So I’ve written before about how to clean your rope (read about it here). Well, I just washed one of my ropes last week and couldn’t figure out where to dry it. I usually drape it on the shower rod or on the side of the bath tub, but with six guys living in my house, the shower gets used a lot. So I used the hand rail in my stairway! Check it out (click for the larger version):
And it dried completely in about a day. Pretty slick setup.
How have you dried your rope when its wet?
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So I write this after waking up at 5:30, driving 4 hours into Nevada, hiking up Wheeler Peak (the 2nd tallest mountain in Nevada at 13,063′), going on another 4 mile hike, then driving 4 hours back home — all in the same day. It was epic.
Anyway, it was colder up there than I thought it would be. Luckily I had packed a long sleeve shirt, a lightweight shell, and a sweet headband made by Outdoor Research. I don’t think OR makes this headband anymore, but it’s super lightweight and packs up really small. Observe:
The headband.
Look how small it folds up!
The headband in action.
So yeah. It’s sweet. It’s light and warm. Like I said, I don’t know if anyone still makes something like this, but someone probably does. Aaaand… I’m going to bed now.
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A couple weeks ago I wrote a post entitled 8 reasons why your climbing photos suck. Well, I thought of another one: There is no sense of scale. I think this is a big problem with non-climbing photographers. And by that I mean people taking pictures that aren’t climbers. They really like to zoom in for some reason, and it bugs me. Check out the photo below (and you can click it for a larger version):
Now, there are a few reasons why this photo sucks. But let’s just talk about the one we’re focusing on today. I mean, it’s not a horrible photo, but it sucks because you can’t tell how high the climber is or how steep the rest of the route is. What if I told you that the route below the climber is severely overhanging and and the climber is very exposed at his current position? That’s info that you just can’t get from the above photo that would make it a lot more interesting. It would tell a story.
Check out the below photo that shows the lower part of the route:
Still a crappy pic, but the point is to show how cool the route is. Now, if you just zoom out from the first pic so that you get some of the scale from the second pic, you’ve got a much better climbing photo.
Thoughts? Comments? Other suggestions?
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Old school. Knot numbers do NOT correspond to the list here!
There are about a bazillion climbing knots out there that you could probably find some use for, but here are the most essential (in my opinion; feel free to disagree and say what other knots you think should be on the list, or if you’ve got more uses for any particular knot):
1. Figure-8 (follow through) – Use it to tie in to your harness.
2. Figure-8 (on a bight) — Use it for tying off anywhere on the rope or as a backup while jumaring.
3. Clove hitch — Use it when building anchors and equalizing pieces. It’s also easy to adjust.
4. Double fisherman’s — Use it for tying two ropes together for rappelling. Also used for tying ends of cord together to form a cordalette.
5. Water knot — For tying two pieces of webbing together to make your own slings.
6. Munter hitch — A knot you can use to belay or rappel with in case you forget or drop your belay/rappel device.
7. Stopper knot — Use to make sure you don’t rappel off the end of your rope, or to make sure the rope doesn’t slip through the belay device when belaying.
8. Prusik knot — Use to ascend ropes or as a backup when rappelling.
9. The girth hitch — For tying off trees, quickly connecting slings together (though not highly recommended because it apparently weakens the slings significantly), or attaching slings to your harness.
10. I had a hard time deciding which one to pick for number 10. These are my contenders: the butterfly knot (for tying off sections of damaged rope, or for tying on in the middle of a rope for glacier travel), the slip knot (for tying off chickenheads or horns), and the overhand knot (for tying two ropes together). And I think I’m probably forgetting some…
Any comments on the list?
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Suh-weeeet!
In case you missed it, fellow great climbing blog Splitter Choss has a review of something that I’ve wanted to check out for a long time. They’re called CU Belay Glasses, and they look freaking awesome. You know how your neck hurts after spending some time looking up at the climber while belaying? Well with these glasses, that pain is a thing of the past. Thanks to some nifty mirrors on the glasses, you see what the climber is doing while you look straight. No more craning you neck upward.
Click here to read the review, and click here to go to the website where you can buy the belay glasses.
Does anyone reading this have any experience with these things? Are they something you’re interested in?
