cj001f

Matt -Climbing #209 had a letter to the editor from Hank Moon, Technical Information Manager at Petzl America - It went" In reference to the Trad TEch Tip "Bloc party - increase simul-climbing safety" in No. 208, I think it is useful to point out that "simul-climbing safety" is a bit of an oxymoron. A good belay and solid intermediate protection are essential components of a modern climbing safety system. Also, the Petzl Tibloc was designed for emergency use, and must be manually positioned prior to loading to ensure proper function. As this manual positioning is not possible in simul-climbing, such usage is not recommended by Petzl. Climbers who opt to use this technique must accept the increased possibility - and consequences - of system failure, as well as rope damage due to incomplete engagement of the Tibloc. For official technical information on the Tibloc, see www.petzlamerica.com/tibloc/" In short - his stated objection to using in simul is what your friend was objecting too. Carl [ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: cj001f ]

quote: Originally posted by Zenolith: compare: Edelweiss Laser9.6X60m dry for $190falls=6 kN=8.2 Lanex Viper9.7X60m dry for $90falls+6 daN+750 [ 03-12-2002: Message edited by: Zenolith ] Msr. Zenolith -BD Hotline 70m Dry -$110 (1-801-278-5533) ends Mar. 23rd. As for Lanex ropes, I've been wondering myself, you can check out their webpage http://www.lanex.cz/They seem like a decent company, but I've never seen one up close.Carl

quote: Originally posted by b-rock:Carl - From what I've heard, even in very wet avalanche debris, there's plenty of air content. The concern about being able to move your lungs in and out seems valid. But the whole idea of the avalung is simply to move the CO2 that is exhaled away from the intake area. Besides trauma, most complete buriel victems die from asphycsiation (sp).[/QB] I've been lead to believe, if my Avy seminar memory is correct, that their is enough air content to breather. And AlpineK - if you check out the Avalung.com site, and read German(I dont') they may have some good info.

quote: Originally posted by JRCO: Has any on this board actually used an Avalung? Did it make you feel more secure? How was it with a pack on? From what I have seen you can get those things dirt cheap. Must not have sold to well. Never used it on a skislope - tried it on, not too bad with a pack. Didn't want to spend 100 bones. This was the Avalung 2 however, which is a bandolier style replacement for the Avalung 1, which was the big Vest that's selling for like 1/2 off everywhere now. Carl

quote: Originally posted by erik: I WOULD TEND TO THINK THAT THE AVALUNG WOULD WORK ONLY IN A LIGHTER SNOW PACK.... WHERES AS THE YOU GET BURIED IN CASCADE CONCRETE THE AIR POCKETS WOULD SEEM SMALLER AS THE SNOW IS GENERALLY HEAVIER AND WOULD COMPACT MORE.... I DUNNO THOUGH WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE THINK.... According to the Avalung's website, your right, but for a different reason - namely "In very dense snow and/or deep burial or high compression forces, it is possible that a buried victim will have so much weight on him tha he will not be able to move his chest to creat any respiratory movement. The statistical average burial depth is about 1 meter. The Avalung has been succesfully tested to this depth in simulations." Going back to the debris density question - they did due tests with differing snow densities - but I'm not sure what their numbers refer to. According to the Avlanche Handbook Dry avalanches are about 300-400kg/m3 while wet avalanches are about 500-600kg/m3 - a 50% increase but I'm not sure how this would effect the Avalung. Carl

quote: Originally posted by slothrop: BD's 44 liter Ice Pack is on sale for 90 bucks through mail order only (not the website). Call them at 801.278.5533. Be cool when you call them - they can be a bit of a pain if you don't have the sale flier in front of you. They also have the Stone Packs(33L & 40L) on sale, and the Shrikes ~100$ for the stright shafts.Carl

sure, you could. just drink a fifth of bourbon and eat a bunch of GU and anything's possible. [/QB] True - true - but the last time I drank a 1/5th of bourbon, anything ended me up in the hospital For a cool site www.rebuffat.com Of course how a dead guy can have a personal site is beyond me Carl

quote: Originally posted by DRB: My friend Jim "Hemlock" Sedor always calledhim Gaston RubberFat. One of the 60's/70's brits (Tom Patey?) called him Ghastly Rubberfeet. You ever taken a look through "On Rock, Ice & Snow" - aside from his perfect guides uniform, ALWAYS! he had a liking for unbelieveably tiring technique. Like instead of liebacking or jamming a crack - put both hands at chest level - pull apart! move feet up, repeat with hands. I don't think I could do that for more than 10'! Carl

