Posts by StrongBad
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 ...
The BMC history of helmets puts it at 1996 with the introduction of the Petzl Meteor helmet which was a combination of a hard shell and foam helmet. This matches my recollection of when things beca...
This is part of rope management. Your situation sounds like a common one where you are belaying a leader from the ground with a rope out of a rope bag that b has not been flaked prior to the climb....
Is this sufficient reason to conclude that the rope is indeed legitimate for aid/rescue use? Can it carry more than 2000 kg as specified by the NFPA 1983? No, but almost. If your statement was...
I think a big part of speeding up is scouting the route from the ground (or knowing the area) and modifying your gear to the area in question. If you are climbing at Indian Creek, you need a lot o...
This blog post has two crazy complex tarp pitches, for a 3x3 meter tarp, that are fully enclosed. I have never tried either, but they look promising. The Summit Wedge The Laavu The Low Tetra a...
I would argue it was June 12th 1988, even though there were only a few indoor gyms in existence at that point. On that day, Patrick Edlinger floated up the outdoor artificial climbing wall built on...
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 i...
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:...
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...
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...
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 difficu...
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 ...
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...
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 th...
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 hobnail...
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 ...
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. ...
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 th...
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 pr...
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 c...
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 climbi...
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 ti...
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-Monadnoc...
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 additio...
