Subscribe to CalTopo? Yes, it's worth it

If you're new to CalTopo, watch this tutorial video to get started.

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Here's a screen grab of the cost structure and subscription levels, as of autumn 2019.

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Just click that “Upgrade” link! or: caltopo.com/join

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The free version of CalTopo has a lot of functionality, but bump up to a $20 “Basic” level annual subscription and you get even more. In addition to directly supporting the provider of this great software (which for many years was just one guy in California, you also get a few extra perks.

1 - Print maps on larger size paper. Standard 8 1/2” by 11” paper is usually okay, but for a longer trip covering a bigger area, or a larger scale (a more “zoomed in” map) bumping your paper size up to 11” by 17” can be really helpful.

2 - Save more private maps. Have you made a map that you think is great, complete with carefully chosen waypoint icons and different line symbols and colors? You can save it exactly like you made it, so you or anyone else can use it in the future. (If you simply export your tracks and waypoints as a GPX file, you lose all the custom formatting.) Just click “Save this Map”, and everything on your screen is saved to the cloud. The paid subscription lets you save many more private maps than the free one.

3 - Better integration with Google Earth. With a Basic subscription, you can do some Google Earth fancy cartography tricks like making a linked connection between CalTopo and Google Earth. Make a change on your CalTopo map, and a few seconds later in your Google Earth window you will see that same change happen. Very cool for certain map geek applications.

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If you're more of a power user, there are two additional levels of subscription, Pro and Desktop. The Pro version offers the extremely helpful weekly high resolution satellite imagery, which is terrific for trip planning and determining snow levels. This might be a bit beyond the needs of many casual recreational users, but if you spent a lot of time in the backcountry, it could be well worth it.

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So, those are the main benefits, as I see them, and I love supporting CalTopo with a $20 annual subscription. When you consider that a single printed paper map can cost between $10 and $15, $20 a year for unlimited free mapping is quite the bargain.

Supporting this software by subscribing helps ensure this great resource will be around for a long time for all of us to enjoy.

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Here’s an example map for the Leuthold Couloir route on Mt. Hood, Oregon, made with CalTopo. This uses the “Mapbuilder Topo” layer, has a 1 Km UTM grid, correct magnetic declination, map datum, and ratio and bar scale - pretty much everything you need. This prints on 8.5 x 11 paper, and took me about 90 seconds to make. =^)

Choosing a mountaineering backpack

There’s a dizzying number of choices when it comes to backpacks these days. Fortunately, with some guidance, you can narrow down the choices significantly.

Here’s a great article from outdoor gear lab that should be your first stop if you're contemplating a new backpack.

The Osprey Mutant 38 liter pack, an excellent choice.

photo: osprey.com

Intertwine stoppers for reachy aid placements

Need to reach a few more inches for that aid stopper placement? Try intertwining the cables.

If you’re trying a reachy stopper replacement, you may not be able to see if the stopper fits well. Be sure and bounce test carefully before committing to it.

If you’re reaching for a rivet head, just slide the top stopper down to expose the wire loop.

It’s easy to do, but here’s a step by step.

Staying found: caution in semi-familiar terrain

Think about the times you’ve experienced, shall we say “positional uncertainty” on a hike or climb, or even walking/cycling/driving in a city.

Was it on a close to home trail that you’ve hiked a dozen times before? No, because you know it so well. Let's be honest, you really don’t need a map and compass to do a hike you have this dialed.

Say you’re planning your once-in-a-lifetime trip to go trekking in New Zealand. Are you, the savvy outdoor person, going to research the heck out of your route, get appropriate guidebooks, maps, GPS tracks, and talk to the locals so you are super well prepared?

Of course you are. When you’re going somewhere completely unfamiliar, the only prudent thing to do is to go with a full quiver of solid navigational tools. Sure, you still might get lost even after all this, but you will at the very least be well prepared.

So, let’s consider all of the outings that fall in between these two bookends. Call them the semi familiar; aka, “I hiked this once about five years ago and I pretty much remember where to go, but I don’t remember every fork” type of trails.

These trails can lull you into a false sense of security, because it’s easy to get a little lazy and not get a proper map, download a track, or otherwise prepare for your trip, especially if it’s a more spontaneous outing. Looking back at the times that I have been a little turned around in the woods, it’s almost always these type of trips.