Senor Happy - Although I've not read Annapurna I found true summit fascinating, particularly as I'd read Rebuffart & Terray before hand. Roberts has had an interesting career - I liked his ascent pieces. The Diemberger book is "the Endless Knot" which for some reason I've avoided. What about "Challenge of the North Cascades"? It's not literary, but it is pertinent. Carl

Instead of the standard most influential books - I'll add the ones I liked best! In no particular order:Nanga Parbat Pilgrimmage - Hermann BuhlConquistadors of The Useless - L. TerrayEverest the Hard Way - C. BoningtonGervasutti's Climbs - G. GervasuttiDownward Bound - by the late Warren HardingAny Issue of Ascent For a nonclimbing book - 7 years in Tibet by Harrer is awesome - Carl

BD doesn't have any gaiters any more, nor any parts to repair them - they gave away their last "years ago" They suggested I try Rainy Pass repair - which I will. I e-mailed Dave page a while back about resoling the gaiters, I haven't heard anything from him - I might call them depending on what Rainy Pass says. Thanks for the help so far - any other ideas would be nice. Carl Whose no longer in the hell hole known as Virginia (though they don't have an open container law, which is nice - a brew on the ride home kicks) [ 03-05-2002: Message edited by: cj001f ] [ 03-05-2002: Message edited by: cj001f ]

Is it possible? I've got a pair of the old chouinard supergaiters - they're in great shape, they'd work awesome - except that the rubber is so dead I can't put them on a pair of boots. I've tried "repairing" them with scrap rubber & cement. Would it be possible to get a new rubber base for the gaiters & sew it on? Has anyone tried this? Carl

If your looking for routes in Chamonix - try The Mont Blanc Massiff - the 100 finest routes (nice book to get you drooling) But the question still begs, where are you going? Carl

quote: Originally posted by trask: __________ Curious...why are you getting rid of crap? You leaving the country or something? No, not fleeing the country - though I know a couple I'd like to run too. Mostly I just have too much climbing/skiing/backpacking stuff so I'm parting it out to friends and family. I discovered I don't need 5 pairs of ski poles - of course having just said this, I bought a new pair of skins yesterday. Carl

Dwayner - you've made a good point. The problem isn't with them paying a substandard wage to overseas workers, your right usually they pay market, or better than market there. The problem is constantly moving production to the place with the lowest wage (i.e moving from the Philipines to mainland China). For High End Goretex - a labor change shouldn't save you that much money. I think for the labor issue - Dru's got it covered - there just aren't that many people willing, or skilled to work in the Grament industry, the pay is low(see the following link) and the work conditions aren't good. And Dwayner don't bash the Unions only 8.5% of the U.S garment industry is unionized - I got that from here http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/pdf/cgs007.pdf. Carl

That being said, I gotta call bullshit. China has the biggest labor pool. But their are several other countries with equally cheap and skilled labor. Your half right on that one - there are other cheap countries. But at least according to an article I read recently (WSJ??) what we would consider equally cheap isn't so. i.e. companies actually find that 1 cent difference between the Phillipines and China, or the Philipines and Vietnam to be signifigant(this was for low end stuff like jeans) As for made in the USA having bad quality -bull****. Quality is solely a function of the companies standards. If your willing to pay extra for quality gear, you'll get quality. My older Made in USA Patagucci gear is just as good as the current stuff - their may be a shrinking US workforce, but I bet it's still available, particlularly if you were willing to train personnel - there are a lot of rural areas with high unemployment. As for eliminating the China problem. I'm not sure if a boycott would be instantly effective, but getting companies to acknowledge the source of their goods (this may be slightly difficult for large producers as they may have multiple sources) Raising the China issue to the attention of Marmot, Patagonia, would be a start. As for boycotting - I'm trying to get rid of my crap as we speak, and I don't see many purchases in the future. Carl

