Alpine Tips
Use the rope to extend your anchor to a cliff edge
You top out on a pitch, and see a perfect tree anchor 10 feet back from the edge. Here's how to quickly rig a stout anchor that will position you in the perfect spot with a ready-made masterpoint to belay or haul.
Scenario: you’ve finished leading a pitch, and find yourself on a big ledge. You see nothing near the edge to use for an anchor, but about 15 feet / 5 meters back from the edge, there’s a nice big tree. You want to build an anchor on the tree, but then belay from the edge of the cliff. Being on the cliff edge lets you see your partner, minimize rope drag, have better belay communication, and who knows, maybe even toss the occasional pebble at them if they’re making it look too easy. =^)
Here’s one of several ways to rig this (and no, you thankfully don't need a heap of 1 inch webbing!) This assumes you have at least 30 feet . 10 meters of rope left after your lead.
Walk over to the tree, put a sling or cordelette around it, clip a locking carabiner or two to the sling, and clip the rope through the carabiner(s). Walk back toward the cliff edge. You’re still on belay the entire time.
(You could skip the sling and carabiner and just walk around the tree, assuming you can easily do this, and the tree is not going to get evil tree sap on your rope. If it’s a conifer tree, a sling might be a better choice.)
When you get close to the edge about where you want to belay, pull up a few feet of slack, and tie an overhand on a bight using BOTH strands of the rope. (This is known in some corners of the climbing world as a Big Honkin’ Knot, or “BHK”.)
Done! 1) You’re fixed to the anchor. 2) it positions you nicely on the edge so you can watch your partner, and 3) it gives you a nice master point from which you can belay your second or set up a hauling system on a big wall. (Note the ATC Guide clipped to the overhand loop, ready to belay up the second.)
What about a more exposed location?
The example above assumes a pretty large, flat ledge that you can't fall off of. If you need to approach something that is maybe downward sloping, loose rocks etc. with more chance of a potential fall, here are a couple of options.
Rigging option #1: Put a Munter hitch on the anchor, and sort of belay yourself as you walk to the edge (while remaining on belay from your partner the entire time.)
Rigging option #2: Back yourself up with a friction hitch on the backside of your clove hitch. (This might sound like a lot of fussy steps, but it's quite simple.)
Build your anchor on the tree.
Estimate how far you want to stand from the tree; in this case let's say it's 5 meters.
Pull up about 7 meters of rope.
Tie a clove hitch onto the anchor. You are now secure to the anchor, with 7 meters of rope between you and the tree.
Tie a friction hitch onto the backside of your clove hitch and clip the friction hitch to your belay loop with a locker.
Carefully walk to your chosen belay spot, sliding the friction hitch along the rope.
With the extra 2 meters of rope, tie a butterfly above you. Clip your belay device to this, pull up the slack rope, put your partner on belay.
If you need to fine-tune your position by shortening the rope a bit, you can tie an overhand on a bight to take up some of the extra rope, then remove the friction hitch.
One caution, because of the dynamic rope, keep in mind that if your second takes a big fall, the rope might stretch enough to potentially pull you over the edge. Try to keep a tight rope on your second when belaying, use an auto locking belay device such as a Black Diamond ATC guide, and try to brace your feet a bit on something if possible.
One other possible enhancement: If you have any concern about your ropes running over a sharp edge, or rockfall onto them, or if they might get damaged in anyway, or if redundancy simply gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, you could tie an overhand on a bight and clip it to the anchor point, giving you two redundant strands.
Here's a short Instagram video from Swedish guide Nikki Hammarstrom showing how it's done. (Note the pine tree - if there is any visible sap on it it's probably better to use a sling rather than your rope.)
Here’s a related technique that's more suitable when using double ropes. Put both strands of rope through the anchor, walk back to the edge, tie a double overhand loop for the belay, tie another a double overhand loop and clip it to your harness. See photo below, contributed by Alex Kostadinov; thanks Alex!
photo: Alex kostadinov
A reader mentioned to me that there is an excellent article about this at climbing.com, called “belay extensions.” Read it here.
This technique can also be used for big wall climbing, to rig a hauling a point to minimize friction.
True life story: my partner and I had topped out on The Prow, a classic big wall route in Yosemite. The last pitch concluded in a series of fourth class ledges. We set up our anchor on a tree above the ledges that made our hauling absolutely miserable from all the extra friction. Following us on the route were a team of two New Zealand mountain guides. Their leader finished, went to a nearby tree, rigged the anchor exactly as shown above, walked back down to a low-friction place to haul, and set up his hauling system directly on the overhand loop. He got his bag to the top with minimal cursing and MUCH faster than we did. Lesson learned!
The "Voodoo Hitch" - a magic tensioning hitch
Part tensioning hitch, part rope sorcery. Plus, it has a great name. You don't need to learn the “voodoo hitch”, but you should. Tie it 10 times, you still probably won't figure out how it works.
Let's start with a little honest disclaimer right off the top: This bit of rope wizardry is probably not something you will use in very many climbing situations. However, if you’re an aficionado of #CraftyRopeTricks, well, this is one of the craftiest you’ll see! It's halfway between a knot and a magic trick. The day I learned it, I tied it a dozen times and was still scratching my head as to how it works.
The voodoo hitch is a way to add a moderate amount of easily adjustable tension to a fixed rope. (It's somewhat related to the the trucker’s hitch, an extremely useful knot that just about every outdoors person should know. Here's a nice short video that shows how to tie a trucker’s hitch.)
The voodoo hitch is known by a few different names. Some call it the rather boring “Transport hitch”, others the “PM hitch”, which stands for “Pure Magic”. (I've even heard it referred to as the WTF hitch. =^) The way I learned it is the “voodoo hitch”. You'll learn why it's called a voodoo hitch after you tied a few times and see how it miraculously holds tension when it sure likes like it wouldn’t.
Like the trucker’s hitch, the Voodoo creates a 3 :1 theoretical mechanical advantage - you need to pull 3 meters of rope through the system to move the load 1 meter. But, because of all the carabiners adding friction, the real world mechanical advantage he's pretty much 1:1.
Just get a climbing rope and a few carabiners and try out this rope sorcery. It's cool, magic, and fun.
Here’s what's nifty about the voodoo hitch (and how it differs from the trucker’s hitch:)
You can fine-tune the tension on the rope without untying and re-tying the knot.
