forrest_m

can i get an "amen"?!?

yeah, I remember reading about it too, and I figured, well, in rock shoes and all, I'm sure you can just walk across. I mean, the thin section of the w. ridge of pigeon spire in the bugs was originally an "a cheval" move too, and now everybody either just walks across the top or smears the slab with the knife-edge as a hand rail. so imagine my surprise on dorado needle when I found myself astraddle the ridge, scooting across 6 inches at a time, like the way you might go across a slippery log over a stream. actually, the problem is more or less the same, at the "a cheval" the ridge is very narrow, but in cross section it is like a spade (from a deck of cards), i.e. it cuts under on both sides just below the crest, so there'nowhere for your feet. it's not a big deal, I mean it's only about 5 feet long, but it is memorable.

caveman, I've done both the routes you mention. well, we tried to do the cauthorn-pilling, I think we ended up doing our own thing further left (north?), anyway, there'about 50 potential lines along that face. I've actually talked to three parties that have done routes there, all different, but all about the same grade, i.e. 5.8-5.9. the only thing we all remember in common is the "a cheval"move on the ridge. the descent is trivial, really, one double rope rappel off the top gets you onto the snow, then... summit to camp at eldo-deacon's tower col in about 15 minutes. early morning spire is a different kettle of fish. we summitted in an almost-whiteout, but the descent down the gully back towards the base looked bad (think big snow blocks on slabs), especially since we were camped up on the inspiration glacier, so here's what we did: EMS sits a bit in front of the ridge that has dorado needle as it's highpoint, connected to it by a narrow spine. We scrambled down the spine to the lowpoint (15 min), made 1 single rope rap off the north side from a fixed station, then kept following the spine back uphill, eventually up a narrow snow gully to the dorado needle ridge. (1/2 hour). we followed this rock ridge south (towards dorado needle) for several hundred feet (5.easy but wet), then headed straight down the snow (60 deg for 150 feet, then gradually mellowing out), following the slope down to eventually join the very bottom of the d. needle descent. if you have good nav. skills or clear conditions, I highly recommend this as a descent because it saves you having to climb back up to dor. needle col from way down in the valley, but it would be hard to pull off without a map, as there are several subsidiary ridgelets that could easily misdirect you. I thought the rock on dor. needle was better quality than EMS, but the line on EMS is much more classic.

Ade -I think your problem is probably that you are too mature and well balanced. You admit that the wall scares you, your partners reciprocates, and it's all downhill from there. The key is to get in touch with your inner insecure juvenile. As long as your partner is on the same wavelength, both of you will be too worried that the other will think you are chicken-shit to back down. Seriously, I don't know about any resources for you, but I've found that obsessive planning and pre-visualization are helpful in not getting psyched out. I search out other accounts of the climb, alternate guidebook descriptions, photos, and lie in bed at night thinking about the route. I've gotten a lot more psyched out by a route that I expected to be casual that looks slightly difficult than by routes that I knew from the get-go were going to be tough - maybe because since I didn't expect them to be very hard, I didn't study them very much?

along the same lines enron blues you were all proud to tick this .13 testpiece, then suddenly one day it is downgraded to 5.4

is homeland security crag the one located up on Tom Ridge? god I crack myself up. 300 posts, woo hoo

UN Resolution - another tough onsight, this one takes most people at least 14 tries

tlg, he means that when he goes out with his girl, he gives her the beacon that is easier to use, presumably because she is not as experienced at beacon search. he uses it himself if he is alone. (for the buried person, it doesn't really matter which beacon they have)

military tribunal - it's a very serious route, but you can't see the anchors from below, so noone knows what happened to you

shadow cabinet undisclosed location bombs over bali

saudi peace proposal - looks like a nice, straightforward route from below but turns out to be really devious and intricate, with hidden holds that make it practically impossible to implement, i mean onsight.

yes, I think it was "never go climbing with physics geeks, they take forever to set up an anchor"

but where's the "disadvantage"; in your second diagram, each weight is .5T, and the total pull is T, i.e. pull is equal to the total weight being lifted; so no advantage but no disadvantage either, right?

