Progress capture pulley tip - "Teeth to Tail"

The tip comes from @fitzy315 and @climbing.technical, a great Instagram account with lots of rigging tips and nice diagrams.

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Progress capture pulleys (aka PCP) , such as Petzl Traxion, have long been crucial gear for big wall hauling. As these PCPs have gotten smaller and lighter, pulleys like the Petzl Micro / Nano Traxion and Edelrid Spoc are becoming standard kit for alpine climbers, especially for crevasse rescue. These devices combine a high-efficiency pulley wheel with a toothed, spring-loaded cam that grabs the rope. This “captures the progress” as you pull, allowing the rope to only move in one direction.

While in theory these are simple to rig, it can be confusing to do it correctly. This can be especially true in the added stress of a rescue situation, or if the pulley is in a different configuration than how you may normally rig it, such as on your harness rather than clipped to an anchor.

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To thread it correctly, remember: “Teeth to Tail”.

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When threading the rope into the pulley, rig it so the TEETH are resting on the TAIL of the rope, aka the end you're pulling on.

That way, you’ll always capture the progress correctly. Hopefully this is obvious, but the glove indicates where your hand is, which shows the pulling force on the “tail” of the rope.

Note:

• In the photo below, I'm using a very short length of rope to clearly show where the tail is.

• The pulley only has one of the two plates clipped to the carabiner, I left it open so you could see where the teeth are. When using it for real, you have to close the swinging plate and clip both of the holes.

Stamped on the inside of the Nano and Micro are little icons for a “load” and “hand”, which can also be helpful to remind you. Even with this, I still find “teeth to tail” more helpful.

(And if you gearheads are wondering, yes, that is the black ninja version of the new Petzl Nano Traxion. A very nice piece of gear!)

Pre thread your crampon strap

This tip and video comes from IFMGA Certified Guide Karsten Delap. Connect with Karsten and see more tips like this on his Instagram, YouTube, and website.

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When putting crampons on your boots, especially with gloves and/or cold fingers, threading the strap through the buckle can be quite the back-twisting hassle.

Here's a simple solution: pre-thread the strap through the toe section and the buckle BEFORE you step into it. Tie an overhand knot in the end of the strap so it can't pull through. Plus, the overhand gives you something to grab when you have gloves on.

Insert your boot through the loop, engage the heel lever, and grab the knot, and crank down the buckle. Done!

I have to say, when I first saw the video below it was one of those face-palm moments of, “Why have I been doing it wrong for all this time?!”

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Here's a nice video from IFMGA Guide Karsten Delap showing how it's done.

Staying Warm - pro tips from Derek DeBruin

These tips are from Derek DeBruin, an AMGA Certified Rock Guide and Assistant Alpine Guide. Connect with Derek: Facebook and Instagram.

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Derek DeBruin recently published an article in the journal of the Wilderness Medical Society @wildmedsociety on ways to manage cold in the outdoors. It’s called: “Tips to Stay Warm and Dry (and Injury-Free) in Cold Montane Environments” (Volume 39, Issue 1).

While his tips may not be earth-shatteringly novel, they are the accumulated wisdom of thousands of days spent in challenging environments. Just about everyone can learn a few clever ways to manage the cold from Derek’s article.

Click the button below to read the whole thing.

Here are a few tips that resonated with me.

• When driving to the trailhead, put your boots on the floor of your car and crank the floor heater vents to preheat them.

• Have all your gear as fully packed and ready-to-go as possible, so you're not standing around at the trailhead longer than necessary. Put axes on the pack and skins on the skis at home. Encourage your partners to do the same. (In case they don't, see the next tip . . .)

• Use a “car puffy” - an extra big jacket that you can throw on over everything while you're at the trailhead waiting for other people to get ready. Toss it back in the car just before you're ready to head out.

• Putting some KT tape on exposed skin, like your cheeks, can help prevent frostbite if it's really cold and windy.

• Consider super gaiters such as the Outdoor Research X-Gaiter. This adds an extra layer of warmth over your entire boot.

• The simple trick of squeezing your hands into fists, and curling your toes at every step, can encourage blood circulation and keep those digits warmer.

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You get the idea. There are dozens more tips like this in Derek's article, check it out at the link below.

If that official link to the Wilderness Medical Society page gets broken, here is the article in a PDF on my Google Drive.

