Activity for StrongBad
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Under what conditions does heating a tent artificially make objective sense? Assuming you do not count putting a hot water bottle in a sleeping bag as heating a tent (although it will eventually heat the tent), it only makes sense to intentionally heat a back packing tent if three conditions are met. You need extra heat. There is no reason to heat a tent if it is already ho... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Mountain weather archive At least in the US you can do this to various degrees depending on the mountain. For example, there is a weather station in Telluride CO at 9950 ft that you can search back at least 2 years https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KCOTELLU11#history/s20160625/e20160625/mdai... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Is it okay for a duck/splay footed individual to rock climb? If an individual walks with a pronounced duck-footed (splayed) gait, and is actively trying to correct this, is there any harm for the individual to begin rock climbing. I feel like a lot of edging during rock climbing puts your feet in a pretty extreme toe-out position and therefore may exacerbate t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How warm should a sleeping bag be to sleep in summer in the Alps comfortably? Warnings and Caveats Everyone sleeps different. Some people sleep much warmer than others while others sleep incredibly cold. You can try and determine this in your house or better your backyard, but you really won't know until you are sleeping while hungry, exhausted and in the actual weather you a... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I heat up my tent? If you mean by powerbank something that weighs 200g and has a capacity of 20000mAh and by heat more than a candle worth of warmth, then the answer is no. A 20000mAh powerbank, which is a pretty big phone charger, can source 100 Watts for an hour (ignore for a second that it cannot safely discharge at... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I keep my backpack from resting directly against my back? Back before frameless and internal frame backpacks, there was a time when external frame backpacks were all the rage. They are heavy, sometimes uncomfortable, and can break in spectacularly difficult ways to repair, but provide much better ventilation. You can still buy external frame backpacks (e.g.... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How many days does it take to reach hiking X miles per day? There are a lot of factors, but for the Appalachian Trail there are a lot of hikers so it can give us pretty good insight into the time it takes for the average thru hiker to reach maximum mileage per day. Map Man (Steve Shuman) conducted an analysis of 240 successful north bound Appalachian Trial t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Hanging food on the appalachian trail While bears are located all along the Appalachian trail, in most sections they are rarely seen. During prime season there is enough use of the trail that hikers are often aware of problematic areas. This is especially true at shelters. Mice, raccoons, and other smaller animals are much more bothersom... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Can I use ear plugs while ascending or descending a mountain? The need for your ears to pop results from a pressure differential between the middle ear and the atmosphere. The middle ear is technically outside your body (e.g., the bones in the middle ear and both sides of the ear drum are covered in skin) because it is connected to the outside via the eustachia... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to instruct someone how to take off a climbing harness? It is not really about instructing people how to take the harness off, but rather about respecting the personal space of clients. I suggest having an instructor demonstrate the steps to take off the harness when the harness is put on and again when the client is about to remove the harness. This requ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to use a static rope as a tether at the anchor of a top rope climb? This seems like a dangerous setup for using a static rope. If the top right anchor fails as you are weighting the instructor tether, the instructor could fall a meter or so. On a dynamic rope, this is no problem, but on a static line, this could be dangerous. If there is enough tail left, I would pr... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Alligator free Mangrove or Cypress swamps in the US? Taking a literal definition of US and not restricting the answer to the continental US, there is a mangrove swap on Heeia in HI and the list of reptiles in HI does not include crocodiles or alligators. There are also 9 mangrove areas in Puerto Rico and the list of reptiles in PR does not include all... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What footwear did mountaineers wear in the 19th century? Before rubber soles, mountaineers (and others) used hobnailed boots "have been used since antiquity for inexpensive durable footwear". There is a nice note here about Vibram soles replacing hobnailed boots. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What guidelines should I use when choosing a sleeping bag liner? Sleeping bags come in a variety of sizes (e.g., https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-to-fit-a-sleeping-bag). The most common being regular and long (sometimes there is a short and sometimes there is a women's regular and long). The typical regular fits people up to 6' tall and a long fi... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What are the busiest months for hiking in the New Hampshire Presidential Mountains? Given your time period of early June to Early September, my guess is that the least crowded period will be early June. This report (Fig. 4) shows the number of bed nights in AMC huts as a function of months. July has about 10% less bed nights than August and both July and August have substantially mo... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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How to contain the stench of climbing shoes? I take public transportation to my work and the climbing gym. This means my climbing gear stays in my office all day with me. My climbing shoes stink and are really offensive to have in my office. When at home I tend to store them in the garage. What is the best way to contain the stench so that my o... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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Can smoldering logs be transported safely In my younger/cheaper days, I used to scavenge firewood after the crowds would leave the camping area at the end of the weekend. Generally, this meant grabbing piles of unused firewood from near the fire rings of vacant campsites. Every once in a while I would come across a prime log (think 2 ft diam... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is freezer bag cooking safe? Freezer bag cooking refers to cooking by boiling water in a pot, add the boiling water to a zip-lock type freezer bag filled with the meal, placing the filled bag in an insulating cozy, and letting everything soak/heat/cook until edible. I have read varying views on the safety of the method concernin... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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Frequency of crime/assault on the Appalachian Trail I don't think of myself as being a paranoid individual, but I am cautious about people I meet when hiking. For example, if I am eating lunch at a site less than a mile from an infrequently used trail head and someone shows up with inappropriate gear (for example no pack and wearing jeans) and attempt... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is "Short roping" "Death Roping"? Short roping is dangerous, but it is also a critical part of guiding. This presentation touches on a lot of the reasons for short roping and risks associated with it. Short roping is claimed to provide three advantages. The first is that the short rope increases the confidence of the weaker climber ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is it poor etiquette to ask fellow backpackers where they have been/where they are going? It depends on the circumstances. When hiking alone, I am always a little suspicious of strangers. I don't think this is that unusual, especially in some of the busier places I visit in the US, as crime in US National Parks is a thing. Rarely, but much more than once, I have skipped planned campsites ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Diet for Long-Term Camping They sell small electric coolers (e.g., this one by Coleman) that run off of battery power (you can swap out your car battery with a marine battery or get a second battery/solar setup). As you are driving most days, you shouldn't have to worry about the battery running down. Then get yourself a nice ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: What kind of technique is required for bouldering outdoors? Required techniques vary from area to area and problem to problem, that said I think there are 3 techniques that are universal. This belief stems from my philosophy that the best thing about climbing hard is that there are more cool problems that you can climb. This is not to say there are not cool V... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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Are there particular grades that indoor climbers often struggle with Somewhat motivated by How to progress in rock climbing after grades v4 / 5.11+? I am curious if anyone has tried to document if there are particular grades that climbers plateau on and need more time to work through. In other words, do many climbers get stuck at V4 an need to work hard to progress an... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Making my own Vapor Barrier Liner for a mummy sleeping bag I like this article on vapor barriers. Your trash bag will act as a very good vapor barrier on the parts of your body that it covers. You are going to need a really large garbage bag, or a hole cut in the bottom, in order to cover your torso. Garbage bags, even the heavy duty ones, are not that durab... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: A winter month in New England - what to do, looking for thru-hikes or other suggestions Thru-hiking/backpacking an established trail for multiple weeks, do-able in winter The longer hiking trails in ME, NH, and VT, apart from the AT, like the Long Trail and the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and Cohos Trail just have too much extreme weather on exposed peaks to be safe for a solo hiker.... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How to painlessly remove gunk left by tape gloves? I think the key is to avoid the gunk in the first place, or more accurately the second place. I like the these tape gloves and the advice at the end. That advice is you can shave the back of your hands. The tape gunk comes off bare skin much easier than when it is matted into the hair on your hands. ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Climbing harness: clip two carabiners to avoid cross-loading I don't think it is great practice, but lots of people top rope off of a single biner attached to the belay loop. The belay loop is plenty strong for this purpose, but the carabiner adds an additional single point of failure into the system. Two locking carabiners that are opposite and opposed would ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How can I safely climb a glacial route with just a kid or one other person? While children can be proficient mountaineers and well trained, there are things they likely cannot do and some additional risks they face. For example, children are more susceptible to hypothermia. Most children are not capable of performing first aid and lack the physical strength to dig out someon... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Should overweight people ever climb? While I am not brave enough to call John Dunne fat, Climbing Magazine did. So there is at least one objectively fat climber that could send 5.14. That man can float up some seriously hard stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WO3KNHCZsA (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
| Question | — |
Searching and reading back issues of Climbing and Rock and Ice I am looking for an article that was published in either Rock and Ice or Climbing Magazine around 1999. I know the area and route of the article topic as well as the author's name. I may even have a copy of the cover image and/or and image used in the article. Are there digital back issues of the ma... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Down inside of a sleeping pad does it make a difference? In terms of sleeping, a sleeping pad performs two purposes. The first is to provide warmth and down is a good insulator. The Exped XP 9 LW has an R value of 8.00, a weight of 41.3 oz, a length of 77.6 in, width of 25.6 in, and thickness of 3.5 in. The ThermaRest Prolite Plus, a fairly high end self i... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Lowering other members of a party on belay after rappelling My approach would depend on if I was confident that the rappel was straight forward with an obvious bottom with a solid secure place to become unsecured from the rope. If everything is straight forward, I would probably lower each person from the top and after everyone else is down rappel myself. Bei... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Big wall strategies for a three-member team One issue with Method 1 is that after C3 finishes jugging on R2, C2 needs to be able to pull R2 back to the anchor and attach the pig. If the lower end of R2 is attached to the anchor, then it may become difficult for C3 to tie in short as they are jugging since the rope could become taught. A way ar... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What do you do when you're rappelling a halfed rope and you run out of rope on one side? Basically this is almost the textbook worst case scenario lacking only on not being hurt, completely alone in the dark and bad weather. To summarize the situation you have a piece of rated webbing you are using as a harness, a single locking carabiner and the rope. The rope is running through a rap ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Stopper with Toggle for Blake's Hitch The stopper knot is purely a backup to prevent disastrous slippage (i.e., the end pulling through the knot). For most cases, the stopper knot will not be loaded. Even in the case of slippage, the stopper knot is only taking a fraction of the weight so will probably not become overly tight. If your u... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How far from a road do I need to be to not hear the traffic? The answer is it depends. Highway noise is typically 70-80 dB at 15 m. To a first order approximation, sound waves obey the inverse square law where there is a 6 dB drop every doubling of the distance. This means a sound source that has a level of 72 dB at 15 m would have a level of 0 dB at 60 km. Wh... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Obtaining drinking water from a glacier or icefield, in the absence of snow or reachable meltwater The Mohs hardness scale is a common scale used to describe the hardness (resistance to scratching) of different materials. The hardness of ice is between 1.5 and 6 Mohs. The hardness of granite is 7 Mohs so you should be able to scratch ice with rocks you find. I cannot find a definitive answer on th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can I use a rescue harness for recreational climbing? From a technical standpoint, it depends. For example, for the Petzl Falcon line of rescue harness, only the Mountain is rated fo operations involving technical climbing. The Ascent is not suitable for progression using rock climbing techniques. You will need to carefully read the instructions for you... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do you tie in to the centre of a rope? My goal when climbing is to keep the system as simple/clean as possible. If something funky has to be done, I like to transfer that to the second (or in the case of multiple followers the non-leader) if it can be done without adding more complexity. In the case of climbing with inexperienced follower... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can you safely use retired ropes for belaying children? This is a really difficult question to answer in the abstract. The UIAA claims that Ageing caused only by storage can almost be neglected compared with ageing during use. This also holds for ageing by the influence of ultraviolet radiation; ropes may lose their colour wi... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Fisherman rescue, what gear is required? It sounds like this would fall under the category of high angle rescue. This is not something that you want to get into. It sounds like you would be at most 2.5 miles from the an easy extraction point. Faced with a vertical haul on a 50' cliff with lose gravel and a 2.5 mile carry, most rescuers will... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Which option should you use for a multi-pitch climbing anchor after traverse? One issue with a long traverse is that if the second falls, they may be unable to easily get back on the route. This means that there is an increased likelihood that you will need to escape the belay. It is infinitely easier to escape the belay when you are belaying directly off the anchor. This mean... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Backing up a abseil anchor with a human I would argue that this is not as stupid as it sounds, although you will want to get someone with good experience to help you. In your situation, I would avoid the railing completely as you just do not know much about the material and its strength. Instead I would either do a counter balanced rappel ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What is a place in the U.S.A that is between 40°F - 60°F (5°C - 15°C) year round and doesn't get a ton of rain? I think Mauna Kea in Hawaii may meet your requirements. The average highs at the summit are between 40.3 and 50.9 F with most months having less than an inch of rain. The average lows at the summit are between 24.9 and 31.3 F making it a little too cold. Further, the summit is above tree line. Tree l... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Climbing at the Skytop area of the Gunks The Skytop area at the Gunks has a number of stellar climbs including Foops (5.11) and Super Crack (5.12+). From what I can piece together, climbing there requires a guide and buying a meal/pass at the resort. Despite the ridiculousness of paying over $500 to be escorted by a guide, is it possible to... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Lake Tahoe kayaking conditions My wife and I would like to take my 7 year old son kayaking this summer. Was thinking about a circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe. It looks like there are plenty of put ins and take outs. I am curious how rough are the waters and how difficult are the landings/launches? Is there anything else unique to pa... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Are there any tips for preventing a vehicle from being broken into while parked at a trailhead? One thing that has not been mentioned is to consider which trail head you park at. Some trails/areas have multiple trail heads. If you have a choice in trail head, it is worth talking to locals to determine if any are particularly problematic. In my experience the most problematic trail heads are th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Where can we go backpacking out West under 8,500 feet that has much of the feel of much higher altitudes I am a big fan of City of Rocks and the Albion Mountains in Idaho. While some of the peaks are over 8500 feet, there is a lot of hiking at lower elevations. There is a lot of exposed granite and much of the hiking is above treeline. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What do you hang on 1/4" bolts while rock climbing? Finding quality 1/4" hangers has been problematic for a long time. There was a thread on the topic on Super Topo back in 2009. The best solution back then were the Moses hangers (Moses actually posted in the linked Super Topo thread). I cannot find the Moses Enterprises web page so they might be out ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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