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Ok, so there are a few ways to get back to the rock after a lead fall on steep rock. But I’m just going to talk about one of them right now. So picture this scenario: You’re on a very steep route (or maybe even a roof), and you take a fall when you’re halfway between bolts. How do you get back to the rock? Well, you could use ascenders or something, but no one wants to take freaking ascenders on a sport route? Below I describe a simple way of getting back to the rock that is pretty easy to do unless you’ve got a looong way to go to get back to the rock, in which case it would suck.
So let’s say you’ve fallen and you can’t get back to the rock. You’re just dangling there. Grab the rope above you with both hands and do a quick pullup. For a second, there will be slack in the rope, and your ever-attentive belayer can take in that slack. And voila! You’re up a few inches or a foot, depending on how hard you pull and how fast your belayer is.
I drew a lovely little visualization here:
Does that make sense? Like I said, it would get really tiring to go far (and it would hurt your hands after a while), but it’s just a good trick to know and to have in your quiver.
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I’ve written before about how I store my gear, but here’s another option. I was at Walmart the other day, getting some Gatorade to freeze, and was waiting in the checkout line. I was casually looking at the stuff the woman in front of me was buying and saw an over-the-door rack like this:
I thought hmmm… One could hang a sling over each hook and clip gear into each sling. Or you could loop a daisy chain over each hook and clip the gear to the daisy chain.
I did some searching online and saw some more over-the-door racks that would work well for storing climbing gear. Check this out:
But instead of putting shoes on there (well actually, I guess you could put your climbing shoes on there…), you could clip and hang gear from each row! Or you could use a rack like this:
And again, you’d just clip your gear to the bars or to the vertical shoe wire things. Or take a hacksaw or Sawzall to those vertical wires so you just have the horizontal wires. The above rack is only $19 at Walmart.
So what do you think? Is it something you’d like to try? Is it a stupid idea or a good one? What drawbacks do you see? What benefits do you see? If someone tries this, send me pictures and I’ll post them!
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I posted this by accident yesterday and it was up for a bit before I could delete it. So sorry if you’ve already seen it!
Here’s a question several people have asked me recently and that I’ve seen several times on forums: How many quickdraws do you need?
The answer really depends. For years I had 12 draws and it was almost always sufficient. But I would say that 14 is the magic number. Having said that, there are thousands of routes across the country (and around the world) that you could climb with 8 draws, or even 6. But 14 draws will let you climb any 12-bolt route and still have two draws left for the anchors. Very rarely will you need any more than that. And if you DO need more than that, you can use slings or borrow draws from friends.
Here are a few more points:
Over the years I would booty a draw here and there and before I knew it I had a bunch. I wouldn’t recommend getting that many to start out, though.How many quickdraws do you have, and how many do you think you need? How many does a beginner need, and how many should the experienced climber have?
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Until very recently, I had never had a pair of real sunglasses. I remember getting $3 sunglasses at gas stations when I was a kid. I bought several pairs of fake Oakleys when I was living in China. I have a pair of glacier glasses that I use on snowy peaks. But I always thought regular sunglasses were a stupid gimmick. I mean come on, can’t people just suck it up and squint? And what’s with people wearing sunglasses just as fashion accessories? Give me a break. I’d rather spend the money on a cam or two.
Well, all of this changed about two months ago. I had some extra money at the end of the month and decided I’d finally get some sunglasses. I decided that if I was going to spend $50 or $100 on a pair of sunglasses, I’d at least get something that looked decent on me. And as I have no fashion sense whatsoever, I brought my friend’s wife along to tell me what looked good and what didn’t. I tried on every pair in the story and finally settled on a pair of Julbo sunglasses.
Let me just say that I love these things. Why? Here are some reasons:
So I’ve been converted. I’m a believer. My sunglasses were about $60 and were probably the single best gear purchase I’ve made in the last year. Definitely better than the cam I could have bought with the money…
How about you? Do you find sunglasses useful, or do you think they’re a gimmick and unnecessary? What brands and models do you recommend?
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Falling while clipping isn't very fun, either.
Remember how the old trad climbers from back in the day had the whole “The leader must not fall” mindset? Well, I’ve said before here on DCT that falling is great. If you’re not willing to push yourself and fall, you’re not going to get better as a climber. There’s a big asterisk next to that statement, however. Sometimes you just don’t fall. Here are some of those times:
1. Before you get to the first bolt or put your first piece in. This one’s obvious. If you fall before your rope is clipped into something, there’s nothing there to stop you. You’ll hit the ground and it’ll hurt. Going along with this, don’t fall any time there’s ground fall potential!
