Posts by Ben Crowell
Sometimes when I'm trad climbing it seems really tough to avoid an awkward belay, and a common type of awkwardness is when the belay device ends up too low. Below is a drawing of a situation I was ...
For outdoor single-pitch climbing, a pretty bare minimum is: shoes, harness, belay device, locking carabiner, helmet, nut tool This assumes that you're climbing with someone who owns a rope. Ha...
Are my fears of the anchor pieces popping out justified? Yes. This is an especially big concern when the climber has already placed the first piece of pro above the anchor, but falls before ge...
The most recent (2013) edition of Climbing Anchors, by Long and Gaines, makes some interesting statements in the preface about catastrophic failures of anchors. Long first says that: when belay anc...
For the spike, I usually just take a piece of corrugated cardboard, fold it to double the thickness, punch holes through it, and use some thin cord to tie it through the hole in the spike. This is ...
There are many different types of belays from above, e.g., you could be belaying for someone on third-class snow, with your dug-in crampons as part of your anchor. In that particular situation, you...
Interesting question. Here's some speculation, but I don't know if I'm right. There has been a clear tendency for climbing grades to inflate over time. You can really see this, for example, if yo...
I've been working on improving my self-rescue skills, but the skills I've learned so far seem to pertain mostly to single-pitch climbing. For example, a lot of people emphasize knowing how to escap...
The usual advice to someone in an emergency situation in the wilderness is to stay put, so that it's easier for rescuers to find you. In this situation, performance isn't an issue. There is a folk...
This isn't a complete answer, just an answer about the avalanche stuff, but it's too long to fit in a comment. Research shows that most avalanche training actually is not helpful in reducing people...
You don't even need to worry about a bear mugging you while you're hiking. It doesn't happen. Bears want your food. They're going to try to get your food when your food is out of your pack and they...
I wrote up some notes here that me be helpful. Climbing Kilimanjaro is not a big deal. It doesn't require a lot of stamina or strength, because the need for gradual acclimatization severely limits ...
The knot in the photo you posted is a double overhand knot. It's often used as half of a double fisherman's bend, and that's essentially how it's being used in the web page. (It will become a doubl...
What is the simplest way to approximate time after the sun has set? If all you want is a rough approximation, this this is extremely easy. For example, if you wake up in the middle of the nigh...
In a fall, roughly the same load is applied at every point along the rope, at the climber's harness, and at the anchor. "Roughly" means that this is an approximation where rope drag is negligible, ...
Leaving a dog alone in an apartment for this length of time would be neglectful, even if you were able to provide enough food and water. Your girlfriend's logic doesn't make sense to me. Just havi...
For trad climbing, I normally carry shoulder-length slings racked on my harness, set up in Alpine draws at 1/3 their full length. When I'm leading and need to extend my protection, I either use the...
They're not very easy to activate. Here's a video showing how to activate the one I own. It's a multi-step process. You have to flip up a tab (which I think involves cracking a thin plastic connect...
I'm joining a rock climbing club that requires an evaluation test in order to become a member. (I think this is a great idea.) They have a detailed handout listing exactly what you need to know for...
How about if you just take photos and post them on mountainproject or summitpost, along with verbal descriptions and UTM coordinates? Physically marking the starts of the routes is not compatible w...
Iztaccihuatl would use about the same skills as Aconcagua, but is lower altitude and can be done in a day, rather than the 2 weeks usually required for Aconcagua. I acclimatized by spending several...
There are a lot of myths about water and dehydration: Drinking Water for Hiking: Myths and Facts. One of these is the belief that people are in danger of being dehydrated without knowing it. Dehy...
This depends a lot on what you plan to do, and I don't think there's any such thing as an all-purpose knife. I mostly use mine when hiking and backpacking, when it would be silly to bring a big, he...
When you're following a pitch on a trad climb, what is a good method for racking and handling the nut tool? My goals are to be efficient but not to drop the tool. My current system, which I'm not ...
There is a description of this in Freedom of the Hills, around p. 149 in the edition I have. They describe it as an emergency alternative to a manufactured harness. Peter Croft also suggests using ...