So, if you have an outdoor adventure planned, ask yourself if it falls into that middle ground of semi familiarity. If it does, you may want to be extra sure to research the route carefully at home, and also to bring various navigation tools (a guidebook, a map, a photo of the guidebook page on your phone, and or a GPS track to go with the Gaia GPS app on your phone) so you don’t have an epic.

3 tips for better running snow belays

image: Climbing.com

General caution on running belays: Snow anchors are probably not as strong as you think they are. If things are getting steep and you think there's a chance of a fall putting significant impact on the picket, it's probably best to start climbing with belayed pitches, have your most skilled person climb a rope length and fix the rope, or perhaps turn around.

Having said that, there are some times when using a running belay is appropriate. Here's how to make the best of it.

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1 - The Better Way to rack pickets

Many climbers don't give a great deal of thought how to rack pickets, usually just slinging them over their neck. Doing this is just about guaranteed to dangle, tangle, and strangle, and if you're doing a long running belay with more than about three, it gets even worse. This applies to the leader as well as the cleaner.

A much better method is to clip a carabiner through the third hole of the picket, and carry the pickets on your vertically clipped to your harness or pack shoulder straps. Here’s a separate post that describes how to do it, with some pictures.

The leader can carry pickets on their backpack quiver style, but you need to set them up in a way so they can't fall out.

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2 - Consider a whistle

Running belays require clear communication between the entire climb team, to tell the leader to stop and place more pro, or for the team to stop while the last person cleans.

If it’s windy, the route goes around a corner, you have your hood cinched down tight, you’re wearing a windproof fleece hat, your ice tools are knocking off chunks of ice and snow, you’re mentally focused on a tough lead . . . or all of the above, it can be very hard to hear the calls for “pro” or “cleaning”. Consider whistle blasts to signal the leader to stop and place more gear. Wear the whistle on a short cord girth hitched to your pack strap and be sure you can get to it with gloves on and using one hand.

The leader doesn’t need to have this, but all of the following climbers should consider it.

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3 - Running belays - Max party size is three

A simple rule of thumb for running belays is this - keep the party size to 2 or 3 people max on a rope.  With more than 3 people, it’s almost always faster to fix the rope and have the everyone come up on a fixed line or simulclimb.

Reason: if the team always keeps one piece of pro between team members, with four people on the rope, the leader has to carry and place a LOT of gear!

How to clip quick draws 101

Any beginner who wants to learn to lead sport/bolted routes will find this video from Outdoor Research to be a solid starting point. And, even if you've been at the game for a while, you still might learn a trick or two.

• Do you know the difference between a thumb clip and a finger clip?

• What's the right way to hold the rope in your mouth? (Hint, it's not with your teeth!)

• When is it okay to high clip, and when is it not?

Cordelettes - General Tips

Many climbers consider the cordelette a standard piece of gear, as it lets you quickly connect two or more points of protection into a redundant, non-extending, and fairly well distributed anchor.

What are some advantages?

• Fairly inexpensive (especially compared to a 240 cm Dyneema sling, which some climbers prefer over a standard cordelette)

• You can cut it up and leave it for rappel anchors

• You can rig it “bunny ears” style, to utilize anchors that are very far apart

Cordelette vary in terms of length and diameter, but a textbook cordelette is “7 and 7”: about 7 meters of 7mm cord, tied into one large loop with a well-dressed knot. Traditionally this was a double fisherman’s, but a more modern method is a simple flat overhand. It can be a little shorter or a little longer, and tied with 6 mm or even 5.5 mm high tech cord, but “7 and 7” is good starting point.

There are a LOT of crafty ways to use a cordelette - bunny ears, the “open” cordelette with no knot at all, overhand knot - but we’ll cover those in detail on other tips. For today, let's look at the textbook rigging, tied in one large loop.

A garden variety cordelette.

Note the striking resemblance to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. =^)

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Here’s a few Crafty Rope Tricks and general cordelette tips that you probably won’t find in the textbook.

