Climbing Events May & June 2013

5/25 -- Yerevan, Armenia -- http://uptherocks.com/content/view/197/138/

5/30 - 6/1 -- Boulder, CO -- Climbing Wall Association Summit

2013 IFSC Calendar -- http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition

6/1 - 6/8 -- Chamonix France -- Chamonix Mountain Festival

6/22 -- Boulder, CO -- Hera Climb for Life Fundraiser

Climbers are Funny!

Mountain Guide Jokes:


What do you call a mountain guide without a girlfriend?

Homeless.


How do you get ten mountain guides into a closet?

Tell them they can live there.

How do you get them back out again?

Tell them that they have to pay rent.


How do you know the mountain guide at the party?

Don't worry, he'll tell you.


Other Funny Climbing Related Things:

You might be a Mountain Climber if...

1. You own a $75 dress suit and a $1000 Gore-Tex suit.
2. You have ever frozen your lips to an ice screw while blowing an ice plug at your partner.
3. You have ever used an ice axe to chop weeds in the garden.
4. You have more summit pictures than wedding pictures.
5. You've ever had icicles hanging from any part of your face.
6. You've ever fallen so far that you've run out of adrenaline before you ran out of rope.
7. You say "Namaste" instead of "Hello."
8. You like the smell of burning yak dung.
9. What you call cold is not on the thermometer scale.
10. When you hear the words "nose," "captain," or "aid," your hands start hurting and swelling.
11. You arrive at a climbing gym with stoppers and cams still in your bag.
12. You hear the name "Hillary" and think about Everest instead of the Secretary of State.
13. And finally, you understood all the previous lines. If you laughed at any of these lame lines, then you should definitely get back to work.

--Most people get to the top of a climb and pose for a photo. This is a great piece on the many many different photogenic and not-so-photogenic poses of climbers after they've summitted.

--Some people write some really dumb comments on the Forest Service Comment cards. To read some of these, click here. My favorite is, "a small deer came into camp and stole a bag of pickles. Is there any way I can get reimbursed?"

--Jason D. Martin

Popular Anchor Acronyms

Over the last decade, the use of anchor acronyms has become quite popular. For awhile, it seemed like everybody had a different acronym for the "ideal" anchor. Following are a few examples of anchor acronyms:

RENE

Rumor has it that this term was initially coined by an east coast guide. As I am unable to independently verify the truth of this, I'm going to keep his name out of this blog. In any case, the preceding acronym stands for:
R - Redundant

E - Equalized
N - No
E - Extention

"Redundant" simply means that there is more than one element involved in every aspect of the system. "Equalized" means that the all the weight is evenly distributed. "No Extention" means that if one piece fails, the anchor will not shockload other parts of the system.

John Long's How to Rock Climb series added an element to the acronym. In his books he began to use SRENE. The RENE part remained the same, but he added the "S". This stood for "secure" or "strong." In other words, are all the pieces strong and secure?

The 2008 AMGA Single Pitch Instructor manual added another letter to the acronym. In this recent publication they made the acronym, SERENE. The new "E" stood for "effective;" as in, was the construction of this anchor quick? Was it well-placed? Does it do the job without too much equipment or fuss?

Popular books like Freedom of the Hills, Rock Climbing: Mastering the Basic Skills, and Alpine Climbing: Techniques to Take You Higherhave gone a completely different route. Instead of SERENE, they use ERNEST.

E - EqualizedR - Redundant
N - No
E - Extention
S - Secure/Solid
T - Timely

The only real addition to this particular acronym is the "T" for "timely" which could well equate to the "E" for "effective."

When all is said and done, it doesn't really matter which acronym you prefer. It doesn't matter as long as your anchors are RENE, SRENE, SERENE and ERNEST...

--Jason D. Martin

Weekend Warrior - Videos to get you STOKED!!!

This weekend's first video features the globe-trotting Dave Graham, as he hops from his projects in Colorado to other climbs around the world.  Wherever he went, the lure of these Colorado boulder problems drew him back, and was finally able to send his latest challenge, an 8c (V15) named Bridge of Ashes.



