forrest_m

fc9- I suppose there might be a contradiction if one were tiresomely literal-minded. Others, more in tune with the concepts of "politics" and "rhetoric" might understand that if one's goal is to effect moderate reform, it is useful to have someone staking out a position of radical reform. Oh goody, we've subverted yet another thread to the ongoing political discussion.

I have to say, I've been somewhat amazed over the years that patagonia has grown as huge as they are and yet they still make kick ass gear. someone apparently forgot to tell them that when you exceed a certain gross per year, you have to start selling to the lowest common denominator and start adding flaps, straps, patches, snowboard pockets and heating elements to everything (think TNF, Lowe packs, dana designs and many other mfrs. who once made good gear and now make over-designed/under-built crap while continuing to milk the reputation they earned a decade ago). no question that their gear is on the pricey side, though no more so than other top brands like Arc-however you spell it, so I don't know that I'd consider it an "eco-tax", in the sense that you pay more so that yvon can feel good. I respect the fact that they support some radical groups that not all their customers would agree with; I mean, it doesn't take much conviction to donate to the world wildlife fund to save baby panda bears. say what you want about ruckus, but they put their bodies on the line for what they believe in (and are very serious about non-violence.)

where would we be without french toast, french fries and french kissing? vive la france, i say.

climber contemplates the price of a lift ticket decides: lifts are aid telemark is best far from the lines and hassles these grapes sure taste sour

i think climbing up the inside of a nuclear cooling tower would be cool, like a desert spire in the inverse... but the WPPSS site is a lot more than 10 minutes from downtown seattle.

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