Posts by Ben Crowell
You can't tell by looking, and it's an issue that occurs naturally, not just because of industrial contamination. Even if you're hiking in a pristine environment like a national park, where this k...
Freedom of the Hills is a book about mountaineering, not rock climbing. They overlap somewhat, but they're basically different things. Rock climbing can mean a lot of very different things: climbin...
It's good for a question on SE to be focused. However, there is a broader context here, which is that you want your activities to be (a) safe and (b) comfortable and enjoyable, so that you'll want ...
The answer to your question is no. North America is a huge region. Even California is vast and varied, e.g., we have miner's lettuce at low elevations, but not higher up. For a given subregion, e.g...
An unhurdled slip-and-drop would be fatal without a doubt. If this is the case, then maybe you need a belay. However, if the snow is sufficiently deep and soft that you're sinking up to your k...
10,000 feet is not very high. Most likely the headache you were experiencing was due to some combination of sleep deprivation, caffeine withdrawal, and unaccustomed exertion and aerobic challenge....
As pointed out by Russell Steen in a comment, the answer to this question really depends completely on what area you're in, which determines what kind of bears are around. It's too bad that the OP ...
You don't need a trad rack of your own in order to follow. If you're climbing with experienced trad leaders who have their own racks, then you also don't need to bring your own rack. If you're goin...
Is there a general rule to this for backpacking? No, there isn't any general rule. It depends on a lot of facts, perceptions, and preferences. I guess the water where you hike is unsafe to dr...
I sometimes bring a tarp and sometimes a tent. Most of my backpacking is in the summer in the Sierra Nevada, which means most of the time there's no threat of rain and I don't take my tarp or tent ...
I have a pair of microspikes, and have a friend who has owned both microspikes and yaktrax. The impression I get is that yaktrax are meant for walking around town on sidewalks covered with snow and...
There are various popular beliefs that alcoholic and caffeinated drinks "don't count" for hydration because alcohol and caffeine dehydrate you. In fact, beer consumed in moderation has a hydrating,...
Welcome to outdoors.SE! It occurred to me that the entire weight of a climber is resting on the strength of the ATC clip and not on any carabiner. This is not quite right. My first quibble is...
Among people I've talked to who have tried bivy sacks, none have had anything good to say about them. Tarping is a great way to save weight compared to bringing a tent, but putting up a tarp is tim...
I'm a beginning trad leader, having done about five easy fifth class leads. I've had some formal instruction, but don't currently have access to a teacher or mentor. I'm finding that I'm extremely ...
It's not complicated. Let's say you're using a long piece of webbing to build the anchor. Before you tie the ends of the webbing to make a loop, you put the webbing through the rap ring. Then when ...
I have the John Long book on climbing anchors and also a couple of others that describe the subject more briefly (Pesterfield, Traditional Lead Climbing, and Freedom of the Hills). When it comes to...
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...
You have a couple of perfectly good answers here from DJBunk and Mr.Wizard. However, it appears from your question that you need a better understanding of why or how you would buy a rope with certa...
Say I'm leading on a single-pitch climb, or the first pitch of a multi-pitch. The maximum fall factor I could theoretically have without hitting the deck is 1, but that's with a static rope, which ...
John Muir is said to have traveled for weeks in the back country, but he never took any food with him, [...] Not true. There is a nice article here by John Huber about what Muir ate while on t...
The WP article is pretty good, but SE is meant to be standalone, so I'll try to give my interpretation of the American system, the Yosemite Decimal System. This system is for free climbing (mountai...
If I was going to rappel on it, and the bulk of the knot wasn't an issue, I would tie a figure-eight in a bight of one piece of rope, then attach the other rope to it using a rewoven figure-eight. ...
My dog enjoys hiking. I haven't taken her on any overnight trips yet, but would like to try some summer/fall backcountry camping with her (i.e., what I think Europeans call wild camping -- not car ...
Freedom of the Hills has a chapter on rappelling that includes a detailed discussion of this topic. Tie it "uphill" from the belay device or "downhill"? Downhill. If the Prusik is downhill f...
