Posts by Ben Crowell
An online poll showed that almost everyone on a backpacking trip eats about 15-20 kcal (63-84 kJ) per day per pound of body weight: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/t...
Snakes are usually harmless. This is their habitat, and you shouldn't be intentionally trying to scare them off. Just don't worry about it.
Of course you want to try simple things first, and waiting is a really simple thing to do. She solved the problem in 15 minutes, which doesn't even seem like an especially long time to me to wait f...
In the specific example of the video of your girlfriend, what you did seems to me like a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with that spot in the climb. When we talk about the bad consequences of ...
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...
So I'm thinking, on my back, head up hill, crampons in the air (to prevent them snagging). I brace my ice axe into against my collar bone. I now need to roll onto my front to push the head of th...
For certain purposes, the offset overhand bend is not just safe but safer than any known alternative. The alternative name "European death knot" is a joke referring to the fact that to the uninitia...
I use a loop of 6 mm cord 5.5 m (18 ft) in circumference. Buy some larger amount of 6 mm cord, because the price for the pre-cut cord is a rip-off, and you'll end up going through this stuff for Pr...
I've never tried rope-soloing and don't have a very detailed idea of how it's done. But reading the 2015 edition of Accidents in North American Mountaineering, I was struck by how many accidents ha...
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...
From what I understand of the history, Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) grades came about when class 5 in the preexisting system was subdivided into 5.0 through 5.9. This was done by Chuck Wilts, Roya...
Below is the list that I found by googling on "chuck wilts" 1956 tahquitz yds. After the name of each route is the consensus rating on mountainproject.com. Each climb is hyperlinked to a descriptio...
The question has the tag "mountaineering," but most of the time when I hear people say that you need boots with ankle support, they're actually talking about trail-walking. The cases of hiking and ...
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...
Combing through the 2015 issue of Accidents in North American Mountaineering, here were the four mistakes that I saw over and over: no helmet not placing any pro, or climbing unroped starting too...
What are some of the common things people do that are avoidable and contribute to accidents and injuries when climbing?
Some of the things you've listed as precautions used in the US are not real or not reasonable. worry about the tent or shirt you sleep in smelling after food from 6 months ago This is silly. ...
Elk do go to high elevations in the summer, and apparently they're pretty dangerous in spring and fall: http://www.canadianparks.com/resources/letters/let-dangerouselk.html . The thing to do to avo...
At the gym today, a climber referred to "back-stepping" for a move that I would have referred to as a layback. I said, "I would have called that a layback," and he said, "Yeah, the difference is ki...
I usually carry 10 single-length slings and 2 doubles, which means I have 24 carabiners just for the draws. That's a lot of biners, which is of course why most people will use all wiregates for thi...
I sometimes climb in the gym with a partner who outweighs me by about 50%. When he's leading and falls from above his protection, I can get pulled up to the first clip. If he's not very far up, thi...
The first thing you need to find out is how heavily crevassed the glacier is, and whether any crevasses are likely to be big enough to fall into. Crevasses can be hidden by snow, so people can fall...
In the book Lightweight Backpacking and Camping, by Ryan Jordan, p. 307, Jordan says that a supply of DEET (presumably 100% concentration) for two weeks should weigh about 0.2 oz, including the bot...
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...