There's no lock off half hitch required, the voodoo just magically holds tension by itself.
A few notes:
I was taught this knot in a canyoneering class using all clove hitches. Clove hitches work, but there are several other knots work fine too, such as a butterfly or figure 8 on a bight. I’m liking the butterfly knot, because it's easy to untie after it's been loaded.
You can use any kind of carabiners for this: lockers, non-lockers, large belay lockers or tiny wiregates.
You can use pulleys to make tensioning the system a bit easier, but don't use them everywhere. Friction holds the whole thing together, see below. If you use pulleys at every redirect point, it fails.
How does it work? Opposing tension, or friction, or voodoo, or magic, or something? A clever Alpinesavvy fan on Instagram (@govanathon) shared this: “3 stands on one side of the sliding carabiner, 2 stands on the other side. Moving one way lengthens 3 while shortening 2 so net tension increases. Moving the other way lengthens 2 while shortening 3 so net tension decreases. Friction on at least 1 redirect point is necessary to hold the tension or the rope will just feed through the system and loosen.”
Here’s a good article on the Voodoo hitch, along with this nice graphic. (Note, the end of the rope is fixed at point A.)
As with pretty much anything related to learning knots, this is a better show than a tell. Check out this short (2:20) video that shows you exactly how to tie it.
Finally, if you really want to nerd out on the voodoo hitch, here is a deep-dive video from my pal Ryan at HowNOT2.com.
The “Snap Bowline” - a very crafty knot
The bowline can be a helpful knot for climbers to fix a rope around a tree or boulder. But, many people it tricky; the “rabbit coming out of the hole and running around the tree” thing is not as easy as it might sound. Check out the “snap bowline”, where a slip knot and little bit of rope sorcery semi-magically cause a completed bowline to “snap” into place.
Note: when used in climbing applications, the “simple” bowline as shown below in the photos is NOT considered safe unless the tail is backed up in some way. This is typically done with a barrel or overhand knot in the tail. (Having said that, knowing how to tie a bowline is helpful in many different non-climbing applications, even the “simple” version shown here, so it's still a great knot for the tool kit.)
If you want a deep dive into proper application of knots, the Australian Professional Association of Climbing Instructors (PACI) website is a great place to start.
Ah yes, the bowline knot. A favorite of sailors, Boy Scouts, and sometimes climbers, commonly used to tie the free end of the rope around a boulder or tree as a fixed line, or possibly stringing up a tarp.
However, for some reason, this knot is deceptively difficult for many people to tie correctly. (I’ve seen otherwise very experienced climbers screw this knot up on many occasions.)
Many people seem able to tie it properly in a somewhat controlled setting, like practicing it around a table leg. But put them on the other side of the rope, or make them tie it facing a different direction than usual, or some other minor switcheroo, and “knot dyslexia” seems to set in. And, to be honest, I’ve experienced this myself a few times.
Well, there’s a very cool way to tie a bowline that seems to solve all these issues. It’s fast, reasonably idiot proof, and most people find it much easier than the old-school “rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree and back into the hole” method. And, as with some of the best rope techniques, and there is a bit of rope magic happening that would make you blink and say “Dang, did I just really see that?!”
Pass the end of the rope around your anchor object, here a post.
2) Make a slipknot.
3) Pass the end of the rope through the loop of the slipknot. (Keep the slip knot and loop fairly loose, as you see here.)
4) Tighten the slipknot. It will invert and make a “snap”, then you should magically have a bowline. (Note, for climbing, you need to tie this with a longer tail of a foot or so, so you'd have enough rope to tie a proper backup knot in the tail. But for setting up a tarp, this should be fine)
Yes, you need to try this a few times at half speed to see this sorcery for yourself, it really is sort of a magic trick!
Note: depending on how you feed the free end through the slipknot, the final version of your bowline could be in one of two configurations.
One, you may end up with the free end inside of the loop (as we see above) which is the standard garden-variety bowline. Or, you may end up with the free end outside of the loop, which is known in some circles as a “cowboy bowline.” Even thought knot-nerds love to argue about it, one is not conclusively stronger / better / preferable to the other, so it appears not to really matter which way the tail ends up. You can read more on this discussion here.
“Standard” bowline on left, “cowboy” bowline on right.
As we like to say at Alpine Savvy, most any sort of hands on skill like learning a knot is a better show than a tell.
Here’s a short video that shows you how to do it. First example is around your waist, second example is around a tree. (There's probably some crazy rescue scenario that I hope never to be involved in that might require someone lowering a rope down, and me tying it around my waist like this. Unlikely to ever need it, but fun to practice!)
Finally, here’s an example of why you want to dress your knots, use a backup, and avoid cross loading a bowline. (Yes, this is a large diameter rope, and yes, it’s tied too loosely and not dressed, but it's still an interesting demonstration.)
"Webbing knotcraft" video from canyoneer Rich Carlson
Every climber knows how to tie a water knot in webbing. But, there is a lot more you can do with a length of webbing, and canyoneers know all the tricks. Check out this video by canyoneering expert Rich Carlson to learn a few of them.
Connect with canyoneering expert Rich Carlson on his website, Canyons & Crags, and his great Youtube Channel
Sure, you know how to tie a water knot. But there's a lot more you can do with webbing, and canyoneering folks are experts at webbing related Crafty Rope Tricks (CRTs).
Webbing tends to be 1” for canyoneering, but climbers who favor the lighter 11/16” can do all the same rigging. See more climbing gear strength ratings here.
1” webbing = about 18kN
11/16” webbing = about 13kN
Alpine climbers often find that having a few 9 foot long tied runners with tubular webbing can be handy. You can use them as a standard double length runner, or use them for many of the “knot craft” techniques shown below. Read more on that here.
Some crafty rigging you can do with tubular webbing (all shown in the video below:)
When tying a water knot, what's the minimum recommended length of the tails? What's a quick way to check this when you’re tying it?
Do you know how to tie a re-threaded overhand knot in webbing around an object like a tree trunk?
If you basket hitch webbing around a tree, what are the downsides of tying an overhand knot at the master point?
Tying a knot in webbing may weaken the webbing by about 1/3. If you wanted to retain more strength, how can you position a knot (on say a tree) to do this?
What’s a “wrap 2, pull 1” anchor? What are some cases when you might want to use this?
Is a “wrap 2, pull 1” anchor redundant? (Answer, no.) How can you tie it to make it redundant?