Weather overlay maps in CalTopo and Gaia GPS

• How much snow or rain is in the forecast?

• Where can I go hiking this weekend where it might be dry?

• I‘m a powder skier looking for the heaviest new snowfall, where should I go?

• I need to make a long drive; which route might have the least amount of snow?

The superb desktop mapping tools CalTopo and GaiaGPS have a very helpful overlays that that gives a color-coded big picture, and the option to take a closer look at a detailed forecast.

(While CalTopo includes this handy feature for free, I highly recommend subscribing to CalTopo to support the small team of developers that make this superb tool available, hint hint. For Gaia users, this feature is for Premium level subscribers.)

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CalTopo

Zoom into your area of interest, here the northern Oregon Cascades near Portland. From the right sidebar menu under Forecasts, check “Weather Shading” and choose “48hr Snowfall” from the drop-down menu. (For today we’re interested in snowfall, but you can also choose low / high temperatures, rain, and wind speed / gust.)

Here I'm using Open Street Map as a base layer (selected from the top right corner menu). It doesn’t have contours, so it draws a bit faster if you're looking at a large area. You can choose any base map you like. To show some topography, check out the “TF Outdoors” map layer.

The legend is along the bottom. Light blue > purple > gray = increasing amounts of snow.

If you zoom in, you'll see some numbers. This is the estimated snowfall in inches for the next 48 hours. (Data are based on the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast grids, which are about 2.5 km square.)

Yep, that's up to 30 inches of new snow on Mount Hood in the next 48 hours!

Need more details? Right click anywhere on the map, and choose “NOAA Forecast” to get a point forecast for that location.

This opens up a new browser tab, and gives you a detailed forecast from the National Weather Service for that location.

Finally, if you're planning a long winter drive and wondering which route to take to avoid snow, zoom out for a regional view.

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GaiaGPS

Gaia offers a similar feature. You can change the opacity of the overlay with the slider bar (here about 70%).

You can choose between 24 hour, 48 hour, and 72 hour overlays. Find them under the “Feature/Weather Overlays” menu. This overlay is available for Premium subscribers.

Photo is a screen grab of a spring storm in Colorado, in late April, 2022.

Shovel blade as an emergency snowshoe

This clever tip and photos (shared with permission) come from Graybird Guiding, a Seattle based guide company that not only leads some sweet ski trips, but also has an Instagram full of solid advice. Connect with them at their website and on Instagram. (Check out their hashtag #sknowmore for specific backcountry ski tips.)

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Lost your ski in the deep stuff? Broken ski? This clever tip just might get you back to the trailhead with minimal postholing.

If you have a long ski strap or two, and a shovel with some holes in it, you can probably improvise a mini snowshoe and clomp your way back out. The larger the shovel, the less you’ll sink in. Yet another reason why caring a couple of extra ski straps is a fine idea! Here's a whole article on that topic.

I must say this is a pretty clever trick; I don't think I ever would've thought of this!

Creating redundancy in rappel anchors

Say you have a rappel anchor like the one shown below. The bolts are solid, and you're standing on a decent ledge. In this case, many people would be just fine with each partner clipping to one bolt as shown, and rigging to rappel.

However, each person is clipped to 1/2 of the anchor system, with no redundancy. If the bolts are at all questionable, or if you're on a hanging stance with your weight on the hardware, many people would prefer some kind of rigging that connects both bolts, in the highly unlikely event one of them fails. It's very simple to do and takes a few seconds with gear you already have, so why not?

Let's look at some ways to do that.

(Hopefully this is blindingly obvious, but the last person to descend cleans whatever extra gear you've added.)

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Method 1 - Connect each “half” with a quickdraw

Schweet! Now, each partner can clip to “half” of the anchor, knowing that it's connected to the other half. You can clip your tether, or the quickdraw, to any part of the anchor hardware that's convenient.

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Method 2 - Use a “real” anchor (quad, 120 or 60 cm sling)

Whatever anchor system you used on the way up, you can probably also use it on the way down.

Note, if you’re using a pre-rigged or stacked rappel, you only need one anchor for descending. After both partners are pre-rigged, unclip the quad and send it down with the first person. If you're not using a pre-rigged rappel, then you'll probably need two anchors for descending. (Which should not be a problem, because you of course used two anchors on your way up.)

