Jason_Martin

There are a lot of routes that you can rappel with a 70 meter rope because the pitches are 35 meters. This is where a 70 becomes a luxuary. Though I don't see evidence of route developers putting anchors 70 meters apart, there is ample evidence of 35 meter pitches. Jason

There's definately been a movement toward 70 meter ropes among certain climbers. The reason? There are definately climbs out there that you can get up and down by using a 70 meter rope. In other words, you don't have to carry two ropes up the route to get back down. This makes sense and can be an advantage to owning a 70 meter rope. There will be a contingent of people who argue that a 70 meter rope is better for alpine rock climbing. I'm not one of those. Especially in the Cascades. Many of our classic routes are blocky and require short pitches so that corners may be negotiated. As a result, a 70 meter rope is not very effective. For some alpine ice routes a long rope might be nice. If you are planning on doing a lot of routes where you might be climbing a number of 60-70 degree alpine ice pitches where you want to have a belay but don't want to belay all over the place and you want to eliminate as many pitches as possible, a 70 meter rope might be nice. Due to the weight of a 70 meter rope, it cannot be recommended as a second rope for rappelling. If this is your first rope, I would recommend buying a 60 meter rope. If you have two 60s already and are simply looking for something to fill out your arsenal, then maybe a 70 might be something to look into. This will be a rope that you will keep for a long time because you will only use it once in awhile. Jason

Red Rock Canyon -- My favorite place in the world, but as much of the rock is weak the place definately has an alpine flavor. Jason

Agreed. It is totally inappropriate for government to intervene. And it is stupid for people to call their representatives about this instead of school principals and superintendents. Principals hate complaint calls from parents more than anything else and they will make up whatever rule they can think of to avoid this... As a result it's a total waste of time for government to get involved. Jason

Take Cipro to kill intestinal bugs that you get down there. A course of cipro will usually kill a problem in a few days. The key to success in South America is health. Don't eat anywhere you find suspect...and if you start to get sick, start a course of cipro right away. Technical routes at altitude are no joke. A single pitch of seventy degree ice can take an hour or more depending on your level of acclimatization. It is not uncommon to swing a tool, literally breath for a minute to two, then swing your other tool. These minutes add up and suddenly a route with four technical pitches at an average angle of sixty-five degrees becomes a four to six hour endeavor. Add the time it took to get to the technical portion and suddenly your day is a great deal longer. The moral of this annecdote is that you should not apply Cascade standards to high altitude routes. Plan a great deal more time on the route than you would elsewhere. In additon to this, climb a few things that are not very technical and get used to the lack of air before committing to something more dangerous. There is little that you can do in the PNW to prepare your body for such high altitudes. You're probably already working on your cardio for your trip. Push your cardio training to the limit so that you become used to breathing hard while working hard. Spend at least a week after you get there acclimatizing. Hike, do some non-technical peaks, and hydrate. After five days or so, you should be ready to go up high. Lots of people believe that the air is thicker in South America at altitude than in the northern hemisphere...and maybe there's some truth to that. But I've been above twenty thousand feet in Alaska, Bolivia and Ecuador, and no matter where you are you're worked at those altitudes. Prepare yourself mentally for this ahead of time and you'll be fine. Jason

Though this piece of advice won't hurt anybody, it is incorrect. Tests have indicated that a figure 8 follow-though that is not completely tied will only fail about five percent of the time. There have been no tests that I'm aware of which indicate that a figure 8 will invert or untie itself after adding a Yosemite finish to the knot. Most certified climbing guides do not tie a "safety knot" into their rope after tying in. Many of them do use the yosemite finish. The only thing the extra "safety knot" does is to back up your system if you already tied your knot wrong. At this point the "safety knot" will probably fail as well. Instead of focusing on this extra knot it would be better for climbers to practice dressing their figure 8s. Though an undressed figure 8 is no less likely to fail, an unfinished or incorrectly tied knot is more likely to be missed if you are used to looking at sloppy knots. Clean and dressed knots are easy to recogize as correct and thus inherently safer. Jason