How do you use a Frost knot to set up a courtesy anchor?
You get the idea. There’s lots of Crafty Rope Tricks beyond the water knot!
See an excellent video here by canyoneering expert Rich Carlson covers these tips and more.
Stuck rappel ropes - use brains, then brawn
One of the happiest moments in climbing is seeing your rappel rope drop freely through the sky down to you. And one of the worst moments is when it doesn’t! Here are a series of steps to consider when you have a stuck rappel rope, and some tips to avoid the problem.
You’re pulling the ropes after a rappel, on the ground and dreaming of that post climb pizza and malted beverage, and . . . “#$%^(*&^&%!!!”, the rope is stuck! What are your options? Before you try the advanced (and scary) maneuver of ascending the ropes to free them, try everything you can from below first. There’s two basic approaches: finesse and brute strength. Here’s a few tricks:
Examine the situation before taking any action. Some stuck ropes come free with finesse, some with brute strength. Generally, try finesse first, as pulling hard too early can make a bad situation worse. Pulling hard can lodge it further in a crack, damage your rope on a sharp edge, and possibly pull down rocks. That's why it's the second choice.
If you’re on the ground, try walking back from the cliff or far to one side and pulling from a different angle.
Sneaky Finesse “Flick” Trick: If you suspect the rope might be stuck in a crack or around a horn or something like that, try this Crafty Rope Trick (CRT): Clove hitch the rope to the end of a stick, trekking pole, ice axe, etc, the longer the better. This gives your rope “flick” a larger diameter and can be a lot more effective in freeing it from a small obstruction, If it’s just hung up on a small knob, this often does the trick.
Rubber band trick: You and your partner grab opposite ends of the ropes and pull, hard. One of you keeps the “pull” pressure on, while the other suddenly releases her end. The “rubber band” effect of one end of your dynamic rope “springing” upwards often will get a stubborn rope moving. This also works with a Grigri.
Brute force trick: After you try the above with no luck, time for the muscle. Tie a foot loop and stand/jump on it. One or more people can put the rope through a prusik loop or belay device, jump upwards and lock off on the rope, adding full or multiple body weight. (If you’re off the ground, be sure you’re safely anchored for this.) The next step beyond this is to maybe build a 3:1 mechanical advantage system to try to apply some serious force to the rope.
If it doesn’t come loose after this, you may be faced with one of the scariest situations in climbing, reascending a stuck rappel rope. Hopefully you’re never in this situation, it’s gonna suck. If you still have both ends of the rope, this is a lot safer, because you know the rope is still running through your anchor. Put a couple of prusiks on both strands and get busy.
If you have a Grigri, it might be faster to use that and a foot sling to ascend the rope, provided you fix the other strand to the lower anchor. Learn how to do that here.
If you only have one end of the rope, you’ve hopefully done the 3:1 pull and it still hasn’t come loose. That can give you a little peace of mind that your bodyweight carefully ascending the rope is probably not going to pull it off either. There are various ways to safeguard this. Here’s one: Tie in to the bottom end of the rope, and build an anchor set for an upward pull. Ascend the rope with a prusik and place gear as you can, clipping the rope below your prusik. If the upper stuck section comes free, you take a leader fall onto your prusik and your highest piece of gear. (This approach assumes you can place gear.)
But it’s still going to suck. Good luck.
Of course, preventing the problem in the first place is far preferable to solving it later. Here are some tips to avoid getting your rope stuck.
If you’re doing a two rope rappel, be aware of potential obstacles near your anchor where the knot can get stuck. Use this Crafty Rope Trick (CRT ) to move the knot past the obstruction.
Before you do your pull, carefully look at the terrain above you and decide which strand you should pull to keep the falling rope away from potential obstacles. (if there is an obstacle on the right as you look up, pull the left strand to hopefully keep the rope away from it as it falls.)
If you're doing a double rope rappel, try to plan the previous step from above. Look down the route. If you see an obstacle on the rappeller’s right looking down, then consider pulling the knot on rappeller’s left. Doing this will hopefully help the rope drop away from the obstacle.
If you have a short rappel and a long rope, considering pulling some of the rope through the anchor before the last person rappels.
Before the last person heads down, the lower person should do a test pull by moving the rope side to side, and see that it moves freely. (Yes, this step can be difficult if the upper person has pre-rigged their rappel, which is about the only downside to pre-rigging.)
If the cliff is steep, giving your rope a flick through the anchors right as the top passes through can help send the end further out into space.
If the cliff is lower angle, it might work better to NOT flick the rope, and let it slither down under its own weight. Doing this minimizes making large rope loops that may want to catch on rock features.
In general, it's better to do more short rappels than fewer longer rappels if you’re in terrain (trees, shrubs, blocky alpine rock, vertical cracks) where the chances of a stuck rope are high.
Debrief after your climb
Every trip, summit or not, is an opportunity to reflect, learn and improve. The best way to do this is with an honest talk / debrief session with your partner(s) ASAP after your climb.
Treat every climb, summit or not, as a learning experience to analyze what you did and to improve your performance next time you’re out. A great way to do this: a post climb “debrief” talk with your team (even if that’s just you and one partner). On the car ride home, the hike out, or at dinner heading home, when details are fresh in your mind, is a great time to discuss things like:
Time - How long did the climb take? Was this faster or slower than what you planned for? Look at the segments of your climb (approach, climb, descent, hike out); Were your estimated times close for each of those? What factors contributed to the overall pace/speed of the team? (If you hit your planned time within plus or minus one hour for each day, you can pat yourself on the back for good planning.)
Technical aspects - What was the technical crux of the route? Was the entire team prepared for it? Were there any aspects that could be improved to be faster or safer next time? (Think simul climbing, downclimbing rather than rapping, rope management, order of team members.)
Routefinding - Was your pre trip route planning adequate? Were you ever “lost?” Did you camp in the best spot, or did you notice a better place (and mark it with GPS or on the map for next time?) Did you take the best line, for ascent and descent? Did you take adequate photos or notes so you remember the details? Did you record a GPS track? Can you draw your route and save it in CalTopo, for future reference or to share with someone else?
Gear and food - Was the gear you brought suitable? Did you have too much or not enough or anything? (rock pro, snow pro, ropes . . . ) What pro did you bring that you did not use? Was your food sufficient and tasty?
The main question: What would I do differently next time?