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Quad

Because the quad provides a pair of redundant clipping points that can be pulled in different directions, this can be good at a hanging stance so one partner doesn't yank the other one around. In the photo, we’re using a 180 cm Dyneema sling. Learn lots more about the quad anchor here.

Notice how the green carabiners are clipped over the top of the quick links. If there was a chance of a large load on the carabiners, this is not best practice, because the carabiners can sometimes be loaded at a strange angle and even break. However, the loads in this situation are so low, it's fine to clip them like this.

Clipping on top of the anchor hardware also makes it a lot easier for someone to clean the anchor while the rope is loaded.

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120 cm / double sling with a bight knot

Here’s a 120 cm sling, tied with a figure 8 on a bight for a statically equalized anchor. (Isn't that a pretty blue? It's an Edelrid Aramid sling, which is quickly becoming my new favorite for anchor building. It's very durable, super strong, and best of all, really easy to untie after loading.)

Note the figure 8 on a bight in the sling rather than an overhand. Doing this takes up a bit more of the cord, moving the master point slightly higher, and makes the knot even easier to untie.

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60 cm sling with girth hitch

Only have a single length / 60 cm sling and the bolts are reasonably close together? No problem. Clip each one and make a girth hitch master point. If you tied an overhand knot you’d probably need a longer sling, but a girth hitch takes up so little material that you can use a 60 cm.

You get the idea. Each of these methods connects the two “halves” of the anchor, giving full redundancy for both partners on your way down.

Practi Bolts - indoor anchor practice made easy

Full disclosure: Practibolts sent me their product for free. That in no way biases my review; it's a cool product and I want to tell you about it. There are no ads, affiliate marketing links, or paid product promotions on Alpinesavvy. In the rare cases when I get a free product like this, I’ll always let you know. 

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Looking to practice your anchor building or sport draw clipping technique indoors? Check out Practi Bolts, from the Denver Climbing Company.

This cleverly designed bit of gear has two aluminum bolt hangers, along with two plastic quick links and two short lengths of plastic chain. The hangers have a strong magnet on the back, and some gel material. Press the hangers firmly on any magnetic surface (such as your refrigerator) and you're ready to go. The magnets hold up to about 30 pounds, and the gel keeps them from scratching the surface.

(Hopefully this is blindingly obvious, but I'll say it anyway: these are not meant for any kind of bodyweight load. You will discover this instantly as soon as you lean back on them and end up with your butt on the floor.)

You can use this to practice just about any sort of anchor configuration you can imagine, as well as sport draw clipping. If you have additional quick links or rings, you can use those too. Give ‘em a follow on Instagram, @practibolts, to see more rigging examples.

Let's look at a few configurations that I set up in a few minutes on my fridge. (Sorry about the funky lighting, it's hard to take pictures of shiny stainless steel without some weird reflections . . .

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Out of the box, here’s what it looks like. Note the approximate 45° angle of the hanger, with the Practi Bolts logo being level. Installing the hangers with this tilt on them helps helps the magnet hold better.

Here's one possible set up for top roping. This makes it easy for the last person, especially if they’re inexperienced. First person threads the rope through the chains, and clips it to a carabiner (locker or non locker) which takes all the wear and tear from top roping. Last person up cleans the carabiner and lowers off. Learn more about this technique here.

Hey, now we're getting fancy. How about the fixed point lead belay? Learn more at this article.

If you have your own anchor hardware, feel free to use that too. Here I added a couple of steel rings, a common anchor set up in many climbing areas.

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I think you get the idea. Practi Bolts are a fairly inexpensive and versatile way to practice anchor building, rigging, and sport draw clipping from the cozy comfort of your kitchen. Give ‘em a try and help support a small Colorado USA, climber owned business!

Big wall anchors: have "links"

Here’s a classic beginner mistake when making a big wall anchor. (How do I know this? My partner and I manage to do it multiple times on our first wall!)

You clove hitch the rope into the anchor, and then clip something else into the carabiner closer to the gate; let's say there's a 100 kg haul bag on the purple sling. (Sidenote, best practice is to use a docking cord for your haul bag rather than a static sling.)

So far so good . . . except when you need to untie that clove hitch. Good luck unclipping that past the loaded sling. I remember having to actually untie the end of the rope to decluster something similar to the left photo. You do NOT want to be doing this! It's frustrating and a big time waster.

It's also dangerous. Having several things loaded on the master carabiner, and then having to open that carabiner to remove one of them, is risky. Keep that gate closed whenever possible!