1 - The length and diameter can depend on your climbing preferences

Climb on snow a lot? Consider a 6 mm 14-15 foot cordelette. More a rock person? Maybe a 7 mm 20 foot cord is a better choice. Forces are probably lower on snow, and you can put protection wherever you want it. Forces on rock can be higher, and protection might be farther apart. Read more at this tip.

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2 - A trick for close placements

If you’re using two gear placements close together, like a bolted sport anchor, your cordelette in normal configuration will probably be too long, resulting in a master point that hangs too low. (A good rule of thumb in anchor building is that the anchor master point should always be at waist level or higher, ideally around your chest.)

Here’s one of several ways to handle the situation: rather than the standard method of clipping the cordelette into the carabiners, instead pass one or even two loops of the cord through the carabiner, and then back to the master point. This doubles the cord in one or more of the legs and raises your master point, resulting in a more compact and easy-to-manage anchor.

Left: Standard method, too long, belay at your ankles. (There's nothing actually unsafe about this, just awkward and inconvenient.)

Right: double the strands through the carabiner, moves the master point nice and high.

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3 - Clove hitch the knot to the highest piece

Murphy’s Law of cordelettes: the darn double fisherman’s knot always ends up in the wrong place! Eliminate this problem by clove hitching the cord next to the knot next to your highest piece of gear. This keeps the joining knot fixed next to the protection and out of the way of your master point.

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4 - Shorten it a bit

Most of the time your cordelette is going to feel either too short or too long. If it’s too short, try to add a separate sling to the piece of gear that’s farthest away.

If it’s too long, rather than clipping the cordelette loop to the gear, instead pass the loop through one of the the carabiners. This makes four strands of cord coming off that piece of gear rather then two, which will raise your anchor master point. Remember, you ideally want to master point to be about chest level, and not below your waist if you can avoid it. 

Right side strand is passed through the carabiner, not clipped to it.

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5 - Try to keep all strands about the same length.

This means that if one piece of gear is much higher than the others, try to add a separate runner to the top piece to bring it more level with the other placements. If you build a cordelette anchor with legs of very different lengths, a majority of force is going to go to the shortest leg, because that’s stretching less than the other two. If you have to do this, try to be sure that the gear you have on that short leg is as solid as possible.

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6 - Anticipate the direction of pull and “aim” the cordelette at this point.

When belaying a second, the direction of force will usually be toward the last gear placement you made on lead. Try to equalize the anchor as best as you can by pointing it at this direction.

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7 - Tie a figure 8 at the master point if you have enough cord to do it

Many people tie an overhand knot at the master point, but a figure 8 is better, if you have the rope for it. Reason? The figure 8 absorbs more fall force than an overhand, and thus transmits less of that force to the gear. It's also easier to untie.

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8 - Clip the belay carabiner into the cord BEFORE you tie the master point knot.

The carabiner gives you a sort of handle and keeps the cord loops tidy when you tie the knot.

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9 - For a monolith like a tree or a rock pillar, use both strands on one side for the shelf.

In the photo below, if you clipped the shelf is shown on the left, you have a 50% chance of clipping the same strand twice. Most all the time this is okay, but it's technically not redundant. It's better practice to clip as shown on the right: clipping the carabiner between both strands on ONE side or the left, or the other. This ensures that you are capturing both strands, maintaining redundancy.

Note this is the opposite of what you would do if each side of the cordelette went to a multi-piece anchor, so it might take a minute to get your head around this. =^)

Emergency contact info - what you need to share

When you head out for a climb, it’s good practice to let a responsible someone know the details of your trip. In the last minute rush to leave, all that might get said is, “I’m heading to Rainier, back on Tuesday!”  A more detailed written notice you leave with a person not going on your trip might include:

• Destination - peak to be climbed, trail to be hiked

• General route you plan to take

• Campsites - if overnight, list campsite location(s) for each night

• Names of climbing partners, and names and phone numbers for their emergency contacts

• Times: Hike / climb will leave the trailhead/base camp at ________ a.m. / p.m. on _______________ (date), Planned return to trailhead/base camp ______ a.m. / p.m. on _______________ (date)

• Make and license of car(s) your team will drive

• Trailhead where car(s) will be parked

• Bivy gear (stove, tent/bivy bag, sleeping bag, food for # days) the team will carry

• List of communications gear (cell phone, satellite com device, GPS) the team will carry

• Emergency phone numbers for the climb area (usually Nat Forest District Office, County Sheriff or Nat Park Service)

• Important: Estimated time off the peak. Consider a “yellow-red” system of times: “We plan to call to check in with you by 4:00 pm. If you don’t hear from us by 9:00 pm, call the sheriff”.