Now, when you get home, if you write these details in your ongoing climb journal, you’ll really have a good record of the trip that you can learn from yourself, or pass onto someone else when they try the route. (The benefits of keeping a climb journal are covered in another Tip coming soon.)
Make a regular habit out of reviewing your climb journal, and look for repeating patterns. Are you consistently making similar “mistakes”? (For me, this is typically forgetting the lip balm and bringing a bit too much food.)
Hey, don’t just take my word for it. Expert alpinist Steve House made a video on the topic, as part of his excellent five part “Alpine Principles video series on YouTube, highly recommended. Check it out below.
Adrenaline induced tunnel vision
A normal response of your body to adrenaline is to narrow your visual focus. Generally, this is NOT helpful when you’re climbing. Read a short cautionary tale, and some simple things you can do to mitigate this.
It was my first weekend of learning to trad climb with the rock climbing class of my local climbing club. I was paired up with Eugene, a tall, lanky Brit with a quick smile and a sharp wit. I excitedly started up the moderate two pitch climb, and soon got to an obvious large belay ledge.
However, there was one big problem: the only available crack was flaring, awkward, and did not want to take any of my gear. After futzing with the pro for about 10 minutes and getting in a few marginal pieces, I spiderwebbed them together with a tangle of slings, clipped in with my rope, and called down.
“Hey Eugene”, I stammered, “Belay is on, but . . . ”, I paused, “um . . . don’t fall.”
Eugene hollered up, “Well, that’s not what I want to hear before I start climbing, but I’ll take your advice!”
A couple minutes later he arrived at the ledge. He stood looking at my sorry excuse for an anchor for a few seconds, and then cracked a wry smile.
“Well”, he said, “I have two things to say. One, you’re right, this anchor is absolute crap, and I'm glad I didn't fall on it. And number two, the bolted anchor that you SHOULD have used is right up there.” He turned and pointed upward about 15 more feet to my right, where I could now clearly see two shiny new bolts.
Yes, this was without question the low point of my anchor building career.
There are many lessons in this, but the one that stayed with me, and which is applicable in many other climbing situations, is the tunnel vision inducing effects of adrenaline.
It was one of the first times I had ever led on trad gear, and an onsight to boot. I was pumped. Adrenaline was circulating, and it had a variety of interesting effects. (One of them is shutting down your kidneys and intestines; this is a reason why a lot of climbers find that they can go the whole day without peeing, and are often not hungry for lunch). The other, more relevant here, is tunnel vision. This is a normal physiological response to a “flight or fight” type situation, hardwired into our body through human evolution.
For our long-ago ancestors on the African savanna being stalked by a hungry predator, that situation demanded your complete focus of vision, to the exclusion of anything other than that lion in the grass. Adrenaline induced tunnel vision is may helpful to avoid a hungry lion, but it's probably not going to be your friend when you’re climbing.
So, are you feeling pumped and excited? When you’re on lead and looking to place some good gear, or looking for anchor options (at what may or may not be the belay ledge), first do two things.
One, take a few deep breaths. Deep breathing (ideally in through your nose) will help calm your body, reduce your adrenaline load, and help lessen your tunnel vision.
Two, expand the “tunnel vision” look around. Many more options may appear. Are you crack climbing, and starting to get a little pumped? Look side to side, you might well find a face hold or a place to stem to grab a rest. Did you finish leading your pitch, you're at the ledge, and need to build a gear anchor? First, expand your vision, look around, and survey ALL your options. You may well find better gear placements other than what's in a one meter cone right in front of your nose.
Oh, and have a look at the route topo before you leave the ground. That always helps too. =^)
Great snow climbing tutorial from the AAC
Want to learn some snow climbing tips from the guy who founded the American Alpine Institute and former president of the American American Guide Association (AMGA)? We thought so. While these are some great tips for beginners, even you crafty veterans may learn a few new things.
You know how the biography and qualifications of an author often appears at the end of an article? Well, here’s a link to a great tutorial on basic snow climbing techniques from the American Alpine Club (AAC), and I’ll mention the authors right here, up front - Dunham Gooding and Jason Martin. (Bold text mine.)
Dunham Gooding founded the American Alpine Institute in 1975 and has taught courses and guided expeditions in the Cascades, Canada, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Patagonia. He has served as chairman of the National Summit Committee on Mountain Rescue, president of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA), and president of the Outdoor Industry Association.
Jason D. Martin is the director of operations and a senior guide at the American Alpine Institute. He is on the board of directors of the AMGA and has written two guidebooks and co-authored Rock Climbing: The AMGA Single Pitch Manual.
So yeah, If you're going to get climbing advice, these are two pretty good guys to listen to.
This article is about a 10 minute read, and covers just about all of the basics of snow climbing. If you’re a beginner climber, this is an excellent place to start. Even if you've been in the game a while, you may learn a few things. Highly recommended.
A simple way to carry an injured patient
Here’s a slick way to quickly rig a 2 person carry / evacuation for a patient with minor injuries in the backcountry.
This tip is from the excellent MedWild YouTube channel. Recommended!
If you have to deal with a minor injury in the backcountry, the patient may need to be carried out. If there’s at least two people to share the load and some basic equipment, here is a quick and easy way to rig a carry.
You need:
at least 2 rescuers
2 backpacks
trekking poles, raft paddles, sturdy stick (or similar item)
padding (sleeping pad)
Note: this is for someone with minor injuries, such as a sprained ankle, twisted knee, altitude illness, dehydration, etc.
Here’s a screen grab from the video to give you a quick idea of how it works. Rescuers are wearing backpacks, sticks/poles/raft paddles go on top of the pack waist belts, patient sits on those between the rescuers.
image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMeqn3P3WGc
Check out the short (4:16) video for the method.
“Decision making matrix” for alpine climbing
Despite access to solid weather forecasts, deciding to continue on a climb or bail is often a challenging and subjective decision. The climbing rangers at Mt. Rainier National Park made a clever decision matrix to help remove some emotion from this important choice.
image credit: Walter Siegmund, via Wikimedia Commons
We all have access to detailed and generally very accurate weather forecasts before we head to the mountains. How can you use this information to help decide if you're going to leave town or not?
When on a climb, the decision to continue up or head down is often a difficult, subjective and emotional choice. How can you add some objectivity into the process?
The decision / weather matrix below is from the excellent mini route descriptions published by the Mt. Rainier climbing rangers / National Park Service. (Anyone climbing the more popular routes on Rainier would benefit from these route descriptions. Read more about them at this post.)