2. When the rock is bad. Sometimes the rock your gear is in just isn’t very good. If the crack you’ve got that cam in is loose and crumbly, you probably shouldn’t tempt fate by falling on it.
3. When the gear placements are marginal. Don’t fall on bad gear. Duh.
4. When your leg is in front of the rope.
5. When you’re looking at a biiiiig fall. Sometimes you can take a big fall and not get hurt. But the longer your air time, the bigger your chance of getting hurt.
6. When you’ll hit something if you fall. Don’t fall when you’re above a ledge, because you’ll break your ankles on the thing. Don’t fall on a traverse from a dihedral out onto a face, because you’ll pendulum into the corner. You get the idea.
7. With the rope in your teeth. You know how a lot of people, when they’re clipping, hold the rope in their mouths for a bit while they’re grabbing more slack? Can you imagine how horrible it would be to fall with the rope in your mouth? I remember reading a story in Climbing magazine several years ago that talked about that very thing. Most of the guy’s teeth got ripped out. Yikes!
8. When there are loose blocks around.You don’t want to fall and knock a bunch of loose rocks and blocks onto your belayer.
9. While you’re placing gear. Because you’ll probably end up dropping it.
Do you have any other ideas? When are you in the no-fall-zone?
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Here are several cool big wall free climbs that haven’t made it to the big US climbing news sites (like climbing.com or alpinist.com).
1) The FA an a breathtaking 850m granite wall rising straight up out of the sea on the Greenland coast. Here’s the story at ukclimbing.com and here it is on the Black Diamond blog. Stunning photos!
2) FFA of a classic route on the Troll Wall in Norway, which has got to be one of the scariest looking walls around! Here’s the story on ukclimbing.com.
3) The Pou brothers repeat a 8c (5.14b) big wall free climb in the Dolomites. Here’s the story on ukclimbing.com. And here’s a freaking awesome video:
4) Sonnie Trotter and Alex Honnold climb a 28 pitch 5.13 in Mexico. Sweet! Here’s the story on the Black Diamond blog. There are several videos of the ascent on the blog there, too.
Got any more good ones?
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Again, I am spending most of this week trying to finish the 20+ pitch sport route I’ve been in the process of bolting and cleaning for the past two years. As a result, the tips for this week will be short and/or links. Thanks for understanding, and we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming as soon as possible.
I’m not a huge boulderer. I boulder maybe a couple times a year. But even I was pretty psyched to watch the below video entitled Blockwork Orange. Apart from having a very clever name, a better-than-average (for a bouldering movie) soundtrack (it starts out with Radiohead), and some crazy hard climbing, it’s just cool to see the beautiful orange rock of South Africa’s premier bouldering destination.
Oh, portions of the video are in Swedish. But climbing is the universal language, right?
Blockwork Orange from Tommy Vänskä on Vimeo.
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I am spending most of this week trying to finish the 20+ pitch sport route I’ve been in the process of bolting and cleaning for the past two years. As a result, the tips for this week will be short and/or links. Thanks for understanding!
The site.
I came across a great new climbing media site called iCLIMB (whose tagline is “Climbing media on demand”). The site offers a bunch of full-length climbing movies that can be downloaded (cheaper than buying them on DVD), plus original videos and articles. I’m always a fan of supporting people trying to make money from climbing (even more so when they’re first starting out), so check out the free stuff they’ve got going on there and give them your money if you’re in the market! Hopefully we’ll see some more free stuff from them in the future.
Oh, and you get get a free iCLIMB t-shirt (you pay shipping) on their “Gear” page!
Again, click here to visit iCLIMB.
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Me enjoying sunny granite in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.
I just saw this really interesting article on Climbing.com that discusses little-known facts about a climber’s best friend, granite. For example, did you know that granite is radioactive? Check out the article to find out more!
Again, click here to read the article.
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This is a guest post by regular DCT reader Alexandre Buisse of Alexandre Buisse Photography. He also runs Aperture First. He’s in the process of writing a book about climbing and hiking photography.
