Posts by Ben Crowell
Wikipedia has a simple treatment of this problem, as well as some notes on at least one of the reasons why the simple treatment is only a very rough approximation. Let be the impact force quoted b...
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...
When you're lead climbing, the most common way for the rope to hang naturally, if you don't do anything special, is usually between your legs. Is this OK on rock? On ice? Why or why not? On rock, ...
Yes, this is perhaps the most important question ever to be asked in this forum, touching as it does not merely upon matters of life and death but on questions of ... beer ... itself! I have hea...
The terms to google on seem to be "turbidity," "total suspended solids," and "total dissolved solids." TSS refers to solids that can be eliminated by a filter, and TDS to solids that are in particl...
I normally use cheap, lightweight water bottles to carry my water when I'm hiking. However, sometimes I'm with people who use bladders such as a CamelBak, and I offer to go and fill water bottles, ...
Consider using freezer-bag cooking. You boil your water in a pot, then pour it into a freezer bag with your food to cook. Advantages: No dishes to wash. Zero environmental impact. Makes it easier...
There are many types of specialized harnesses, including harnesses for sport, trad, and mountaineering. Personally I use the same harness for trad and mountaineering, and it works fine. For trad c...
Throwing a dead body down a ravine in a rugged mountain area is a morally blameless act, much like throwing your biodegradable orange peel into a bush. Crows and coyotes will rapidly take care of i...
This is not a complete answer but is just my attempt to analyze, after discussion with ShemSeger, the issue of what the Munter does for you as opposed to a Prusik. It seems that there are several d...
I recently gave a belay from above to a group of five people who were all doing the same single-pitch climb and then being lowered off. (In this case the reason for belaying from above was that the...
I used to use a liquid hydrocarbon-fuel stove for backpacking, but I hated it, one of the main reasons being that the stove and/or fuel bottle were always leaking and stinking up my car and pack. M...
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...
The basic idea of polarizing glasses is not to block all light, it's to block light that undergoes a glancing reflection, such as sunlight coming to your eye off of water or snow from near the hori...
I'm not super experienced with snow anchors, but basically a snow bollard can be a bomber anchor if the snow is hard -- hard enough that you have to use an ice ax to chop the trench. You can back i...
If you're not walking on very steep slopes, there is basically no special technique to learn. On steep slopes, you can use many of the same foot techniques as with crampons, and in fact many snows...
The graph looks exactly like a bunch of graphs in House and Johnston, Training for the New Alpinism, pp. 334-337, except for the scale on the time axis. The ones in House and Johnston are for moder...
Altitude acclimatization is not just a single change in your body but a long list of different things that are going on. There is a nice chart on p. 326 of House and Johnston, Training for the New ...
Googling seems to show that the conventional wisdom is that it's not a good idea to chain carabiners together: Another thing to avoid is chaining carabiners together to lengthen a connection in...
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 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...
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 ...