A solution: try to rig anchors more like the photo on the right. Avoid tying hitches and clipping slings directly into the master point carabiner, and instead add a “link” (usually a locking carabiner) to everything clipped to the master point.

Short on locking carabiners? Of course you are, that always happens on a big wall. Try a cheapskate locker; a standard carabiner with some athletic tape wrapped around the gate.

Adding “links” makes it much easier to unclip things when another part of the anchor is under load. Pretty simple concept, right? But, it's very easy to screw up, because the anchor is busy, you’re mentally a bit stressed, and you have large static loads like haul bags.

A related big wall anchor concept is known as “last in, first out”. To put it another way, the last thing that gets clipped to a master point should be the first thing that gets unclipped when you're breaking down the anchor.

(The same concept can also apply to a standard anchor, but it's usually not as important to follow. Real live humans can see the problem, clip into another part of the anchor while something gets declustered for a moment, and then re-clip. Much different and easier to solve than the dead weight of a haul bag.)

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Here's another great option for a big wall masterpoint: the Grivel Vlad. It's a combination locking carabiner and rigging plate. Here's a detailed article about this cool piece of gear.

Edelrid Aramid slings

This article was written with assistance from Max Lurie, an AMGA Certified Rock and Alpine Guide. Connect with Max at his website and Instagram.

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120 cm Edelrid Aramid sling; stiff enough to pretty much stand up by itself!

Note, I bought my Aramid slings myself. There are no ads, paid product promotions, affiliate marketing links or similar fluff on Alpinesavvy. In the rare cases where a company sends me a product for free, and I review it, I’ll always let you know.

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Dyneema slings are great for clipping protection when climbing. They are light, strong, fairly inexpensive, and absorb minimum water. However, for anchor building they have a few drawbacks.

1. If you tie an overhand knot in them, it can be really difficult to untie (a figure 8 is a bit easier).

2. Many people have a fear (perhaps mostly unfounded?) that the knots weaken the webbing to a dangerous level. (That’s an entire topic onto itself, which we cover in this article.)

The German company Edelrid makes a sling that’s an attractive alternative: It’s an Aramid (kevlar) cord, that has a sewn connection. This sewing that keeps the bulk down, and eliminates the permanent bend of the material inside of a knot, which may cause the fibers to be damaged over time.

Kevlar cord has been around for a long time, but fell out of favor because it was thought that the fibers can start to cut through each other after repeated flexing at the same place, which you might find if you made a cordelette with, say, a triple fisherman's knot, and never untied it.

So what's the deal? Does repeated load cycling weaken Kevlar to a dangerous level? I asked Edelrid about this, and they sent me an interesting PDF article from the German Alpine Club (DAV), who has tested this extensively. (Here’s a link to that article.)

“Aramid's vulnerability for changing flexing loads was discussed early on, but has shown itself to not be relevant in real life. The number of flexes required to weaken the fibre cannot really be reached during the product's ten year life-span."

Here are more comments from an Edelrid product manager about these slings:

• We have done in house cycle bending tests, and found no notable results.

• Tying knots in the aramid cord sling is perfectly fine, but we always recommend storing slings untied, to let the material rest.

• Always assume that a knot will lower the tensile strength of any sling by 50%, since this is the worst case scenario. The affect of a knot on any material varies greatly between the kind of knot and how well it was tied/dressed.

• The Aramid Cord slings are unique in their stiffness. This makes them perfect for threading in ice or through holes in the rock, or even for throwing them around a rock that the back can’t be reached.

• Compared to a normal webbing sling of nylon or Dyneema, the Kernmantle construction of the Aramid Cord slings (and our Tech Web), offers superior safety (cut resistance, abrasion, aging, UV degrading, etc).

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They’re easy to rack if you use the “twist” method: double the sling, twist it a few times, and clip the ends together.

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I've been using Edelrid Aramid slings for a while now, and it's becoming my go-to for lots of applications. It comes in various lengths; I have a 30 and 120 cm. Why do I like ‘em?

• Robust construction, burly outer sheath that's resistant to wear

• Nice and stiff, easier to thread through chockstones and behind rocks

• Very easy to untie after loading

In all fairness, let's look at a few drawbacks.

• They are expensive compared to most other slings.