Rune Bennike belaying on Millstone quarry, in front of the Hope valley
As you may know, I recently returned from a 6 months stay abroad in London. I moved there in February, just in time to participate in what many have described as the best Scottish Winter in years. As spring rolled and the weather warmed, I kept exploring the trad climbing crags of the country with multiple trips to North Wales, the Peak District, Dorset and other less famous places. According to my logbook, I climbed 68 British routes in those 6 months (though I suspect the actual figure is a bit higher than that).
Some of these routes were mind blowing. Some were amazing, many were good and surprisingly few sucked. Here is, then, my totally subjective list of the 10 best routes in the country. The only rule is that I must have attempted the climb (though not necessarily completed or got a clean ascent).
Gareth Leah on the upper section of "Comes the Dervish"
Though I didn’t get to climb it as much as I would want to, my predilection for thin technical climbing made me fall in love with slate right away. Pull my Daisy, on Rainbow Slab, almost made this list but I backed off after a mere 6m (but the onsight is still valid!) so here comes this ultra-classic E3 instead. Unfortunately, Gareth, Adam and I arrived very late in the quarry, and by the time Gareth had grabbed the lead, night was falling, so Adam and I had to settle for (clean) seconding.
The route is long (35-40m), beautifully elegant, pretty sustained and well protected after the initial run-out. IMP/RPs are useful for the start, and afterward it’s only small cams and bomber nuts.
Myself on the crux of "Flying Buttress Direct", about to panic when I realize just how bad the gear is (photo by John Hopkins)
The main reason this route made the list is because the first time I saw it, I thought there had been a mistake in the guidebook. “There’s no way I can get up that!”.
It is a huge classic, and a crazy overhang/roof overcome by shrewd heel hooks instead of brute force. My first ascent was a true onsight: I evaluated from below the key gear to be a gold camalot. As I came to the crux section and tried to place the cam, I realized it was too big but didn’t have enough stamina to select a smaller piece, so just kept going. A fall would have been 3 to 5m on a big slab, and was a definite possibility, which perhaps explains why I managed to pull through I have climbed it a couple more times since and with the proper beta, it is a breeze. I would be happy soloing it.
Jon Fullwood bouldering in Curbar, a few yards away from "Great Slab"
My first (and to date only) hard solo. This is a classic Joe Brown route, and it doesn’t have a single piece of gear. The climbing is never desperate, but it has a few tricky moves and finesse is definitely required. I practiced it on top rope a couple of times and the decision of whether to try the solo was in the balance until the last second. I wanted to be sure I was doing it for the right reasons, and not just to impress others or out of a desire to prove something. When I finally went, it was one of my most amazing climbing experiences, a mixture of exhilaration and perfect focus. My movements were smooth and fluid, and there was no hesitation. I am no Alex Honnold, but I am starting to understand why he does what he does.
Keith Alexander below the CMD arete, en route toward North East Butrress
I went there at the beginning of April, and the route was in perfect condition, with good ice on the 40ft corner and a dry mantrap. We used the approach through Glen Nevis and the CMD arete, which in retrospect was a mistake as approaching the Buttress from another angle made route finding on the bottom half fairly tricky. It was otherwise quite a straightforward climb, we simulclimbed all the way to the mantrap, which, much to my own surprise, I led easily, and Keith had no trouble either in the following corner. Both of these difficulties had been hyped to me as death traps and incredibly difficult obstacles, so I was almost disappointed that they didn’t give more of a fight. Still, NEB is a long, interesting and committing way to the summit of the Ben.
Myself at the start of the crux pitch of "Vector", which goes to the left of the fin on the upper part of the image (photo by Gareth Leah)
My first E2 onsight, and certainly a big adventure. It has three pitches, and I got the crux middle one. Gear was good, climbing thin but doable and I soon found myself above the fin, at the top of the pitch, which is where trouble began: the previous party still wasn’t finished on the last pitch, and the belayer refused to let me come to the belay cave, even though, as we found out later, there was more than enough space for two climbers. He also refused to let me know how long he thought they would be. After a while, I decided to build a hanging belay from where I was, brought Gareth up and then belayed him on the last 2 meters (by then, the A-hole climber had gone). He then built another anchor, belayed me to the cave, then belayed Adam up the middle pitch. By the time Adam had arrived, gear had been exchanged and Gareth had led the remaining pitch, I had been sitting in the cramped cave for more than 2 hours, without warm clothes or shoes which didn’t cut circulation in the toes…
Still, it was good fun, and the route is amazing. Without traffic jams and climbing with only two persons on the rope, it would be much more straightforward!
