Posts by erfink
Depending on the specifics of the terrain, one game that can help break up the "monotony" of walking for kids is to play a variant of "the floor is hot lava." Make a game of trying to go down the t...
For another possible explanation, I have always found it easier to see oncoming parties when you are going down. When hiking uphill, many people end up almost staring at their feet. In contrast, wh...
TL;DR Don't do it. It is really easy to ruin a perfectly good pair of skis. A great way to handle ski maintenance is to wax your own skis, touch up the burrs with a fine grit diamond stone (400-gr...
For a more data driven approach, here's a google trends graph for the popularity of searches for "climbing gym", "indoor climbing", "climbing center", "climbing centre", and "climbing wall": google...
That you find being on the edge of cliff scary is in fact a good, healthy response! It means that you are the product of millions of years of evolution, wherein people who had a complete disregard ...
There are jackets out there similar to what you're asking for---you do need to poke around for them a bit. Most jackets made for hiking and climbing tend to be cut from one material in order to hav...
There are two main schools of thought: the "fast and light" / "light is right" / "rope, rack, shirt on your back" camp and the "be prepared" / "safety first" crowd. When taken to extremes, blindly ...
Ricketyship's answer gives a great outline of training the climbing specific muscles, so I would like to add several other points (especially as the question asked about antagonist training). Fir...
While watching the Ladies' Olympic Snowboarding Halfpipe in Pyeongchang, I noticed what appeared to be straps around the lower leg of each competitor. For example, here's a couple pictures of Ameri...
When racking up, you have a spectrum of possibilities between two extremes: At one end, you could put every single piece of gear on the same carabiner. While the weight savings would be incredibl...
When climbing single pitch routes, it makes sense to carry as little as possible while actually on the route, as almost every eventuality can be easily dealt with by simply lowering back to the gro...
While I don't have a definitive answer, I do have a few anecdotal / personal experience reasons to prefer the zipper across the back. In order to keep terminology consistent, the "back of the pack"...
Ask three different raft guides and you'll get three different answers---gnarly rivers have been rowed on all three setups and it ultimately comes down to personal preferences. That being said, eac...
When setting up a rowing frame on a raft or boat, there are three main ways to attach the oars to the frame: oar locks, oar rights, and pins & clips. Which is the best system? Oar Locks (Im...
This piece of advice is commonly given to new routesetters, and should generally be taken as a reminder of best practices rather than scientific dogma. For example, Most climbers don't onsight 5....
Ewww. I'm guessing they punch pin tags through $700 gore tex jackets as well? And condoms? Even if the amount of damage is minimal, it's still something I would rather not do to my rope. Some climb...
As the other answers mention, the brain compartment usually ends up becoming the knick-knack / catch-all pocket, for small items items that get frequently used. There are, however, several caveats ...
In addition to Felix's excellent answer of what should be done it practice, it is well worth knowing how to pass a knot in the rope (whether while rappelling or hauling). This will generally be mor...
As discussed in other answers, the easiest option would be to just have a custom rope and then everything works as you would expect. In a similar pro-climber vein, don't discount using rigging from...
Before embarking on specifics, a word of advice: learn to love plateaus. When beginning climbing, we make drastic improvements seemingly every time we go out. As we improve, gains become more and m...
Ay-yi-yi! This is a very broad question, a true answer to which would probably require a PhD in hydrodynamics or years of relevant engineering expertise. Note that the interplay between these desi...
This dimension is know as the binding stack height (as well as binding stand height) and can be both beneficial and detrimental: On piste / carving / racing: a larger stack height is generally pe...
The one shortcoming I find reading through many of the other answers is that they seem to skip over a major source of pollutants in backcountry streams: human waste. While you might not be downstre...
Per Western Mountaineering, American manufacturers of high quality down sleeping bags, Down also is known to have the greatest longevity, and it will outlast any other insulation by 3 to 5 tim...
Expanding on cutting cornices, here's a video clip of ski guide Theo Meiners using an extended snow saw to drop a cornice. Note that most everything happening in that video is intentional (if dange...