• Their stiffness, which makes some helpful in some areas, makes them a bit awkward to carry as alpine draws. You probably don't want to replace all your Dyneema slings with these, but having maybe a 30 cm as a friction hitch, a pair of 60 cm for clipping gear, and a 120 cm for anchor building might be a good start.

Where do they shine?

1. Threading around / over a chockstone, icicle, rock spike or other natural feature

2. Standard two piece bolt anchor, statically equalized

3. Rappel extension

4. Friction hitch / prusik

5. Fixed point lead belay

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1) Threading around /over a chockstone, icicle, rock spike or other natural feature

Because of the stiffness of the material, you can poke it around a chockstone or through a small hole and grab it on the other side more easily than a normal sling. The heavy duty sheath protects against abrasion.

image credit: Max Lurie, @alpinetothemax

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2) Standard two piece bolt anchor, statically equalized

Note the figure 8 knot. This is usually easier than an overhand to untie after taking a big load. However, with the stiff sheath, even an overhand is quite easy to untie.

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3) Rappel extension

Works great as a rappel extension, again because you don't need needle nose pliers to untie the knot when you're done. (This is one of many ways to set up a rappel extension. Here's a complete article on the topic, with several more examples using this sling.)

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4) Friction hitch / prusik

The 30 cm works great as an all-purpose friction hitch and rappel backup. The grippy sheath grabs really well on a skinny rope. The Kevlar is very heat resistant, so on a fast rappel that’s helpful.

It's comparable to the popular Sterling HollowBlock, also a great piece of kit. Similar to the HollowBlock, when this cord is under body weight load you can release it by giving it a good tug. This can be very helpful in certain self-rescue situations.

Note that because of the stiffness and sewn area, the French prusik / autoblock hitch doesn’t work so well with the 30 cm length as a rappel backup. The two wrap prusik is probably a better choice, see photo below.

As with any kind of auto block rappel backup, it's good practice to get used to one kind of cord, and get a feel for how it works with a variety of different ropes. Be sure and practice on something like a staircase before you ever try it for real.

Photo: Triple wrap prusik on a single strand on the left, double wrap prusik on double strand rappel backup on the right.

Here's another interesting application for the 6mm, Edelrid aramid sling: if you do a 4 wrap prusik, it holds on a 6 mm Petzl RADline. Normally, a prusik hitch made with cord that's the same diameter as the rope you're putting it on slips and doesn’t work, but here it does, at least under my body weight.

(Note that this prusik does NOT work on the Petzl PURline, which is a similar 6mm specialty rope, but which has a sheath that’s much more slippery than the RADline. Yes, I tested them both.)

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5) Fixed Point Lead Belay

The 120 cm is great for a fixed point lead belay, where you belay the leader directly off the anchor. We cover that technique in detail here.

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Probably the thing I like most about this cord is that it's very easy to untie after its been loaded. Here's a short video clip of me bounce testing on an overhand knot, notice how easy it is to untie. Try that with a skinny Dyneema sling!

GPS bearings: a modern way to navigate

While folks have been using this concept for a while, I was introduced to this idea from Steve McClure of the Seattle Mountaineers, a navigation expert and editor of the classic mountaineering textbook, “Freedom of the Hills”.

The takeaway: GPS is great for identifying your exact location. It’s not so great, by itself, for following a complex off-trail route. Instead, use your compass along with your GPS. Drop waypoints along your route at important junctions, use a GPS app to get distance and bearing to the waypoint, and then follow that bearing with your compass.

You’re at a lake, which you can locate on your map. On your map, you see another lake that's about a mile away towards the north / northwest, with no trail to it. You want to go camp there for the night.

You have several navigation options.

Map and compass: Get out your map and compass. Put either long edge of your (declination adjusted) compass baseplate between your location and the lake, then rotate the compass dial until north on the compass points to the north/top of your map. This should show you the bearing between your location and the lake. Pick up the compass, hold it flat in front of you, rotate your body and compass until the magnetic needle matches the orienteering arrow. You should be facing the lake; start walking. Hopefully there aren't any cliffs, thick vegetation, rabid marmots, or other obstacles between you and the lake. (Learn how to do this here.)

Phone only: Using your preferred navigation app, add a waypoint at the lake you want to go to. Use the “Guide Me” (or similar) function, which tells you the distance and bearing from your location to the lake. Start walking, holding the phone in front of you pretty much all the time, using the directional arrow in your navigation app to walk you to the lake.