Our next video features Oli Lyon and Chris Bevins climbing through Indian Creek's splitter sandstone.



Jon Glassberg has had Leavenworth on his list of bouldering destinations for a long time, and last week he finally had a chance to come out and sample all of what Central Washington's Bavarian Village had to offer.  Sehr gut!


Washington Bouldering - Jon Glassberg from Jon Glassberg on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend! - James

Using Your Rope in the Anchor

It's not uncommon for us to get up to an anchor point only to find that we've left our cordellete on our partner's harness or to find that it is impossible to hear. Most people will just deal with these problems without thinking outside-the-box. One outside the box thought though is to use your rope for these things.

This first photo was taken in Red Rock Canyon at the start of the "Tunnel Pitch" on Tunnel Vision (III, 5.7). If you're not familiar with this route, it is an absolutely stellar ascent. On the fourth pitch, one has the opportunity to actually climb through the mountain in a tunnel. In other words, the route requires a bit of vertical spelunking.

The top of the third pitch, at the start of the tunnel, it is difficult to see or hear the second. The route follows a corner and chimney system up the wall. In order to see my climber, I built an anchor and then, using the rope, extended the anchor to the edge where it was far less difficult to see and hear.

Some might argue that this system lacks redundancy. I'm not too worried about that as I can see the whole anchor to ensure that there is no rubbing and we never have redundancy in the rope while we're climbing with a single line...

This second picture was taken in Leavenworth, Washington on one of ourAMGA Single Pitch Instructor courses. The assignment was for the student to create a fixed line across a catwalk on the slab shown. This particular student didn't have the webbing or the cordellete to create a perfect SRENE anchor. Instead, he built a pre-equalized anchor with his rope. In this application, this worked really well.

In this picture, another Single Pitch Instructor candidate built a top-rope anchor, wrapping a rope around a boulder and tying it off with a double-bowline. In order to create some flexibility in the anchor he tied an figure-eight on a bite and clove-hitched it to the line going to the edge of his top-rope anchor.

This last picture shows a close-up of the figure-eight and the clove-hitch mentioned above.

Flexibility and thinking outside the box are two major tenants of climbing efficiency. One way to be efficient and to be flexible and to be outside-the-box is to use your rope for anchoring instead of other materials. Your rope is always on you and as such, it definitely provides an option that really shouldn't feel like it's that far out-of-the-box...

--Jason D. Martin

Climbing and Outdoor News from Here and Abroad - 5/16/13

Northwest:

--Glacier Creek Road, the easiest access to the N. side of Mt. Baker and the Coleman-Deming, is temporarily closed to vehicular traffic due to road damage and the potential for a full washout.  The Bellingham Herald published an article with more information on the situation.

Desert Southwest:

--Thin, scary off-width FAs are going up in the Utah desert courtesy of Pamela Pack and Patrick Kingsbury.

Notes from All Over:

--A prolific Russian mountaineer, Alexey Bolotov, died on Mt. Everest earlier this week.  He and his climbing partner, Denis Urubko, had been planning a new route up the SW face of the mountain; though details are still uncertain, it seems that Bolotov was scouting the base of the route when he was either struck by a boulder, or fell to his death when his rope frayed and separated.  Alan Arnette has gathered several perspectives regarding the incident on his blog.


--After decades of contentious negotiations on the topic, the NPS has released a final policy authorizing the use of fixed anchors in Wilderness areas.

The Access Fund's statement and analysis can be found here

A copy of the new policy can be downloaded here


--On a parallel note, the Armenian government has officially closed climbing access to the renowned basalt columns, after visiting climbers continued to ignore a bolting ban.



--Daniel Jung and the Favresse brothers put up new routes in Norway

Climbing Events May and June 2013

5/17 - 5/19 -- New River Rendezvous

5/25 -- Yerevan, Armenia -- http://uptherocks.com/content/view/197/138/

5/30 - 6/1 -- Boulder, CO -- Climbing Wall Association Summit

2013 IFSC Calendar -- http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition

6/1 - 6/8 -- Chamonix France -- Chamonix Mountain Festival

6/22 -- Boulder, CO -- Hera Climb for Life Fundraiser