Ominous view of the Cuillin Ridge shortly before Sgurr Alasdair
This is a legend. 4000m of ascent and descent, an estimated 16 hours required, very exposed for most of the way, and the infamous Scottish weather, all in one package. I went for it in good style: solo, one day, ultra-light (no climbing gear, only 40 meters of 6mm cord, one sling and two carabiners for abseils). I had been monitoring the weather for a while, saw a decent window and hopped on an overnight train from London. I was up on the ridge after the gruesome approach up Ghars Bheinn (the worst scree slope I have ever seen) by first light and made very good time. Weather was good, except for a shower which made the decision to bypass the TD Gap easy. As expected, the real challenge was route finding, but I was having a great time. I soloed the Kings Chimney (easy, but bloody exposed!) and started to relax, thinking I had a third of the route and some of the hardest bits behind me, when disaster struck: I badly rolled my ankle and got myself a sprain. It is actually a recurring injury, and the third time in 18 months I got the same problem. I also knew I soon wouldn’t be able to walk at all, so left the ridge as fast as I could and headed straight down scree slopes back to the campsite, which I reached a couple of hours later. Back in London, I reflected that I had spent more than 45 hours in transit for less than 15 hours on Skye proper… Still, it was worth it and I would do it again (minus the ankle sprain) in a heartbeat!
The Cuillin ridge is in a class of its own and should really be classified as an alpine route. Technical proficiency is less useful than serious mountain skills, including route finding, hydration and most of all, keeping your head together for a long, nerve-wrecking day.
An unlikely adventure in the Black Zawn, near the lighthouse, and a more serious route than the grade suggests. It is long (30+ meters) and severely overhanging, so much so that one needs to place gear on the abseil in to have a chance to reach the rock. It is then a hanging belay a few meters above the water, with only one way out: up! Since we only had one set of double ropes, we pulled in the abseil lines and were then truly committed! The crux comes early with some awkward moves on greasy rock, but gear is always good. After that, it’s big moves on big jugs with crazy exposure. I kept switching back and forth between terror and exhilaration during the lead.
Rune Bennike below the crux of "Great North Road", a few routes further than "Regent Street"
There is no doubt in my mind that this is the finest rock route I have climbed in the country. Though I sadly didn’t get it clean first go (and had no time to try it again), I still feel privileged to have been able to give it a go. It is a long pitch with good protection (the DMM offsets work wonders in the many peg scars), following two finger cracks to the top of the quarry. An initial crux section overcomes a jammed boulder via a hidden jug on the left side, then it’s delicate climbing to a rest ledge, halfway up. The real crux comes higher, with a splitter finger crack which wouldn’t be out of place in Indian Creek. As I can attest after trying everything I could think of, there is no other way than desperate jamming both hands and feet for 5 or 6 very blank meters.
An elegant line on a long pitch of beautiful rock, and a gorgeous view of the Hope valley from the top to boot, this is hard to beat.
Keith Alexander and Karin Helwig below the central buttress of Stob Coire nan Lochan. Raeburn's route takes a direct line on the center-right of the buttress, then follows a broad ridge to the top.
This started pretty badly. I had had a bad night after an exhausting day up and down the Ben’s North East Buttress, it was pouring down and I wanted nothing more than coffee and dry clothes. Keith and Karin, however, were keen on doing a route, and I begrudgingly followed them to Stob Coire nan Lochan, in Glencoe. Within minutes, of course, the clouds opened and my bad mood subsided. Raeburn’s route has 4 pitches and I somehow ended up with the first one. It wasn’t supposed to be the hardest, but I somehow missed the exit in the initial chimney and kept going into harder and harder ground. The grass was not as frozen as it should have been and there was no ice, so it ended up being very delicate and very runout drytooling for 40 meters. At some point, the rope jammed in a crack and I had to downclimb a tricky section to free it. At another, I banged a piton upside down while hanging from a microscopic hook. It was the hardest, most terrifying and best pitch I have ever climbed.
