Posts by StrongBad
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...
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: h...
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 ...
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 7...
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 for...
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 ...
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...
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 s...
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 dista...
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 ...
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 ...
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-leade...
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 als...
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 po...
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 bel...
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...
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...
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...
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 h...
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 ...
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 mu...
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 pos...
What do you do in this situation? Just keep moving, trying to basically swim through the ice, while breaking it hoping to reach thicker ice or the shore? More or less, yes with two caveats. I...
I look a fall while clipping the 3rd clip (in the danger zone). There is no reason that a climber should be at risk of a ground fall while making the 3rd clip. Even the second clip should be s...
There are a handful of manufacturers that make climbing holds from granite. My recollection is that Petrogrips used to make 30 cm x 30 cm panels of granite with various features cut into them. I ca...