re the only thing that works, since what cracks exist bottom out. I’ve always wanted to place my spare ice tool pick as a LA, a la the story in twight’s book, but I haven’t had the chance yet.

lambone - obviously, nothing can be said about the specific conditions at this point, other than the fact that weather and avalanche hazard will be of concern. you can sometimes get good beta on the route if the climbing rangers have been flying on the mountain recently (rescues or prepping the ranger huts for the season) - they usually pay attention to the conditions on the more interesting routes. one thing to consider is that you will almost certainly be approaching from the white river campground (if the road is even open that far), as the Carbon River road usually doesn't open until june. it is a long but reasonable day to get from WRCG to the high bivy below the route in one day, (it helps if you have done the approach to Lib. Ridge before); but if the weather is clear, it is hard to get lost since it's all above timberline. Crossing the Carbon Glacier will probably be easier than later in the season. approaching from WRCG simplifies the descent, since you can bomb down the emmons and straight out to the car.

i second the motion that indian creek will be cold, cold, cold. but you'll probably not have too many crowds, so you can hit up the classics a battle of the bulge wall without much line: incredible hand crack, supercrack, etc. beg and borrow as much rack from your friends as you can, sure you can get by on most IC 10s with 3 or 4 cams in each size, but why? you'll be happier with a rack like this: while down around moab, you should try to get up at least one tower, i like the ingalls/kor route on castleton tower (old school 5.9+), there is another 5.9 route as well... plus castle valley doesn't involve any 4x4ing, so this time of year should still be easy to get to.

my favorite climb at josh is RUN FOR YOUR LIFE (10b) on the tumbling rainbow (real hidden valley). i always thought it was the total jt experience, cool climb, crux at the top, visible from all over the area, cool "summit", scary-but-not-really-that-hard scrambling descent. now there are rap bolts at the top, but i highly recommend downclimbing anyway, it's like a mini-canyoneering adventure past the secret yucca grove, the overhanging wall of huecos, etc. real hidden valley has tons of good moderate stuff, locomotion rock is good, also sail away. heck, intersection rock has some great easy climbs, the flake, overhang bypass... you can always get away from the crowds by going into the wonderland, but you probably won't need to - there's several weeks worth of great stuff within a 10 minute walk of hidden valley CG. echo cove is good this time of year, south facing and more-or-less protected from the wind. heart and sole is the classic here, along with falcon & the snowman if you are feeling like runout slab climbing... hard to go too far wrong on your first trip, there's so much there! also really fun just to go get lost in the wonderland on rest/bad weather days.

plastic garbage bag?

from www.desnivel.es

you know what i really hate? every time i go up to climb the tooth, there's all these fuckin' gumbies up there! and when they see me coming, do they get out of the way? hell, no, they just keep climbing as if they had EVERY RIGHT to be there! so there i am, stuck behind all these gumbies, and instead of the gumbies thinking i'm all cool for climbing the tooth, other people think i'm JUST ANOTHER GUMBY on the tooth. the horror!

aren't these really the same thing, i.e. air resistance is just friction between you/your airplane/etc and the air?

will - the nameless tower story is in the first Climbing magazine "Epics" issue, but i couldn't tell you the date. There were actually a bunch of great stories in that issue.