iain -ok, maybe I'm dense, but I don't see any mechanical advantage at all. If the loads are the same, the middle pulley is just a dummy, right? I mean, the ropes might as well be tied at that point, and the two upper pulleys just change the direction of loading. If the loads are different, the lighter one will just ride up until it hits the upper pulley and becomes "fixed", giving your pull a 2:1 advantage on the remaining weight. assuming friction is 0, of course. [crap, you guys just type too fast for me]

I don't think anyone disputes the fact that because there are so many pieces in a real world system, real forces won't equal the "worst case"physics situation, i.e. knots tightening, friction, belayer pulled up etc. I agree with paul, the best thing is to always protect the belay with an additional piece that I mentally consider part of the anchor. but... what seems to be at issue is that alex is clinging to "common sense"over mathematics. he is insisting that since the fall is the same, it is impossible for greater forces to be generated. as evidence he cites that if there are more components in the system, the force felt on each must be less, but this is simply not true. the slingshot DOES add another component of force to the system, which if the pulley is perfect and the angles are perfect, is exactly the same as the original force. maybe this will help explain. it seems we all agree on my scenario #1, a 1000 pound weight hanging off the QD puts 1000 pounds of force onto the anchor. I assume we would all also agree that if we tied a second 1000 pound weight on a second rope to the same QD that the anchor would now feel 2000 pounds? now, instead of tying the ropes to the QD, I tie them to each other, passing through the QD. Has the force on the anchor changed? Loren, if I only had a nickel for every time my physics prof. answered questions like this by saying "Draw the Free-Body Diagram" !

wait just a second, alex, I'm not sure you have it right. forget the diagram for a second and walk through this with me. option a: falling straight onto the belay. when the climber hits the bottom, they put a force on the rope of, say, 1000 pounds. the anchor must therefore resist 1000 pounds to balance out the 1000 pounds of tension in the rope. option b: falling on a quickdraw: same fall, rope from climber to QD had same 1000 pounds of tension; but to keep it from slipping, the rope from the QD to the belay must also have 1000 pounds in it, more or less in the same direction of pull (assuming both belayer and fallen climber are below the anchor). therefore, the QD has 2000 pounds of tension in it, because it is being pulled down by 2 lengths of rope, each with 1000 pounds. the anchor must therefore support double the weight. this is how I've always understood it, but maybe I'm wrong? btw, obviously the force won't be exactly double because the angle between the two rope strands > 0, friction, etc.

ok, this is not as interesting as new graemlins, but what about Today's Active Topics? The problem with "Last 24 hours posts"is that if a topic is active, it shows up a bunch of times, pushing others down the list; Today's Active Topics was great, with basically a list of what people were talking about and the first line of the latest post. Or am I missing something in the custom configurations that would let me see screen out all but the latest post for each topic in "24 hours"

I agree with a lot of what has been said so far, and I'm not going to repeat it; but here's a few additional thoughts: [dang, PP scooped my first point while I was typing, but anyway...] it seems to me that there is a convergence of technique in a lot of harder crack climbs, especially very thin ones, where you begin using a lot of face climbing techniques. in a 5.11 finger crack, too small for your feet to really jam, you are basically laybacking the crack lip with your feet or smearing on face holds. some crack climbs are hard because the crack is discontinuous, or only has certain places where you can jam (i.e. pin scars), so outside edging to get a few extra inches of reach can be crucial. careful stemming technique - including drop knees, etc - can make all the difference in how tiring it is to place gear. This is probably also all true for easier crack climbs, but on 9s and 10s, the crack is usually big and obvious enough to absorb all your effort, whereas on thin stuff, you have to look around for something else. I don't take the whole "sport climbing will train you to fall a lot" argument very seriously. Placing gear and clipping bolts are different, my brain treats them differently. On a bolted route, I don't pay too much attention to the pro, thinking about the route as a whole. I clip where it'convenient, rest when appropriate, even if it's halfway between bolts; whereas on a trad lead, I tend to break it up into a series of quick bursts between stances. I'm much more calculating on gear leads. as far as conditioning goes, I think one of the best ways to train for crack climbs is to run laps on something moderate on TR. you learn make the jams as your strength declines; I think this is maybe less useful on face climbing routes, because the first thing to go is your precision, and training while very pumped may actually ingrain bad habits. (I'm not too sure about this last bit, but it seems like it makes sense...) my hardest redpoint is harder on sport, but only by a few letter grades. On the other hand, what I think is really interesting is that the difference between my hardest redpoint and hardest flash on crack climbs is only one letter grade, bolt clipping it's a full number grade - and my hardest flash is the exact same grade for both types of climbing! I think there are a few reasons for this: I am much less likely to work a gear climb, in fact I am unlikely to attempt to lead a gear route that I don't think I have at least even odds of climbing without falling. Also, the people who I go to smith with mostly climb harder than me, and as I am a sucker for peer pressure, I always end up trying routes that are harder that I otherwise would... and sometimes I even manage to climb them.