The rest of the route felt ridiculously easy in comparison, though it was still very good fun. The top section in particular was a succession of exposed but easy boulder problems, with bomber gear just below each difficulty. It would be a perfect introductory pitch to what Scottish climbing is all about.
Dave Brown above the Douglas Boulder, on the lower part of Tower Ridge
In retrospect, it was perhaps a mistake for this to be the very first route I ever climbed in the country (and by extension, my first Scottish winter climb), as I knew right away I wouldn’t be able to top that out. It is everything a climb should be: long, committing, elegant, varied and finishing on a significant summit. I also climbed it with a good friend, which was perhaps the most important factor in it being such an amazing experience. I felt everything on this climb: terror, pain (hot aches, ewwww), tiredness, relief but most of all, joy.
So this is it, that’s my list. If you have climbed any of these routes, do you agree with my assessment? Or do you have any other to add to my already incredibly long wishlist?
This was a guest post by regular DCT reader Alexandre Buisse of Alexandre Buisse Photography. He also runs Aperture First. He’s in the process of writing a book about climbing and hiking photography.
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King Lines. Available now on DVD.
King Lines is not a new climbing movie. It was released in 2007. But I just watched it again recently and I’ll tell you what it is. King Lines is an adult climbing film. No, I don’t mean that it’s a porn flick. No, I don’t mean that only adults would enjoy it. What I mean is that it is a grown up climbing film. There’s no cheap techno soundtrack. And there are no posses of bros working on their new sick hard V-hard proj. There is stunning cinematography, a fluent story, and some incredible climbing in amazing locales.
King Lines follows climbing superstar Chris Sharma on his quest to climb the “biggest, most badass” climbs in the world. And he does a pretty good job of it. We see him work his 5.15b mega route at Clark Mountain, taking massive 60-foot falls in the process. We see him climb a stunning 5.14d at Ceuse in France. We see him take fall after fall after fall into the sea while climbing up the underside of a massive limestone arch in Mallorca. And we see him and some friends climb some otherworldly boulders on top of Venezuelan tepuis.
Oh yeah, some of Sharma’s friends are the supporting actors in this movie, but it definitely centers around Sharma.
One thing that separates this from other climbing films is that it’s not just about climbing. It’s about Chris Sharma as a person. Now, I’m not one of those people who idolize Chris Sharma and want his name tattooed on my butt cheek. But he’s one of the world’s top climbers – and has been for a while – so it’s cool to see how he started climbing and hear his views about his climbing.
I watched this movie a few nights ago with some friends. Some are relatively experienced climbers. A couple have never been climbing before. All of us climbers liked it, but the more amazing thing was that even the non-climbers liked it. In fact, they thought it was incredible. This film makes you want to get out and not just climb hard, but just… climb! I came away from watching King Lines and I was psyched, not because of the hard moves that Sharma was doing, but because I was in awe of the beauty of climbing and wanted to get out and experience it on my own as soon as possible.
Climbing DVDs are expensive and I only own one. And it’s this one. If you only own one… Own this one.
King Lines is available for purchase on DVD (at BigUpProductions.com or on Amazon) and it retails for $29.95 in the US.
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I’m too tired to come up with a witty, engaging, or interesting intro here. So what makes a bad climbing photo?
This is the king of bad climbing photos because it’s so common. A butt shot is a photo of a climber taken by the belayer (or someone near the belayer) where the most prominent thing in the photo is the climber’s butt. No one really wants to see your butt hanging out of its harness, especially if you’re stemming or something. And butt shots never do the climb or the cliff justice. The climbs always look shorter than they really are.
Ah... the butt shot...
It can be hard to keep your break hand on the rope and keep your other hand steady enough to take a picture. If you can, steady the camera against something solid like the rock or your head.
Too blurry.
You can’t always control how much light you’ve got, but you can control exposure times or even lighten up photos in Photoshop.
Clearly this picture is too dark.
Too much light ruins any pic. Especially the one below, which had nothing interesting in it to begin with…
Aaahhrrhghh!Too much light!
I’m sorry, but pictures of people climbing on TR are just not exciting. In fact, they suck. Especially when they’re massive butt shots. Case in point:
Pretty sick pic, huh?