Almost all harnesses on the market now come with belay loops. Even the black diamond bod harness now comes with one. Why? Because belaying off of the waist and crotch loop weakens the biner. A biner is designed to have a load placed directly on its spine. A belay loop allows all potential force to be put directly on the biner's spine. When you place a biner through the waist and crotch loops you triaxally load the carabiner when there is a fall. In other words your biner is automatically crossloaded. In a mountaineering situation where the worst fall you might take is in a crevasse this type of crossloading is not that big a deal. However, in rock and ice climbing where 8 and 10 KN falls are possible, placing your carabiner through the waist and crotch loop is a dangerous proposition. Teaching somebody to do this is even worse. As for your problem, if you can't keep the biner oriented right, use a different biner. Jason

I think there are valid points to almost everyones ideas. In the end it comes down to a personal choice which will be dictated by a question: What is more dangerous, falling upside down in a crevasse or having a problem due to a chest harness? For me the fear of falling upside down in a crevasse does not warrent the use of a chest harness...anywhere. There are so many potential problems with them that I choose to climb without. Most people here are climbing in the Cascades where both the crevasses and the packs are small. The combination of these two things makes it less likely that someone will fall into a crevasse and then be flipped upside down. Indeed, most climbers are climbing with twenty pound packs by the time they get on the glacier and are in the process of making a summit attempt in the Pacific Northwest. A twenty pound pack simply will not flip a climber over...as a result it becomes very difficult to defend the use of a chest harness when it results in so many potential problems. Jason

First, you would have to put your prusiks on the opposite side of the chest biner as it would be impossible to open that biner if you were in a crevasse. Having the prusiks in such a position would suck. Second, the same issue would apply as stated earlier. You could very easily get pulled head first toward the crevasse after your partner falls in. Third, if you're in the middle of the rope and you choose to clove hitch one direction into the biner, the whole purpose of the system is null and void if the person partner on the opposite end of the rope arrests your fall. As a result of these three things, it's probably not a great idea. Jason

there is a difference between censoring and countering an argument (even if it means cutting someone off), no? Point taken. There is a difference. Jason

Nope, just the arguements made against war in general in some of his plays. Maybe Euripides would have been a better playwright to have put into that particular spot...but Lysistrata is so pointed and funny in its attacks on war and war-mongoring, that I couldn't help myself. Jason

I'm not saying that everyone can think outside the box, just that academics strive too. Once again it doesn't mean that they do...or that you or I do for that matter. Yes, when someone has abusive beliefs toward one's own beliefs we try to censor them. You point out that a liberal feminist might try to censor a conservative and anti-feminist idea, of course they will. As will a conservative who is being forced to listen to a liberal idea. Lets not forget about the bans on protests around Bush during his run for re-election. It's human nature to want to cut a person off with a different viewpoint and to stop them from getting to their point. Conservatives and Liberals alike will say that they are for free speech as long as the free speech is agreeable. This is the real reason that free speech is so important. We have to be free to present ideas that are unpopular. And ultimately history and cultural movement will decide what is "right" and what is "wrong." This attack on free speech which is a bilateral attack from both liberals and conservatives is part of the reason that college professors are given tenure. It's so that they are able to say things that are unpopular, but that will also -- hopefully -- give people the opportunity to critically think about a given issue. Jason

I think it does work. Most people agree that history repeats itself with minor riffs. As such, the lessons that have been taught throughout history are still apt today. You argue against the value of the great thinkers if you cannot apply their thinking to modern issues. Academics, politicians, and artists apply ancient philosophy to modern problems all the time. And the radical right can't help but apply their interpretations of the Bible to everything they see... It is arrogant to do this...but that fact doesn't make it any less true that people do this. Culture is all about arrogance. Modern Americans are as arrogant as ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire or Nazi Germans. We live in a culture where we have been told that we are better than other people. The problem is not that we're told that, but that we believe it. Sure there is arrogance on the part of an academic because he or she believes that a given artist would have similar feelings as he or she does were the artist alive today. But there's also arrogance in the belief that Jesus Christ would support a war in Iraq. Education is about learning how to think outside the box. And as you've pointed out, there is even arrogance to the belief that we can do that. People who have spent their lives studying art, philosophy and history tend to be on the liberal side. My point is still apt. The people who have changed the world for the better throughout history have been liberals in their given societies. Academics who see this trend try very hard to think progressivly and to see outside the box. I'll state it again, I believe that academics want to be the kinds of liberals that they see as heros. Like it or not, this is likely why there is a liberal bent to the humanities in higher education. Jason

