Posts by Chris Mendez
I recently visited a new climbing gym and was instructed to belay directly off a ground anchor without any attachment to my harness. I've been to other gyms that belay with ground anchors but with ...
Are any natural insect repellents effective against fleas? Although very effective, DEET products are controversial and many people have shied away from their use in favor of natural products with...
I'm going skiing for the first time. From what I've read, most everyone uses hard shell jackets and pants for skiing. However, they usually mention something about skiing in bad weather, frigid col...
While attempting to locate a specific climbing wall, our group hiked off-trail through several different areas that had large piles of leaves. In attempt to scare off the snakes, we poked the groun...
I recently bought a 70 meter climbing rope from REI because it was a great price on the outlet. Last weekend I used it for the first time in the Texas hill country, where 99% of routes need a rope ...
The UltraFire product is manufactured by WhaFat Technological Company, which is based in Hong Kong. Their products look very similar to SureFire flashlights, so it's possible that UltraFires themse...
I'm shopping for a new tent and considering a model that comes in two different colors-- bright orange and dark green. Purely-aesthetic preferences aside (ie, like orange more than green), are the...
I have a nylon rain jacket that I wear to walk my dogs when it rains. It seems that no matter what clothes I wear underneath, I always end up very sweaty. I've tried long sleeves, short sleeves, qu...
Testing by the QC Lab at Black Diamond suggests there is a lot more design and consideration going into cam/friend sling design than just knot vs bar tack. Because when the Camalot was loaded d...
My wife and I are planning a camping and climbing trip and we would likely need to rappel with our medium-sized (45lbs/20kg) dog. Holding the dog is obviously unacceptable, and using the dog's back...
As the others have said, this appears to be a homemade assisted-braking belay device or homemade descender, similar to a GriGri. The moving lobe inside is meant to grab the rope under upward pressu...
Do spools of webbing still have splices? Yes. As Paul's answer pointed out, there was a well-known accident caused by a climber purchasing webbing with a tape splice in the middle. Furthermore, m...
Climb easy routes very slowly Try climbing the easy routes slowly to focus on technique. Climbers will often blow through a route by relying on strength and dynamic moves, but moving slowly and de...
Climbing route grades in Yosemite Decimal System can be suffixed with an "R" to notify a runout. The Wikipedia entry for a runout is A lengthy distance between two points of protection which in...
While browsing the DumbAnchors blog, I came across a post which points out the poor use of a single strand (not a loop) of webbing for building top rope anchors. The blogger doesn't say why these ...
Cairns are small stacks of rocks used to mark trails. These can be especially useful above the tree line where other trail blazes would be inappropriate or unsightly. This answer discourages their...
I'm shopping for some 1" tubular webbing. There is climb-spec webbing and military-spec webbing. The military-spec description says Meets industry-standard military specs for breaking strength ...
I have been practicing trad climbing and I've run into some difficulty managing and handling the gear. Specifically, I'm awkwardly taking cams off my gear loops, fiddling with them, and finally pla...
There is a wide variety of pre-cut firewood available when camping. In my experience, even wood that's been kept covered is often very wet and can be difficult to light. What are some techniques f...
Every time I go walking or hiking, I generally spend most of my time looking down to make sure I don't step on a snake or hole or dog poop. I don't do it consciously, it just happens. Obviously, I ...
I would like to go fishing for speckled trout (proper name spotted seatrout) along the US Gulf Coast, specifically near Galveston Bay and Trinity Bay. What months are the best times to catch speck...
I want to go fishing for red drum (reds) on the Texas Gulf Coast and I would like to use live bait. What types of live bait should I use?
Inspired by @ShemSeger's possibly invented knot, I'm curious to see if anyone knows anything about this knot: Final knot: Reverse deconstructed: It's basically the same idea from a double fi...
I use an ENO hammock when I camp and I have always wondering if a snake would want to slither into my hammock while I'm sleeping. Note that this hammock is open, as opposed to a Hennessy hammock, w...
While car camping this past weekend, I bought some firewood from the park headquarters but unfortunately, it was split into very large pieces that obviously wouldn't light very well. I tried splitt...
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