Posts by Ben Crowell
When climbing multipitch, what is the cycle of things you do when climbing each pitch, and what are the associated voice signals?
With the exceptions of grizzly bears and polar bears, bears are nuisance animals that are after your food. They have no interest in you except as a source of food or as an obstacle to obtaining you...
I use 1 mm dacron cordage from Oware. I use a tarp with loops (not grommets), and have never had a problem with the cordage cutting through anything. The knots I usually use are square knots, figur...
There are some good answers here from some people with solid experience in mountains in the winter. However, these answers seem to slant extremely heavy on gear. Sometimes it's reasonable to do a d...
The question is pretty broad, but if the terrain is steep enough so that it's likely to be difficult or impassable in spots, then basically the standard technique would be to look at a topo map and...
If I do a certain hike or run, it's going to cost a certain amount of effort, which could be measured by how many calories I burn. How does this effort depend on the amount of climbing? Is there a ...
Statistically, most of the dogs in the world are dogs that are not pets, but live around humans and scavenge food or get food from humans who give it to them. These dogs are in my experience never ...
I haven't seen any evidence that animals are kept away by a fire. This answer discusses that briefly. In general, wild animals in pristine backcountry areas tend to be wary of humans, simply becaus...
Mountaineers doing technical alpine routes certainly use rock pro under wet or icy conditions. However, the kind of routes they're climbing are typically not the kind of high-angle stuff that you h...
Also, overall strengthening of the body to build stamina, strength, and endurance since you're technically relying on something to make things easier. You have this backwards. As described in ...
I located some more information online about these techniques. SSS was the standard technique in the days when a hip belay was the standard for a lead belay. It also works well for belaying with a ...
This is basically a hike but with some very steep sections protected by chains. If I'm interpreting the photo correctly, this is a sort of horizontal via ferrata, and the protection is the ste...
If you're identifying a totally unfamiliar plant in the field, then typically you consult a field guide or botany textbook that has a key. These books can be broad or specific. For instance, I h...
should I be untying the fisherman's knot between uses? Typically it's simply not possible to untie a fisherman's knot, especially after it's been loaded, so that wouldn't even be an option. Th...
His opinion was that I could tie an overhand for the master point and be just as safe–the only downside being that it would be more difficult to untie after being loaded. Yes, this is corr...
The main issue you're going to encounter in this situation is rockfall. You don't want a situation where the person in front inadvertently kicks a rock loose, and the rock then hits the person behi...
When I'm setting up for a belay, I first clip the belay device to my belay loop using the keeper wire, then feed the rope through, then open the carabiner and put it through the rope. This is a pre...
Many people at moderate altitudes (about 10,000-13,000', 3000-4000 m) experience mild AMS (acute mountain sickness). The most common symptom is a headache. Mild AMS is not life-threatening, and peo...
The first thing I would do is yell down to my belayer to put a knot in the end of the rope. You could also try to evaluate the situation and try to figure out what happened. Is it a route that requ...
I'll give this a shot, but I'm from the US, and although I've done a little bit of mountaineering in the Alps, I've never done Mont Blanc. Others may be able to give better answers. First, you nee...
I'm American, so I can only address canyoneering, not canyoning. Easy canyoneering is just lots of rappelling. If you're a trad climber, that means it should be mostly skills you already know. You...
The only gear you need is a good, comfortable pair of running shoes and any cheap backpack (extra points for Hello Kitty). There is a popular belief, probably based on pop-culture images dating ba...
I bring a very small pocket knife with me when I'm backpacking (or whatever they call the activity in Europe...?) As you say, it's convenient because it combines several tools in one. You don't rea...
If it "easily came out of the rock," then it was at best useless and at worst a safety hazard, because of the possibility that someone might naively trust it. Removing it was a public service. ...
Here are some statistics on coyote attacks versus dog attacks in the US, on a per-year basis. (See notes at the end on how I got the numbers.) dog bites: 4.6 million fatal attacks by dogs on huma...