I can't speak for the sciences...but there is definately a liberal bias in the arts... I think that this is primarily due to the fact that the people who those in the arts study were liberals in their day. And I think it is because the people they study who are alive today tend to have a liberal bent to their work as well. Aristophanes was arguing against wars like the one we're waging now 2,500 years ago. Nearly four hundred years ago, Shakespeare forced people to think differently about power and corruption in dozens of plays. Ibsen took on environmental issues and women's rights in the late eighteen hundreds. And in the 20th century luminaries like Samuel Beckett, Bertold Brecht, and Fredrico Garcia Lorca fought war mongers, dictators, and anyone else who was opposed to human rights... Those in the arts look up to the people whom they study. They like the idea that artists stood up for what they thought was right even when they had to put their lives on the line. In addition to this, I believe that many academics wonder what their heros would think about current world situations. The artists and thinkers I've just listed would most likely fall into the liberal world view were they alive today. This definately has an influence on those who study them. Jason

In "Washington Ice: A Climbing Guide" on pages number 125 and 126... "Don Heller slipped below Asgard Pass on the descent and was killed." Jason

The easiest way to initiate a crevasse rescue on a small team -- i.e. two or sometimes even three people -- is for the person closest to the fallen climber to place a picket or fluke and then to tie his prussik leg loops into that piece. He may then slowly back up and allow the piece to take the weight. If the rope is running up through a chest harness, this becomes impossible. Jason

Good post. Chest harnesses -- particularly those that are created by webbing or slings -- have been responsible for strangulations. In addition to this, they make crevasse rescue more difficult on small teams. If you are really worried about being flipped over, then the Kiwi Coil is the way to go... Jason

I often build an anchor, equalize it, and then clip a locker to the powerpoint. At the powerpoint I will tie a munter hitch. The rope goes from the munter hitch to the climber. After the system is set up, the climber may approach the edge of the crevase while on belay. Once he reaches the edge, he can kick off any lip or snow that might fall down on him while he's climbing. Then he can "pad" the lip with an extra ice axe. This axe will keep the rope from cutting into the lip to far. To avoid losing this axe down the hole, be sure to clip it to the rope that you are lowering on. After the lip is padded, the belayer will lower the climber in until he says stop. Then the belayer will belay him out. Note: If your on bare glacier ice, there is no need to pad the lip. Jason

I haven't tried it with a back-up. They show using a munter hitch after the steps that I essentially described. I can see where it might be safer to use this than without and have to recommend it for your early experiments with lowering. One great advantage to the Petzl system shown is that once the reverso's angle is changed you can simply lower the person to the ground without the jerky ride that the system I described generally entails. Jason

It's uncommon to have to give slack to a person while another is hanging. As both people are ascending and not descending, it's usually not an issue. But... If one person is actually hanging it is quite difficult to give slack to the other. The easiest thing to do would be to tell the hanging person to unweight the rope while you pull some slack for the other. If this is not possible, you will have to rig the reverso for a lower...this is where things get tricky. To lower a person on a reverso: 1) Girth hitch a cordellete to the carabiner that the rope is running through on the back of the reverso. 2) Run the end of the cordellete up through a strong point in the anchor -- ideally the shelf or powerpoint. 3) Now that the cordellete is redirected through a piece, rig a loop in the end of it. 4) Carefully step in the loop. This will pull back the biner which is locking off the climber. Don't stand in the loop, just put a little weight on it and then release. Do this slowly and carefully so that you don't lose control of the climber. If you mess around with a reverso enough, most of the problems people have complained about here will go away. If you climb in three man teams a lot with reversos, you'll eventually be climbing as fast as a two man team. Jason

I've read a lot and heard a lot about the greasing. I don't know anything about a pig. Could someone expand? Jason

Is this true or hearsay? Jason

I'm going to try to get in touch with them. Are you aware of whether or not either of them led it? Jason

I'm currently working on an article about Index for a Seattle newspaper and I want to try to get a few facts straight. I'm interested in knowing if anybody is aware of any free ascents of City Park in Index since Todd Skinner and Hugh Herr in 1986? If you are aware of a free ascent, who was involved? Jason

There are a few other reasons a guide might be downhill. He or she might be downhill if there is a white-out. He or she might be downhill if there is difficult routefinding. And lastly, he or she might be downhill if the terrain is easy but the clients are slow. In this last example, the guide can move quickly and thus force the students to move more quickly as well. The three rules of guiding only apply to about twenty percent of the clients. Most absorb the training they are given prior to an ascent. However there are a few who simply can't understand the most basic instruction no matter how slow it is spelled out for them. Jason