Are you as bored already as I am? So... I'm at work - nuf said... Why the hell do so many high end mountaineering gear companies make things in China? The same reason Ralph Lauren (nee Ralph Lifschitz) makes shirts in Mauritius - cut the costs of goods to pay for the advertising. What also goes unsaid here is that there is a rapidly shrinking pool of competent sewing labor in this country - part of the reason why Lotus Designs and Granite Gear located their production facilities in rural depressed areas is this is where they could find good find skilled seamstresses. How many women do you know that know how to sew? Of course I'd venture to say the move to China is more driven by base economics - they have a fixed price, they can't cut the ad budget, they can't cut the materials budget, but they can cut labor. And, why do we buy them? I'm not quite sure the source for the addiction - but I definitely have one. Maybe I should go talk to Mr Durden.....

Nevermind.Carl [ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: cj001f ]

Aidan - If your looking to buy BP Adze/Hammer's Mountain Gear in Spokane (alias mgear.com) has them on clearance for $17 each. Black Diamond usually keeps a stock of spares for all of their discontinued tools, but I wouldn't necessarily count on this in the future. Carl

Dan - Montbell has bit the big one - at least for this country, short of ordering directly from Japan. I used to live by their US distribution center in Santa Cruz it's dead and long gone. But o the discount deals while it lasted. They had some of the best long underwear ever, not to mention light weight, and ultralight weight shells before everyone and their mother was pitching "fast and dead". For what it's worth: http://www.montbell.com/top/top_f.html is their website - if you speak Japanese, and can tolerate Japanime kiddie graphics. Carl

I've got the Shadow Peak Vest (Windstopper Fleece Front - Schoeller Dryskin Back) Awesome Vest! Very High Quality and Durable. Sized a bit Large (normally I'm a perfect fit for a large, it fits a bit loose). As for the Serendipity , it's a really nice jacket, but - I'm not sure that's what you'd want for the Cascades - Dryskin doens't do well for either prolonged rain - or wet snow.Carl [ 10-29-2001: Message edited by: cj001f ]

Anybody have any experience with the new DMM ice screws - for reference http://www.northernmountain.com/pgi-ProductSpec?501286,7 Or the ad in the current issue of Rock & Ice. Main question is - how well do they place - as well as the standard BD screw? And is the hangar corrosion proof, as the colorcoding would suggest? Carl

The Rock Empire Cams are made by Hudysport in the Czech Repub. Hudysport is also the manufacturer of Trango's line of Pro - with little or no variation in the overall quality. I don't own a pair of Empire's yet, but from inspection at a couple of shops they look nice, if no frills. Carl

A thumb's down for the Soloist as a Lead Climbing SBD - and for that matter as a Solo TRing tool. From what I've heard the Silent Partner is the S*** for Solo lead - but I haven't yet found or seen anything to justify the price. Stick with knots. Carl [This message has been edited by carletonj (edited 10-01-2001).]

Gripped is a decent magazine - But your right the gear reviews are sycophantic(and extraordinarily incomplete - no Beal Ropes, no BD ropes?, and thats the B's). The regional climbing mags are the best when it comes to spirit/soul - Vertical Jones, Boulderdash, etc. As for Climbing/Rock & Ice - they both suck, though month to month it changes which sucks more. What's depressing is the complete absence of any quality quides in R&I anymore - there used to be almost a guidebook in every issue. As for Outside - they've got that bizarre mix of hardcore tips/destination with fashion photography (anyone remember the rock climbing shot they did last year with Beth Rodden? - almost soft core) Carl