Posts by Raz Peel
According to regulations in Tanzania, you can't climb Kilimanjaro without a guide. That means you will 100% be with somebody that understands the nature of acclimatization and has likely been up m...
Rather than give you shopping advice, you can visit DPM's climbing hold review page, where they list and review more hold manufacturers than you probably knew existed. You could start there if you ...
The bell curve in the post you have referenced is simply just a visual representation of some statistics; Namely, the number of climbers the gym serves, that are able to climb at any specific climb...
There are definitely some "checklist" mnemonics for new climbers, but no standard set. Even among the ACMG & AMGA, every guide and instructor might use something slightly different, or not use ...
All of Ben's comments are great, but they mostly deal with what you could do once you are in this situation. Avoiding the situation all together might be easier than you think though and likely the...
I was reading through the AAJ, and I came across a report from April this year when somebody died due to an anchor failure. The webbing was joined with some masking tape at the ends, instead of kno...
This is simply a Clove Hitch on the belay loop. It could be quite effective to use instead of a belay plate if you can only use one hand because it doesn't require you to hold either side of the ro...
This is a great, and well thought out question! I'll try best as I can to answer as somebody that both climbs, guides, and teaches, but I worry that a correct answer doesn't exist, and at best it'l...
Reposting this from a Facebook discussion. It's a picture taken from a retail store where they have attached a pin-tag through the rope to prevent theft; a common practice at this location. My gut...
Petzl have a diagram on their website for what they call a Double Mariner. It's identified on the site as having a 7:1 mechanical advantage, but I can only see it as having a 5:1. Can somebody con...
If your intending to top-rope with it, or unimaginably lead climb on it, then absolutely not... ever. Polypropylene not only has a super low melting point, but the fibres are a really large diamet...
The simplest and most straightforward solution would be to connect yourself to a ground anchor. If you decide to do this while belaying a lead climber, you might want to let the rope slide a littl...
It's simply for organization sake. Aid climbing on big-walls involves lots of gear, and you'll very quickly realize how much of a mess your perfectly racked gear will become. With two belay loops...
It's possible, even feasible, and I'll explain how to do so further down. I'd like first suggest that in the absence of a guide mode loop on your belay tube, your likely going to be better of using...
See: Slings for anchoring and lanyard in rock climbing Different question, but but it contains a lot of the same releveant information for an answer to this one also; basically either one will wor...
While both materials do have slightly different properties, either one will work in the scenario mentioned. In-fact, any sling with the UIAA stamp of approval will likely have a working strength of...
Your climbing shoes shouldn't hurt at all. Andrew Bisharat has a great article to read on the subject: http://eveningsends.com/climbing/climbing-shoes-tight/ In summary, here's what the article s...
I've had to deal with this question a lot teaching anchor building. When people have asked in the past I normally suggest they use the anchor you are most comfortable setting up, as they will both ...
The two terms specifically refer to the finer aesthetics of Lead Climbing, in which a climber will either create intermediate anchors using gear (referred to as traditional climbing), or will use t...