And, as mentioned again below, “The matrix was created with input from guides and rangers, and represents cumulative knowledge of thousands of ascents” so this is a well tested tool.
It's pretty simple. Ideally in town before you leave, look at four different weather variables in three different categories, assign them a number, and add everything up. You’ll come up with a point value between 4 and 12. Then, plug that into the bottom graphic, and you’ll land in one of three categories appropriate for your team’s skill level - green, yellow, or red. Use that to guide your decision.
Ideally this happens in town before you leave. If the weather is unexpectedly changing quickly on your climb, you can use this while en route.
While intended for climbing on Rainier, a similar decision matrix may well be useful on other mountains. Is this a set-in-stone rule for every trip? No. But, it can be a useful tool to add some objectivity into an often difficult process. Also, it does not cover avalanche conditions. That's another important and often complex factor to consider in trip planning.
(Personally, I know I'm not going to remember all this, so I made a few color photocopies on waterproof paper and have one in the first aid kit and a PDF saved onto my phone. Heck, I may even tape one inside my helmet.)
Here’s a link to a PDF so you can easily print one yourself.
Here’s a description of the weather matrix directly from the climbing guide:
“To assist in making a decision if one should climb based on the weather forecast, we have created this matrix. This Go/ No Go Matrix only takes weather into account for a given team experience level. Other factors such as avalanche conditions, equipment issues, other team dynamics, etc., need to be evaluated as well. The actual number output from the matrix can be a rough guide, but the important part of the exercise is to discuss conditions with your team and arrive at a consensus as to what the experience level of your team is and determine how prepared you are to deal with the forecasted weather. As always, one should choose to turn back if the weather looks to be deteriorating. The matrix was created with input from guides and rangers, and represents cumulative knowledge of thousands of ascents.
Start by going down the gray column on the left. First assess the wind component at either 1, 2, or 3. Then proceed to the precipitation component, add 1,2, or 4 to your running total. Continue down the list, summing all the factors from the four rows. Then place your score in the evaluator tool relative to your team’s experience level. You can see from the below matrix that precipitation and visibility can be showstoppers, certainly on a summit climb, but even for a trip to Camp Muir.
On the lower mountain below 10,000 feet, these weather factors can often be mitigated by equipment and exceptional experience, however, there are far narrower margins of error on the upper mountain for everyone. With weather and navigational concerns, it can become all but impossible to reconnoiter your way and survive.”
Ranger-written "route guides" for Rainier
The Mt. Rainier climbing rangers have written an excellent series of guides for the most popular routes. which have a lot more detail and quality than you might expect. Definitely recommended reading if you are planning a Rainier climb.
The hard-working and highly skilled climbing rangers at Mt. Rainier National Park maintain a great blog on current route conditions.
Now, they've taken things a step further, writing essentially mini guidebooks on four of the most popular routes - Disappointment Cleaver, the Emmons-Winthrop Glacier, the Kautz Glacier, and the Liberty Ridge routes. They have the somewhat pedestrian name of “In Depth Route Descriptions”, and each one is between 20 and 30 pages.
Every climber attempting one of these Rainier routes will benefit by having a close look at these documents.
(And, in case the National Park Service ever decides to take down these route guides, I downloaded the PDFs, save them to a Google Drive, and you can see the same files here as well.)
Now, to be honest, my expectations for these descriptions were pretty low before I started to read them. We’ve all seen the plain vanilla climbing advice from government entities before, “Be sure you have adequate fitness, take the 10 essentials, leave no trace”, blah blah blah. But, I was pleasantly surprised at the level of quality writing and helpful information in these descriptions.
You’ll see:
detailed climbing and weather stats
case histories of Search and Rescue (SAR) missions
very detailed route descriptions
gear list
and great graphics! Here are a few examples from the Disappointment Cleaver route description.
All images below are from: http://mountrainierclimbing.blogspot.com/2017/03/in-depth-route-descriptions.html
How about a three-year average of weekly distribution of climbers?
Or maybe a chart of average and extreme summit temperatures during climbing season?
or maybe a “go, no-go” decision matrix, a more objective way to make choices on the mountain:
You get the idea. Lots of solid information that will be a real benefit to most climbers. Check it out, and be thankful for the professional Rainier climbing rangers that are trying to help you have the best trip possible.
Short rappel? Pull some rope first
Often in alpine climbing, making shorter rappels can minimize the chance of your rope getting hung up. Here's a trick to mitigate that problem even further.
Say you have multiple raps to get down a lower angle, blocky, chossy alpine route, complete with a few small trees and shrubs - prime rope eating terrain. Even though you have a 60 meter rope, you decide to keep the rappels short, because you’re concerned about rope induced rock fall, lots of friction making for a strenuous pull, or the rope getting stuck. (Yep, you might make an extra rappel or two, but that is far preferable to having a stuck rope.)
Crafty Rope Trick (CRT): If you have plenty of rope at the new stance, pull down as much rope as you can BEFORE the final person goes on rappel.
This can reduce the chances for a hangup or rockfall when the rope is pulled, because there’s less rope going over blocks, into cracks, and around shrubs that may get caught. If the rope does get caught when it's being shortened, the last person on rappel can fix it when they head down.
The last rappeller can help pull rope to shorten the strands. (The person at the lower anchor should of course have control of both ends of the rope so one end does not get pulled out of reach.)
This tip is from “The Mountaineering Handbook”, by Craig Connally
Learn the "thermal burrito" for patient packaging
To treat hypothermia, or to keep a patient with another injury (hopefully) warm dry and comfortable when it's cold in the backcountry, the “thermal burrito” technique works great.
This tip and diagram comes partially from the American Alpine Institute blog. It was written by Jason Martin, AMGA Certified Rock and Alpine Guide, and Executive Director of the American Alpine institute, or AAI. The AAI blog has lots of solid backcountry tips, check it out.
One thing you can count on with most backcountry medical emergencies: you’re far away from help, and any outside assistance is likely to take a LOT longer to arrive than you think.
So after the initial treatment of your patient, you need to keep them as dry, warm, and comfortable as possible, because you’re probably in for a long wait. Provided you have some basic gear with you, an excellent way to do this is with the “thermal burrito”. (This technique has several names, but thermal burrito is by far the catchiest. =^)
In addition to basic patient comfort, this is also a good treatment for hypothermia. If you're doing this just to warm someone up, you probably don't need the rope wrap as shown in the video.