Also, here's a tip on what NOT to do. With the growing popularity of satellite communication devices such as the Garmin Inreach, many people like to check in with concerned people at home and let them know everything is OK.

Doing this is fine, but do not let a lack of check in become the basis for a rescue. If your sat-com device breaks, gets lost, or runs out of batteries, and you are fine, the last thing you want is to trigger an unnecessary “rescue” because you did not do your evening check in with your spouse or partner. You should make it clear before you leave home that lack of communication does not indicate a problem.

Eat and drink on the way to your climb

When you’re driving to the trailhead, especially in the early morning hours, make a point to eat and drink in the car. 

Tasty and fast to prepare eat-in-car foods include pre-peeled hard-boiled eggs in a baggie, bran muffins (gotta love the 24 hour Starbucks) bananas, a canned protein drink, and cereal bars - try the "this apple walks into a bar" bars from Trader Joes.

Many people find that having a fairly high protein meal before a big climb day really helps performance. (Personally, I bonk in an hour or so if I just have instant oatmeal, but if I stir in some protein powder it keeps me going for much longer.)

Some of the high protein and drinks/shakes are a good way to easily get this into your body in the early morning. Check out the protein shakes from Costco - tasty flavors, reasonably priced and a full 30 grams of protein.

For hot drinks, a thermos of tea or instant miso soup can hit the spot as well. Go easy on the coffee - it can mess with your lower GI tract in some Less Than Ideal ways, especially the nasty brew you're likely to find at a 24 hour minimart at 3:00am. 

For water, try to down at least 20 ounces of water in the hour or so before you start your climb. Conveniently, a 20 oz. plastic Gatorade bottle is the perfect sized container for car water consumption (20 oz. is about the amount of fluid you can typically absorb in an hour.) Be sure your car nibbles and water can be accessed from your seat, and not buried in your pack in the trunk.

“Cheapskate locker” - use tape on a carabiner gate

Note: This is not standard climbing practice. Whenever possible, use a locking carabiner or two normal carabiners, opposite and opposed. This technique is for improv, emergency, and backup situations only.

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Eventually you’ll find yourself in a climbing situation where you might need a secure carabiner setup, but you don’t have any more locking carabiners nor an extra regular carabiner to rig the “opposite and opposed” set up. When might this happen?

• Building multiple rappel anchors with your own gear, where you may need to conserve your equipment and want to leave only a single carabiner behind at the anchor.

• Building any kind of rappel anchor with your own gear; after all, you’re a proud and frugal dirtbag climber! Why leave behind a $15 locker when you could leave behind a $5 regular carabiner with a taped gate? Some people are comfortable rappelling from a single non-locking carabiner. I’m not.

• Some kind of unusual, improvised situation (swift water rescue, backcountry scrambling with minimal gear, etc) when you may not have a locking carabiner.

• Big wall climbing, where it seems like you're always short on lockers. Wall climbers have used this “tape on the gate” trick for decades.

Provided you don’t need to open and close the carabiner, a simple solution might be called the “cheapskate locker”. Use a regular carabiner and tape the gate closed, with whatever tape is (hopefully) handy.

Cheapskate locker tips:

• If you plan on removing the tape, fold the tape and back over itself to leave a little tab for you to grab.

• Typically for a most anchors, you have the gate down and facing out, aka “clip and flip”. But for a retreat rappel carabiner, you may want the gate “up and out” with the opening at the top, which means it's farther away from the rope. This may add a slight bit of extra security; if it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, then go for it.

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I've certainly heard from a few people on social media that this is a wacky and unsafe practice. Unusual, maybe. Unsafe, absolutely not.