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Both methods can work, but they have some problems.

• With the map and compass, you need to have a printed map, a compass, and know how to use them together. It can take a little time, can be tricky to do if the weather is not cooperating, and if you do it wrong you can introduce large errors, some even as big as 180° if your compass is backwards. (You also have to be able to find your current location on the map. If you're completely lost, this doesn't work.)

• With only the phone, you decrease your awareness of the terrain around you, because you're doing “heads-down” navigation, staring at your phone screen the whole time. Plus, you’re draining your phone battery unnecessarily by leaving the screen on.

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Instead, try a hybrid method: the “GPS bearing”.

Rather than measuring a bearing between your location and the lake with the old school map and compass method, you get the distance and bearing from your navigation app, and then use your compass to follow it.

Pretty much every quality backcountry navigation app has some function to tell you the distance and bearing from your current location to another point on the map. As I write this, in autumn 2021, using Gaia GPS, you can simply tap the screen. That brings up a pop-up window that says “Marked Location”, and tells you the elevation, distance, bearing and coordinates of the spot you touched. If you have a saved waypoint you're trying to navigate towards, you can use the same technique. Tap the waypoint and see the distance and bearing in the “Marked Location” pop up box.

Now, instead of staring at your phone and following the line and arrow to get to your destination, you dial your compass to that bearing.

In the photo at the top of the page, your phone tells you it's 347° from your location to the lake. Rotate your compass dial to 347. Hold the compass flat in front of you, with the direction of travel arrow pointing away from you. Rotate your body and the compass until the magnetic needle matches the orienteering arrow. Schweeet, you’re now facing the lake. (Learn how to do this here.)

Turn off your phone screen, put your phone away, and start walking towards the lake. No need to be religious about staying exactly on a compass bearing; walking in the general direction is usually fine. Adjust your route as necessary to get around obstacles. Have a quick look at your compass every few minutes to be sure you're more or less continuing in the right direction.

After 10 minutes or so, take your phone out, and simply repeat the process: tap on your objective, and get a new distance and bearing follow it. The distance should decrease as you approach your objective. The bearing will change a bit, depending on how much meandering you’ve done since you started. Change your compass dial to that new bearing, put your phone away, and keep on walking.

You’re saving your phone battery, and you're navigating “heads-up” with much greater awareness of the terrain.

The old school “follow-a-compass-bearing-on-a-straight line” method can work okay if the terrain is open and doesn’t have any obstacles, but that's not going to happen much in the mountains. That's the beauty of the GPS bearing. You don't have to focus on staying on the single compass bearing; you can choose the route that makes the most sense, occasionally repeating the process of getting a new distance and bearing, and making small adjustments to your course as needed.

Another significant advantage of using GPS bearings is that you don’t need to know your current location on the map for it to work - that's a major drawback of the map and compass method.

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Even if you use GPS phone app and compass, it's still an excellent idea to bring along a paper map. If your partner also has a phone GPS app, a fully charged battery to start the trip, and a back up battery with charging cable, that's a pretty good redundant system. Yes, phone batteries can die, but maps can also blow away or be ruined by rainfall.

Let's be honest, if you have the choice between using a slide rule or a calculator to do some arithmetic, you're going to reach for the calculator every time. Yes it uses batteries, but it's also a superior tool. Same with the phone GPS. Combine it with a compass and you have the best of both worlds: always knowing your exact location and the direction of your next objective, maximum phone battery preservation, and better awareness of the terrain around you.

You don't necessarily need a compass to use this method. Good backcountry navigation phone apps like Gaia GPS and CalTopo have an indicator arrow that changes direction as you rotate your body, which can help point you toward your objective. However, using a base plate compass can still help you preserve battery, because you're not checking your phone as often.

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The example above is pretty simple, going from one point to another in fairly open terrain for a short distance. We can use the same principle for a longer more complex trip, simply by adding additional waypoints. Here's an example of a ski circumnavigation of Mt. Hood.

The blue line shows the approximate route, which of course changes based on snow conditions, crevasses, etc. The red waypoints show some key decision points. Instead of trying to ski staring at the blue line and attempting to stay on top of it (which of course would be pretty ridiculous), instead focus on moving from waypoint to waypoint. If there is a bit of a detour, and it's not a straight line, such as between points 3 and 4, simply tap the screen on your phone on the track line to add an intermediate marker point, and navigate that to stay on course.