If treating for hypothermia, the patient's clothing should be removed if it's wet, and ideally replaced with dry clothing.
If treating for some kind of injury, it's important to maintain access to the injured area so you can continually check the affected body parts, so don't wrap them up so tight that it's difficult to remove the packaging.
Good rule of thumb in wilderness medicine: use the patient’s gear when possible. (If your patient is going to be evacuated by any sort of ground rescue or helicopter, the chances of you ever seeing that equipment again are pretty low, so keep that in mind when you offer your sleeping bag. =^)
Here's a nice article from the American Alpine Institute blog that discusses this technique. Direct quote and image from the article:
Lay out a tarp or ground cloth on the ground.
Place 1 or 2 pads down on top of the tarp. Two pads are always better than one.
Stack three sleeping bags on top of the pads.
Place the victim inside the sleeping bag in the middle.
Wrap the victim in the tarp.
If treating for hyperthermia, provide the victim with hot water bottles. These should be placed under the arms and at the crotch. Additional bottles may be held or placed at the victim's feet.
And, here's a video that discusses basically the same technique, with the addition of creating a daisy chained climbing rope around the patient. If you think you may have to transport your patient, even for a short distance, this is a nice feature to have.
Note the addition of trekking poles underneath the patient, this can give some rigidity to the rope litter if you need to carry it.
And finally, here’s a longer video from the excellent WildMed youtube channel, where they call it a “Cocoon Wrap”. They describe in detail a few extra components, such as the importance of padding, ways to keep the patient dry, and how to lay out the rope.
How to warm fingers and prevent frostbite
Cold fingers. Everyone has to deal with them. Something as simple as “windmilling” your arms can help a lot.
Cold hands are something everyone has endured. (And if you have Raynoud’s syndrome, where the smaller arteries that supply blood to the skin constrict excessively in response to cold, this can be especially problematic.)
Here's a solution - “windmill” your arms. The centrifugal force from doing this moves blood into your fingers and hands.
(Conversely, a lot of people will blow into their gloves, thinking the warmth from their breath will help warm up their hands. It actually has the opposite effect, because the water vapor from your breath chills your hands even further.)
Check out the short video below from the excellent MedWild YouTube channel.
Measure map distance with a twig
Want to quickly measure straight-line distance between points on your map? Just take a twig, and break it to match a mile or kilometer on your map’s scale bar.
Here’s an easy navigation trick to quickly estimate straight line distance between points on a map. This works for maps at any scale, provided you have a scale bar, which most maps should have.
Take a twig and break it to match a convenient distance on the scale bar on your map. For many maps, that might be 1 mile or kilometer. Here it's 2 miles. (Often the mile and km scale bars look very similar and are right next to each other. Be sure you’re using the correct one.)
Now, put your twig on the map to get a quick estimation of straight line distance between real world points. To measure longer distances, “leapfrog” the twig between points.
To measure a curving distance like a trail, road or river, it’s better to use the “finger” scale, learn how to do that here.
Great source for wilderness medicine supplies
Finding high quality, fairly priced, and low quantity supplies for a wilderness first aid kit can be tough. Good news: the folks at WildMedcenter.com have you covered. If you want to build up a 1st aid kit from scratch or resupply an existing kit, this is a great place to start.
If you've ever taken a wilderness first aid class, you learn pretty quickly that the standard prepackaged off-the-shelf first aid kit is pretty useless for much more than a tiny cut on your finger and a headache. If you want quality supplies that can treat more serious injuries, you have to mostly build up your own kit from scratch. But then the question becomes, where can you find fairly priced, small quantities of good quality supplies? (Hint, not at Walgreens.)
Well, here’s one good option - WildMedcenter.com. This is a great online store for replenishing or stocking up your first aid kit with quality supplies. One thing that's especially nice is you can buy small quantities of things, rather than say a 10 pack of expensive dressings or a huge bottle of tincture of benzoin that you are unlikely to ever use up.
They also make very high-quality zippered first aid kits in several different sizes, and have a complete checklist of how to stock each one with the recommended supplies.
I recently went through my own first aid kit, tossed a bunch of outdated or not very useful items, and then spend about $20 restocking from this web store with proper supplies. Now my kit’s ready to go and I’m much better prepared.
Here are some examples of a few goodies from their web store.
For starters, how about four different sizes of sturdy first aid kits, sewn in the USA?
(Note, bottles and supplies not included.)
Tegaderm microfilm transparent bandages? Yes please. (These bandages are quite amazing, if you have not heard of them.) You can buy them individually, in two sizes, starting at $2 each.
How about lots of handy different sized Nalgene containers for storing just about anything in your kit?
(Tip - A pair of examination gloves or a roll of 2 inch gauze fits perfectly in the 50 mL snap top vial.)
Every kit should have a few a few extra large safety pins. No need to go to the fabric store, get a packet of 4 pins here.
Dealing with a shoulder dislocation
If you like to adventure in the outdoors, odds are pretty high that sometime you're going to have to deal with a dislocated shoulder, yours or someone else's. Knowing the proper sequence of diagnosing, examining, and reducing, can be a huge help, especially in a remote setting. Learn how to do it here.
Face planting off a mountain bike?
Taking a hard fall while skiing or snowboarding?
Getting your shoulder yanked kayaking on a whitewater river?
Feet blowing off when crack climbing or ice climbing, and your weight falling onto your well buried ice tool or thumb down hand jam?
Shoulder getting pulled when trying to self arrest with an ice axe?
These are all consequences of having fun in the mountains, and they are also all things that can easily lead to a dislocated shoulder. Chances are pretty high that sometime in your outdoor career you're going to have to deal with one, either yours or somebody else's. (And yes, I have some personal experience with number three and four listed above!)
Knowing how to diagnose, examine, reduce, and splint this injury can be extremely important in the backcountry, taking a situation from an “immediate evacuation” to “great relief and minor pain” in literally a few minutes. I think this is something every backcountry user should be familiar with, but often it’s not taught in entry level wilderness first aid classes.
Well good news, because this terrific video series from the MedWild YouTube channel walks you through every step. (The splinting technique shown in the last video is especially clever.)
There are several field techniques that work to reduce a dislocated shoulder. The one shown below is simple and effective.
Note that the examination portion of this process is very important, as is the mechanism of injury (MOI).