Still skeptical? Read this article in Rock and Ice, written by IFMGA Guide Jeff Ward. He shares the crafty tip about pre-wrapping a bit of tape onto a carabiner so you're already set to make a cheapskate locker. This tip is especially clever, because you’re unlikely to have a roll of athletic tape on a long alpine route. Prep a few carabiners ahead of time if you think you might need them, and you 're ready to go. See photos below.

Jeff writes: “I also like to have a few carabiners with tape wound around the spine. Once the anchor is rigged for the rappel, you can unwind some of the tape to “lock” the carabiner gates closed. Taped biners are more useful than quick links since you can also use them for climbing, and they are less likely to be stolen by the next team. Having a metal point on the anchor prevents the ropes from sawing and damaging it, and makes the ropes easier to pull.”

Here’s a second article from Climbing magazine, where they advocate doing it.

(Sorry, the article links below are now apparently behind the Outside media conglomerate paywall . . . )

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There was an awful accident on El Capitan, when a haul bag somehow came loose and fell onto someone. Connecting the haul bag to the haul rope needs to be an absolutely bulletproof connection. This seems like a fine time to use a locker, and further secure it by wrapping that sucker with tape. I don't know all the details on this accident so I can't say for sure if a secure carabiner might've prevented the problem, but for everyday hauling, it can add some peace of mind.

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Here's a photo from big wall ace Kevin DeWeese / @failfalling. Yep, that’s a portaledge hanging off of a single dodgy looking bolt/rivet, quite a spicy way to spend the night! Kevin backed that up with the taped gate carabiner and a butterfly on the blue rope.

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1 - Take one of your least favorite carabiners. Tear off about 4 inches/12 cm of athletic tape. (I like hockey tape.)

2 - Wrap the tape around the spine of the carabiner. Don't wrap it too tight, it'll be harder to get off.

3 - When you need a cheapskate locker, unwrap the tape and rewrap it around the gate opening. To make it easy for you or someone else to remove, fold the last bit of tape back onto itself, as shown.

Creek crossing safety

photo: pcta.org, taken by Justin “2t” Helmkamp

Crossing a stream or creek is often a part of mountaineering approach hike, and it’s potentially one of the most dangerous parts of the climb. Here are a few tips (gleaned from several whitewater rescue courses I’ve taken) that can make this a bit safer.

• Always face upstream.

• Wear shoes. Yes, your shoes will get wet, but your footing will be much more secure.

• Using poles (trekking poles or sturdy sticks), one in each hand, is the single best way to improve your balance in a crossing. Not enough poles for everyone?  Toss them back once one person is across.

• Take some time to scout. Look upstream or downstream to check for a friendlier crossing if you don’t like what you see when you first arrive.

• Snowmelt streams are usually lower in the morning. Consider an early morning crossing to have lower water levels.

• Water depth rule of thumb: if the water is moving fast and over your knees, you should take extra caution. Note that this rule does not apply equally to taller/shorter team members, and the speed of the water has a great affect on the potential hazard of the crossing.

• Be extra careful on snow bridges. Punching through the snow and into the creek can be deadly.

• Cross in a three person triangle – Moving in unison across the creek as a group can add stability to everyone. Make a triangle, with the “point” being the largest person, who faces upstream. The point person has a pole in each hand. The other two members of the triangle have a pole in the outside hand and one hand on the shoulder or pack of the point person. The larger point person makes an eddy of sorts with their legs, providing an area of slack water for the inside legs of the two back people. If the back people start to slip, they can grab the other members on their triangle and hopefully recover.

• Remove your pack waist belt so you can quickly ditch your pack if you fall in. On a really challenging crossing, you may want to completely remove your pack. Have another stronger person carry it, or maybe rig a clothesline loop rope across the creek and ferry the packs across one by one.

• Try to find a crossing point that has a friendly runout; if you were to lose your footing and fall in, you’re not going to be swept over a waterfall, or into dangerous rocks or a log jam.

See this this nice article at PCTA.org for a more detailed look at this important skill.

DIY - Replace that gaiter cord with a cable

A weak point in the design of some gaiters is the cord that runs under the sole of your boot. While some models have a beefy (and heavy) strap, some have just a nylon cord. After stomping around on rough terrain, the cord gets frayed and cut.  As it’s on the bottom of your boot, it’s hard to notice when it’s almost cut through.