five hours...

9 1/2 hours

sayjay - the classic "paine" circuit will give you a good overview of most of the climbing areas, esp. if you leave the crowds behind an hike up into the valle de silencio. prepare to be amazed. be aware that from p. arenas, you will have a couple of travel days unless you can get the bus schedules dialed in... in theory, you could get from PA to the trailhead all in one day - it's about 4 hours (by bus)to puerto natales, another 4 to the park entrance, then like an hour in a smaller bus to the trailhead, and it's hard to get it all coordinated w/o spending the night in natales. so you might want more than 7 days round trip from PA if you can swing it. Have fun!

ok, let me see if I can unobfuscate… I think the crux of godzilla, esp. for the “onsight”, is the burly layback section, i.e., you do the bottom part, clip to the block with all the slings, stand up on the flake to above, then the crux: about 20 feet of laybacking or jamming up a big flake/crack to where there’s a no-hands rest. above, it turns into more of a corner with a crack in the face of the wall, and there’s a lot more stances for placing gear. that layback is hard to do jamming and placing gear, easy to do by just ape-laybacking up the outside many people seem to think the last move before the belay is the crux, but I’ve never thought it’s that hard… one finger jam, a stem, and I can reach the ledge and mantle. i like taping my hands if i'm going to crack climb more than one day in a row.

the first couple of times i climbed 'zilla, i did the combo-jam/layback at the big flake, but now i just place gear from the bottom, layback up to the good stance in the middle (on that pointy projection), place another piece, then layback again up into the corner above. this gets you through it really fast - knowing that there are good stances, you can just chug through the layback with as little energy as possible. second pitch of local knowledge, at the bend at tieton, is a great 5.9. it looks like it's going to be about 5.11, but it's much easier, perfect fingerlocks on this crazy crack that's on the point of an arete with cool exposure.

oldfart – sounds like you need to get yourself down to the library. I’m sure a city as big as chicago will have a full run of the american alpine journal in the main downtown branch. take each issue starting about 1980, flip to the alaska section, and copy the appropriate pages. until the mid-90s, there won’t be little switzerland stuff every year. also, there’s an article with photos and descriptions in an issue of climbing about 18 months ago. you’re not likely to find much more than photos with lines drawn and written descriptions, not ‘topos.” If you can track that down, you’ll be ahead of the game. I think you will find that the best objective for the kind of routes you describe will be the “trolls”, a three-horned spire just west of the “Throne.” You don’t really need too much beta – you can really just follow your nose to find the easiest routes, which usually involve a little 5.8 and some easier climbing. Finally – I followed this same process before our trip in ’94. If you come up dry, PM me your address and I’ll mail you photocopies of what I have. I say leave this for a last resort mostly because there’s been a lot of activity up there the last few years and so the info I’ve got is pretty out of date.

arrogant incompetence is hardly the sole domain of the hippies. ask anyone with SAR experience how many good ol’ boys they’ve had to had to look for over the years… the usual equation is overconfidence + bad luck = hypothermia. but I think you make an interesting point – sort of a reversal of the usual freedom to vs. freedom from argument. freedom from rules in this case = freedom to die from hypothermia. lots of "hippies" deliberately ignore the way things were usually done because they find value in being free to invent their own system. this attitude may be more well suited to reexamining your role in society or rejecting your parents' narrow-minded religion than to surviving the alaskan winter.