If the MOI involves a traumatic sort of fall, such as bike crash, there's a chance that there can be some broken bone involved, which can complicate reducing the shoulder. This is mentioned in video number three. If you do have an impact sort of injury and possible broken shoulder, it might be best to evacuate and not reduce the shoulder, because reducing the broken shoulder over a small chip of bone could cause problems. This is why, in a hospital setting, an X-ray is almost always done before a dislocated shoulder is reduced, to determine if it's a shoulder fracture, dislocation or hopefully not both.
However, if the injury comes from something less impactful, like big whitewater pulling your kayak paddle, or crack climbing with your hand thumb down and having your feet blow out, (me on both), it's probable that there is no underlying bone chips or other damage, and a simple reduction technique as shown in this video is going to solve your problem quickly.
Also, there is a possibility for nerves to be compromised in a shoulder dislocation. As mentioned in video number two, an important part of the patient exam is testing for good CSM (Circulation, Sensation, and Movement). This means a good pulse at the wrist of the affected arm, proper blood perfusion to all of the fingers, and for good sensation and movement in all of the fingers.
And, here’s a direct quote from the video producers: “The distal neurological exam is mostly done to protect yourself from being blamed for any neurovascular compromise following the reduction. If you speak with the patient about it prior, or preferentially document it, there will be no question that any deficit was due to the injury and not the reduction. Neruovascular injury is virtually always due to the traumatic injury itself and not the reduction procedure.”
The big question is: how close are you to a medical facility? If you can protect the injured shoulder as best you can and be in a medical facility within a few hours, it might be best to walk out and have them take care of it. But, if you're in a more remote location, knowing these proper steps could really help you out.
Watch these videos carefully, learn the steps, and take a wilderness medicine class.
Video 1 - Shoulder dislocations, field diagnosis (2:17)
Video 2 - Dislocated shoulder exam (2:25)
Video 3 - How to reduce a dislocated shoulder (5:07)
Video 4 - shoulder splinting (2:54)
Why “triangulation” to get unlost may be a bad idea
“Triangulation”, espoused In just about every navigation book, is a method of using a map and compass together to theoretically get yourself unlost in the backcountry. What the books fail to mention is that it only works in extremely favorable circumstances, and should not be relied upon to stay found. Learn the three cases where triangulation fails.
Many navigation books, videos and classes teach a slick-sounding technique known as “triangulation" to locate your position on a map if you’re lost. (Technically speaking, the proper term is “resection”, but triangulation is more commonly used in many books, so we're going to go with that.)
In theory, it works like this:
From your position, you take a compass bearing on two or more visible landmarks, which you can recognize and locate on your map. If you then plot these bearings correctly onto your map, the intersection of the lines is your approximate position.
This sounds great practicing on your cozy kitchen table. But, for triangulation/resection to work in the real world, you need THREE variables to ALL line up in your favor.
Here are those three, and some reasons why this technique often fails in practice.
It requires that you can actually see two or more features on which to take a bearing. If you’re lost in heavy tree cover, at night or in low visibility, you’re out of luck.
It requires that can match the feature you see in the field to your map.You’re lost, but it’s daylight and you’re able to see several nearby peaks. Trouble is, you are not sure of their names. Being able to see and take a bearing to a peak, lake or other feature is useless unless you can positively identify the feature on your map.
It requires that the feature you see in the field actually be ON your map. You’re lost on Mt. Hood, but you can see Mt. Jefferson, 50 miles away. Too bad, Mt. Jefferson is not on your map, making that feature useless to help determine your position.
You can see that this technique has a host of flaws. There are rare times when it works, but don’t rely on it alone to get you unlost.
Plus, this might be blindingly obvious by now, but it really only is a helpful technique after you get lost. And ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it's always better to stay found in the first place.
So, what can you do? Always have a quality GPS app on your phone, such as Gaia GPS, they can show you your current position overlaid on a base map. Or, at the very least, have an app that can tell you your current position in UTM coordinates, which you can then plot onto the paper map you’re carrying, which hopefully has a UTM grid printed on it.
To close on a slight positive note, sometimes just getting a single bearing to a feature and maybe plotting it on your map can be a big help. At least you know you‘re somewhere on that plotted line.
I heard a story from a Search and Rescue (SAR) guy about a lost hunter who called 911. They put him in touch with the local SAR team. The rescue team asked him if he had a compass, and if he could take a bearing to any landscape feature around him he recognized. “Sure thing”, the hunter says, “from where I’m standing, I can take a bearing of 240° to Peak XYZ.”
“Great” says the SAR team, “stay right there and we’ll come get you.” It may not sound like much to know that you’re on a specific bearing to a known terrain feature, but by definition, that excludes every other line that you could be on. All the rescue team had to do was walk on that same bearing toward the peak, until they found the hunter.
The story came from a decade or so back when people did not have good navigation apps on their phone. These days, everybody who goes into the backcountry should have a way to find coordinates from their phone and know how to transmit them to emergency services.
Two clever ways to transition from aid to free climbing
When aid climbing, the transition from your nice comfy aider steps into free climbing a few 5.6 moves can be surprisingly terrifying. After you know these two clever tips from big wall expert Chris McNamara, it's a LOT easier.
The transition from aid climbing to free climbing can range from slightly awkward to semi-terrifying, but with the right techniques it doesn't have to be.
I REALLY wish I knew about these techniques on my first couple of walls!
Fortunately big wall expert Chris McNamara made a great YouTube video showing how it’s done.
There are two methods shown here.
Method #1: clip a sling and stand in it. This works well when you have a few moves of free climbing followed by more aid.
Method #2: clip the rope to your ladder, and leave your ladder behind. This may be a better choice if you have free climbing with no more aiding, such as when you’re approaching an anchor.
Aid to free transition #1 - Use a sling as a ladder
Place a piece as high as you can.
Clip a 120 cm / double sling to the gear, clip a carabiner to the sling, and clip your lead rope into this carabiner.
Key move: step into the bottom of the double sling. The sling effectively becomes a ladder step.
Reach down, unclip your previous ladder, roll it up to get it out of the way and clip it to your harness.
Stand up in the sling and start free climbing.
Aid to free transition #2 - Use a ladder as a sling
Place a piece as high as you can.
Clip ladder to the gear.
Clip a carabiner onto the ladder pretty much anywhere, and clip the lead rope into that as protection.