Here’s an easy modification that will eliminate this hassle. Head to the hardware store, and buy 3 feet of 1/16 inch cable from the bulk spools and 4 1/16” aluminum sleeves.

With wire cutters and a bit of patience, you replace the cord with the cable. Clamp the aluminum sleeve onto one side of the wire with pliers, or smack it with a hammer. Note that this is non-adjustable, so size it to the shoes you’ll use most often with the gaiters, and measure carefully before that final smushing of the second aluminum sleeve.

Cut the cable, and repeat for your other shoe.

When you're done, it should look like this.

The perfect backcountry storage bottle

Looking for a small plastic bottle for food storage, and want a light weight, super-tough food grade plastic, a bomber non-leaking cap, and don’t want to pay $2-3 for a mini Nalgene?

Check out Gerber baby juice bottles (about $1.99 for a 4 pack as of 2018) in the baby food aisle at the supermarket.

Drink the juice if you like, but the great plastic bottles are the real score. I use them for olives, olive oil, sports drink mix, and espresso brought from home.

The empty 4 oz. bottle weighs just 21 grams.

Estimate time to sundown with your hand

When it’s late afternoon and you’re wondering if you should make camp or not, use this trick for estimating the time until sundown.

Extend your arm and your fingers toward the sun, then bend your wrist. Each finger represents about 15 minutes. Leapfrog your other hand if needed to estimate times more than 1 hour.

This trick works if the horizon is flat or a mountain ridge line, it doesn't matter. Note this is an approximation, and varies a bit depending on your latitude.

In my neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest, a good rule of thumb to total darkness is add about 30 minutes to the sunset time. So, if your hand (or your smartphone) tells you sunset will be in one hour, you have about one hour 30 minutes of usable light. This will depend on your latitude, test it in your local area to be sure.

The same applies to usable light in the morning; subtract 30 minutes from sunrise time to find the first usable light. For alpine starts, this can help you plan your wake up time, as being on more technical terrain when you can see where you're going is usually a good idea. 

Example: from your camp, you have an hour of easy walking on a trail before some technical climbing begins. You and your partners want to have a fairly leisurely hour to get ready after you wake up. Your phone's weather app tells you that sunrise is at 6:15am. 

Subtract 30 minutes from 6:15, and you get first usable light at 5:45. Subtract two hours from that, and you get an approximate wake up time of about 3:45 am. 

Minimize rock fall - clip some gear in easy terrain

Here’s another solid tip from the excellent American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) video series, featuring IFMGA Certified Guide Emilie Drinkwater of Cloudsplitter Mountain Guides.

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Scenario: You and your partner are on 3rd-ish class terrain with a fair amount of loose rock. Ideally, you might take a minute or so and shorten up the rope with a Kiwi coil and walk with just a few meters of rope between you, but for whatever reason you decide not to do this.

A simple way to keep the rope from getting hung up on the rocks, as well as the rope potentially causing rocks to tumble down onto your follower, is to simply find a few high gear placements along the way and clip the rope into them.

The gear placements are not needed for fall protection, they just keep the rope out of the rocks. Probably best to use a cam if possible, to make cleaning fast and easy for your follower.

Check the short video below for a demo.

Speeding up a group rappel

Scenario: You’re descending a route with a team of four, and you have one rope.  You get to the rappel spot, which requires two raps on a single rope to get down to safe ground.

Standard practice would be to have everyone rappel on two strands to the next station, and then have everyone rappel again to get to the ground. For your team of four, this means eight total raps . . . and a lot of time.

Consider this alternative:  

1. Fix one end of the rope at the top.

2. Have the first three people rap to safe ground on a single strand.

3. The last person (a more skilled team member) unties the fixed rope end, pulls up half the rope and threads the anchor as for a normal two-strand rap.  Then, this last person raps to the intermediate station and then finally to the ground. This results in a total of five raps rather than eight, speeding up your team’s descent time.

Be sure everyone on the team is comfortable rapping on a single strand, and add some extra friction to the rap if necessary. See this tip on more ways to add friction to a rappel.