While I’m sure you had a fantastic time back at camp, no one wants to see that pic of your friend with water coming out of his nose. Also, don’t tilt the camera to make the route look steeper than it is. And don’t pretend to be Tom Cruise or anything. Because that’s just stupid.
Funny? Meh. Maybe. Stupid? Yes. A bad photo? Yes.
If you’re going to take a picture of something and put it on Facebook, at least make sure that something interesting is in the photo! I took the below photo because it showed a runout from the belay to the first bolt. But you can’t really see it in the pic, and it is a completely unremarkable photo in pretty much every respect.
See that? No, you don't. Because there's nothing to see.
I don’t have a good example of this one. Sorry. Try not to let other people crash your photos. It’s cool seeing you on your sick new proj. But seeing you on your sick new proj with some punk kid flipping off the camera while TRing in the background isn’t so cool.
Well, that’s all I could come up with for now. Do you agree? Do you have other suggestions?
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Two of my good friends and climbing partners today were involved in a climbing accident. I would have been there with them but I was taking my roommate and his visiting brother climbing for the day. They were bolting a new multi pitch sport route on lead when the leader was hit by falling rocks. The details of what exactly happened are still fuzzy at the moment, but the leader was hit in the head and took a big fall. He was wearing a helmet, but it was crushed and ripped off of his head.The belayer lowered him to a ledge and called 911. An hour later, the injured climber was flown to the hospital. He’s got a concussion, but I don’t know the extent of his other injuries.
Both of these climbers are extremely experienced. One has been climbing for two decades and has done a couple hundred first ascents in California and Utah. The other — the one who got injured — has been climbing for about 4 decades and has several hundred (maybe even a thousand or more?) first ascents in countries all over the world. Accidents really can happen to anyone.
So today’s climbing tip is a question: Are you prepared for the worst case scenario? Luckily, my friend had his cell phone with him and could call for help. But what if he didn’t? What if he didn’t get cell phone reception? What if they were climbing in the backcountry and were several hours (or even days) away from help? What would you do if you partner was hurt? Do you know how to treat injuries? Do you know how to lower an injured climber? Ask yourself these questions when you’re climbing and see what the answers are. If you have no idea what you’d do in a sticky situation, what do you have to do or learn?
This is just a reminder to me that this is a serious sport, especially if you’re off the beaten path a bit. Be safe out there!
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Whether you love them or hate them, offwidths are part of climbing. Here is some info to teach you how to climb offwidths and to get you psyched about climbing them!
This video (taken in Indian Creek) offers great technique advice:
Me about to emerge from squeeze chimney comfort into offwidth torture on Doggie Do (5.10a) in Yosemite.
In addition to that, probably the best resource I’ve seen for offwidth climbing how-to info is over at WideFetish. The site has articles by some of the early American offwidth masters, including Randy Leavitt, Dale Bard, and Royal Robbins.
Another great source of information is Steph Davis’s climbing blog. She’s got some great pictures on there, too.
The best advice I can give for climbing offwidths is just to get on them! Reading about them and thinking, “OK, yeah, I can do a fist stack” is one thing when you’re sitting on your butt with your laptop, but it’s an entirely different matter when you’re in the thick of things on the side of a cliff. One more piece of advice is to wear the right clothes! It can make a big difference in your comfort level if you wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt. Consider wearing socks if your shoes will still fit. If not, tape up your ankles. And be sure to tape your hands and wrists. Some rock (granite) will be more painful than others (sandstone), so keep that in mind, too.
Ok, I was going to finish up today’s climbing tip after that, but here’s one more video. Check out this hilarious and terrifying video of a guy getting his knee stuck on a 5.11 OW in Squamish! Good thing there was a camera crew there…
Crazy! Good luck with any offwidths in your future! Drop a comment if you’ve got any other tips, tricks, or resources. Or if you just want to say how much you hate (or love!) offwidths!
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I'm belaying under an overhang here (good!), but I'm also directly under the climber (bad!).
The past two weeks I’ve climbed a couple long (6-8 pitch) sport/trad routes on relatively crappy limestone (check out here and here on my blog for TRs). The routes are on a large-ish mountain face and there’s definitely some serious rockfall potential. In fact, my buddy and I nearly got killed on the approach as falling rocks came to within a few feet of us. Anyway, here are some tips for climbing on and dealing with loose rock:
Is there anything I left out?
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