Step up in your ladder, start free climbing, and simply leave the ladder behind. This is easier if you don’t use a tether on your ladder.
You can reach down and remove your lower ladder before you do this if you want to, or simply leave that one behind as well.
Check out both these transition methods from big wall ace Chris McNamara.
3+ ways to avoid factor 2 falls on multipitch routes
You finish pitch 1 on a multi-pitch route, look up, and see some hard moves right off the belay to start pitch 2. Here are several ways to safeguard your belay and prevent a possible factor 2 fall.
This tip was written with the assistance of Richard Goldstone, thanks Richard!
image: German Alpine Club
Scenario: You’re on a multi-pitch sport route, leading the first pitch. You arrive at the anchor bolts, and look up ahead to the next pitch. You notice that the moves to get to the runout-rather-far-away first bolt on pitch 2 look pretty hard, about at the the edge of your partner’s ability.
Avoiding a potential factor 2 fall on your anchor is of course critically important. How can you do this?
Assuming you have a few meters of rope left after your lead, here's a Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) that may make things quite a bit safer for everybody.
Don't stop at the anchor. Clip one of the bolts with a quickdraw, and keep on climbing to the first bolt on the second pitch. Check to see that it’s stout. BACKCLIP it (see diagram), call for a take and lower, and lower back down to the belay. Now build your anchor and bring your partner up. You will probably be belaying off of your belay loop (not directly off the anchor), with the rope to your follower redirected through the first bolt on pitch 2.
(According to the image, this may be known in Germany as a “plus clip”; Can any European climbers verify this?)
So, how does this reduce your risk?
The rope is now already clipped through the first bolt on pitch 2. When you swap leads and your partner begins pitch 2, they begin climbing with a “toprope” through the first bolt. (Note, because you backclipped and lowered, when your second gets up to the bolt, the rope will be in the correct orientation through the carabiner. So clever!)
This is a good thing for everybody, because now they can never take a factor 2 fall on to the anchor. (If YOU had fallen when you climbed to this bolt on the second pitch, it should be no problem, because you would have had a large amount of rope in the system to absorb the force.)
And, assuming you’re swinging leads, there’s another small benefit. There's no moving the belay device from one position into another, it stays on your harness in the same configuration, which is a minor time savings and one less thing to do at the belay transition.
Now, the obvious potential downside to this, as with any redirected belay, is that if for any reason that upper bolt were to fail when you are bringing up your second, it's going to introduce an amount of slack two times the distance to that first bolt. That’s probably going to cause one hell of a drop and shock load! In addition, the redirect has introduced a pulley effect on the top bolt. Granted, any bolt in a reasonably decent condition should be able to hold this force just fine.
If you keep a pretty snug rope on your second to minimize any slack, the top bolt should not take any kind of significant load, but it's still something to keep in mind. Even so, you probably should not do this when you’re trad climbing.
If you're not too excited about redirecting through that top bolt, keep on reading, there's a solution.
Now, if you forget to do a “plus clip”, or don't like the condition of the bolts and choose not to, you still have a few options.
The “chariot belay”
Lower yourself below the anchor with at least 3 meters of rope and have the climber clip the anchor as the first piece. Doing this puts more rope between the belayer and leader, eliminating the chance of a factor 2 fall. This is referred to by some as a “chariot belay”.
Keep in mind the chariot belay has a few downsides:
It might involve some tricky rope work, both for you to lower yourself and for you to get back up when it's time to start climbing, depending on the terrain. A prusik loop or Tibloc might be helpful to ascend the rope.
The terrain below your anchor might make this impractical, such as if the anchor is just above an overhang.
It's going to put some potentially large forces on your anchor. You have the force of the falling climber countered by the belayer holding the fall, which creates a 2:1 pulley effect on the anchor. Yes, you've technically avoided a factor 2 by having more rope out, but you're increasing the force on your anchor, which the thing you want to avoid in the first place.
In this case, it's probably best to do a fixed point belay. This solution does not prevent a factor 2, but it gives you a much greater chance of catching the fall, along with less force going onto your anchor. The fixed point lead belay is a new concept for many people, we cover it extensively here.
image credit: Derek DeBruin http://staff.weber.edu/derekdebruin/fixedpointbelay/Fixed%20Point%20Belaying%20Slides.pdf
Tie a “catastrophe knot” so you don't drop your leader
The second pitch goes straight up off of the belay. If the leader falls, they could hit the belayer. To be sure you maintain control of the rope if this happens, you can tie a “catastrophe knot” clove hitch in the brake strand of the rope, as we cover in this tip here. This does not prevent a factor 2 fall, but it's probably going to keep you from dropping your climber to the ground. (Yes, this has happened, in one tragic and fatal accident I know about at Smith Rock in Oregon.) But, that's why you do whatever you can to avoid the factor 2 in the first place, right?)
The Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) described below comes from the excellent book, “The Mountain Guide Manual”, by Mark Chavin and Rob Coppolillo. Highly recommended!
Here’s one more option. This is a clever rigging method that avoids the redirect / pulley effect from belaying your second through the high bolt, but still makes it available for a “top rope” through the first bolt on pitch 2.
You start things exactly as you did before for the “plus clip”: climb past the anchor, backclip the first bolt on the next pitch, and lower back to the anchor.
This time, rather than re-directing your belay through the high bolt, you tie a “Big Honkin’ Knot” (aka “BHK”, double strand overhand on a bight) through both strands of the rope going to and from the high bolt. This makes a double-stranded bight knot with two loops, which you then clip into the anchor. (You can also tie a clove hitch on the strand of the rope returning from the top bolt, and clip that onto your anchor.)
You now belay your second normally directly off of the anchor in front of you, NOT redirecting through the high bolt.
When your second arrives at the anchor, you untie the BHK or clove, pull through the entire rope through the top bolt until it goes tight on your partner (yes, this is a bit of a hassle) , and then put them on lead belay. They are now “top roping” through the first bolt on pitch 2 just as above, eliminating any possibility of a factor 2 fall.
Yeah, this might be a little hard to visualize, but go set it up in the rock gym or in a tree in your backyard or something and you'll figure it out pretty fast.
See the book below for a few illustrations on how to do this, pgs. 35-36. (There’s a LOT of other first class material in this book as well, highly recommended! Go buy it now!)
Reminder, Alpinesavvy does not have any advertisements, affiliate links or paid product reviews. I only recommend this book because I think it's great, not because I make any money because you buy it.