DIY - Rope protector for a fixed rope

You’re taking a friend on Monkey Face at Smith Rock. The plan is for you to lead the aid pitch, fix the rope, and have your partner ascend the fixed rope and clean the gear in standard aid climbing technique . . . but you remember that from the anchor, the rope goes over a rather sharply angled edge before drops to your partner.

Yes, thousands of people have done this pitch without any damage to the rope, but you'd still feel a little better if your rope was protected. This is a pretty common situation in aid climbing, making a fixed rope anchor, or caving. Anytime you have a loaded rope over a rock edge, padding the edge or protecting the rope in some way should be considered. (Even more so if the rock has sharp crystals, like Joshua Tree granite.)

You can do this on the fly by putting a backpack under the rope to protect it. But if you know you're going to have this situation, it's more secure to have a designated rope guard that you bring with you.

Yes, you can buy a commercial one like these for about $20. If you’re in an instructional environment and find yourself doing this often, this is the way to go.

image: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Anchors/PROTEC

or something like this:

image: https://www.mtrsuperstore.com/products/rescuetech-rope-guard

But, it’s easy and cheaper to DIY. You can use either heater hose from the car part store, which is convenient because you can buy it by the foot, or a section of cut up retired garden hose, if you have access to that. You need about 18 inches / 45 cm of hose.

Steps:

1. Go to the car parts store, and buy a couple of feet of 1/2 inch heater hose. It shouldn’t cost more than about $1.50 per foot. (Some hoses used in cars are reinforced and cost more like for $5 a foot, don't buy this type.) The 1/2 inch hose works pretty well with about a 10 mm rope. You probably don't want to be using a fixed line that's much smaller than that anyway. You may want to actually bring your rope into the car parts store, and buy a hose with a diameter just slightly bigger than the rope you think you're going to use.

2. Carefully cut a slit the length of the hose with a utility knife or something similar.

3. Drill out a small hole an inch or so away from one end, and put in a keeper cord of shoelace, 2 mm cord, or some similar material. Remember, everything you take with you climbing needs to have a way to get clipped in.

4. To use, open the slit in the hose, insert your rope, and slide the hose so the middle of it is over the loaded edge. If you want to be extra cautious, you can wrap athletic tape around the hose, as well as a bit on the rope to secure it in place, Alternatively, you can put a prusik knot on the rope above the hose, and clip the prusik to the keeper cord to hold everything in the right spot.

Gates “green stripe” 1/2 inch heater hose

close up of Gates “green stripe” 1/2 inch heater hose

carefully slit it lengthwise . . .

insert your rope. Be sure and drill a small hole AND add a keeper cord to one end.

Rope inside and ready to use.

To really make it secure, you can wrap the whole thing with athletic tape.

Securing yourself near a cliff top

A fatal accident happened at Horsethief Butte Washington in 2009, apparently because climbers were setting top rope anchors in an exposed area without an adequate backup. Let’s learn from this tragedy and never let it happen again.

When setting up a toprope or rappel anchor on a clifftop, a good rule of thumb is always secure yourself if you’re within 2 meters of the edge.

This distance may be greater if the terrain slopes toward the void, there’s loose gravel/stones underfoot, the rock is wet, or other factors.

There’s various ways to secure yourself. One method that uses a minimum of gear is to use your climbing rope, like this:  

1. First, locate or build a secure anchor well back from the cliff edge.  This anchor can be a stout boulder or rock spike, tree, or a constructed gear anchor.

2. Tie one end of your climbing rope to this anchor.  

3. Tie a friction hitch (prusik, klemheist, or autoblock) to the fixed line, and clip the friction hitch to your belay loop with a locking carabiner. (You can use Grigri for this, but they can slide under mild load, so I prefer a friction hitch.)

4. Walk to about 2 meters from the cliff edge, sliding the friction hitch along the rope as you walk. Then, pull up about 3 meters of slack rope, tie a figure eight or overhand on a bight, and clip this with a locking carabiner to your belay loop.  The friction knot allows you to walk out to an exposed area under a self belay. The bight knot backup is there in case the friction hitch fails in any way.  With this simple rig, you can work at the edge of a cliff fully protected from falling.

If you’re building a toprope anchor, after the anchor is built, simply pass the free end of your fixed safety line through the master point carabiner, and drop it to the ground.  Then walk away from the cliff edge (still attached to your safety line) to a secure area, untie the end of the fixed rope, and toss it to the ground. The rope should be through your anchor and both ends should be on the ground, ready to climb.

A report of the Horsethief Butte accident is below.

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From The Columbian newspaper:

Deaths of rock climbers in Gorge blamed on error

Tuesday, May 26 2009

BY JOHN BRANTON

COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER

A state investigation of a rock-climbing accident that claimed the life of a Washougal man and his sister-in-law has determined they fell due to errors in placing metal stoppers in cracks and attaching them to their webbing.

The early afternoon fall on April 5 killed Tony “T.C.” Silva of Washougal and Laura Dyal-Silva of Oregon during a family outing at Horsethief Butte, in Columbia Hills State Park in Klickitat County.

Tony Silva was a popular and well-respected detective with the Gresham, Ore., Police Department who was known for his advanced computer skills and helping other officers.

An investigation revealed that the deaths were accidental and not caused by equipment failure, Lt. Julie Myer of the Washington State Patrol, based in Olympia, said Tuesday.

For such a climb, three wedgelike metal stoppers, wider on top and narrower on bottom, typically would be placed in cracks, Myer said. The climbers would fasten their webbing to cables on the stoppers.

Myer said Dyal-Silva had more training than Tony Silva, who was attempting to lodge the three stoppers.

Tony Silva had successfully placed one stopper and attached it to the climbers’ webbing.

The second stopper had been placed in another crack, but wasn’t attached to the webbing.

The fact that the webbing was all one color, gray, may have caused some confusion about whether the second stopper was attached to it, Myer said.

Tony Silva is believed to have been working on placing the third stopper when something happened, perhaps a slip. At least one witness said Tony Silva fell first, then Dyal-Silva, who was attached to the system with him.

Their webbing was attached to only one stopper, Myer said.

“We know he was connected to one stopper that failed when all their weight got onto it,” Myer said.

They fell about 42 feet.

Dyal-Silva’s husband, Bobby Silva, had been on top of the cliff but went down to get the families’ children out of the sun, Myer said.

Rock climbing takes a lot of training said Myer, herself a climber.

“You have to constantly practice to retain that skill level.”

Two ways to melt snow with solar power

Melting snow for water is a time and fuel consuming part of winter camping and many overnight snow climbs.  If you have a base camp and the sun is out, try passive solar power to get some extra water. You do need a large black garbage bag for this to work, which is something you probably want to have in your pack anyway, because it serves lots of other purposes, like a pack cover, glissade device, and emergency shelter.

Here's two methods to melt snow via solar power.

First, the simplest method, if you have some exposed rocks nearby. Put some snow in a black garbage bag, secure the top, and put the bag on the (somewhat) warm rock. This should melt the snow in an hour or two.

Second, slightly more complicated, works on snow when you don't have any exposed rock.

1. Find a slight downward slope on snow.

2. Make a slight concave surface in the snow, slightly larger than your garbage bag.

3. Lay a sleeping pad on the snow, and put the garbage bag on top of it.

4. Pack some snow around the edges of the pad and bag so it doesn't blow away.

5. Put a small amount snow on the surface of the bag in a shallow layer, and add a picket to make a “V” for the meltwater.

6. Put a cook pot at the bottom underneath to catch the drips. Monitor, and add more snow as needed.

From the always awesome book, “Glacier Mountaineering: An Illustrated Guide to Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue, by Andy Tyson and Mike Clelland.

A good system for cleaning and racking gear

Rather than clipping gear randomly onto your harness when cleaning, have a dedicated system and stick with it. This one works great.

Before the second leaves the belay, they drape two single runners over their shoulders, one on each side. When they clean, all of the protection (cams, stoppers, etc) gets clipped to one side, say the right, and all the quickdraws, runners and extra carabiners get clipped to the left. Then at the next belay, the second can easily lift these slings off of their head and quickly rerack the gear. 

If they keep this pretty organized when they are cleaning, at the belay all they have to do is grab any remaining gear from the leader, and then the second is ready to head out on the next pitch.

Here’s a short video clip by big wall expert and Supertopo founder Chris McNamara taking about this cleaning technique (starts at 1:25).