If you spring for the “Pro” level subscription for CalTopo, you get access to a very cool tool they call a Travel Plan. Draw in a route and add some waypoints like what you see above. Then you can generate a Travel Plan, basically a table showing (among other things) the distance, bearing, elevation gain or loss, and anticipated travel time between different legs of your trip. Below is one example.

I have a whole article on the Travel Plan function of CalTopo; you can read it here.

A closer look at the “American Death Triangle”

This article has contributions from Over the Edge Rescue, IFMGA Certified Guide Karsten Delap, and HowNot2.com

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Short version: the American Death Triangle (ADT) is not a preferred method for rigging anchors, but it's not as bad as you might think. With anchor angles typical in climbing (under 90 degrees), the ADT puts about 100% of the load onto each anchor point; the exact amount depends on the angle. The main problem with it is zero redundancy; if the sling fails, so do you. If you have to use one in the wild, provided the sling is in good shape, you're probably going to be fine.

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American Death Triangle: top rope setup

American Death Triangle: rappel setup

The so-called “American Death Triangle” (“ADT”) in the early days of climbing, was a fairly common way to build anchors. It uses a minimum amount of webbing, and offers good equalization. At first glance it appears to be serviceable, even if it ignored a few basic rules of physics. Plus, you have to admit it's a catchy name!

However, for a long time it’s been roundly slammed in just about every climbing book ever written. “Don’t use it! Load multiplication! It creates dangerous forces on the anchors!” is usually about the extent of it.

Overall, that’s good advice. There are almost always better options for rigging that are redundant and put lower force on the anchor points.

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But, you might wonder, how bad is it, really?

Before word got out that they weren't so great, ADTs were used for probably tens of thousands of anchors over decades. Did you ever hear of one failing? Are “catastrophic” forces really being created? If someday you have to use one in the wild, is it a YGD (Yer Gonna Die) scenario? What about other related configurations, like rappelling off of side-by-side rings, or lowering off of an adjacent route, or slinging a big boulder, that are sort of the same thing?

While the ADT may not be as bad as you might think, there are some reasonable concerns (listed in rough order of importance)

• It’s not redundant. In the photos above, any failure of the sling/cord means the whole anchor fails. That's the primary problem!

• It can put a inward / sideways pull on your gear, which could be an issue. For example, a piton in a horizontal crack could be plenty strong enough for a downward pull, but maybe not for an inward pull. More on that below.

• It can increase the load onto the anchor points. The amount of this increase is related to the angle at the bottom of the triangle. It's rarely more than 1X the actual load onto each anchor point. More on that below. If the anchors are reasonably solid, this is probably not a concern.

• You're only using the strength of a single strand of the material, instead of doubling it up, which increases the strength.

• If one anchor point failed, it's likely you’re going to have some extension onto the the remaining piece, no bueno.

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Since load multiplication is the main concern most people have, let's look at that first. (We’ll keep the physics and math as simple as possible, I promise!)

Pretty much every “Climbing Anchors 101” class has a diagram something like the one below. The smaller the angle between the two legs, the better the load sharing on the anchor points. As you get close to 180°, like on a slackline or Tyrolean traverse, the load multiplication gets ridiculous. This is for sure a good principle to keep in mind for standard anchor building.

Do you remember a vector force diagram like this from your anchor class? I suspect that this is at the root of the idea that the ADT causes high forces: “Horizontal rope in anchor ALWAYS equals super duper load multiplication.”

However, this does NOT apply to the ADT, where are the load direction is completely different from the diagram below.

image: https://www.ropebook.com/information/vector-forces/

Let's check the numbers

Here’s a nice chart from “Rock Climbing: The AMGA Single Pitch Manual” by Bob Gaines and Jason Martin. This is the only book I’ve seen with actual data on the ADT.

The second column, “V rigging”, refers to a standard way of clipping a sling to each anchor, making two arms, and then tying it off with a bight knot.

source: “Rock Climbing: The AMGA Single Pitch Manual” by Bob Gaines and Jason Martin

Turns out, with a 100 lb load and a small bottom angle of approximately 30°, there’s only 82 pounds of force being put on each leg of an ADT anchor. That’s a bit more than the 52 pounds or so on each leg with standard “V rigging”, but nothing close to catastrophic.

Even at a 90° angle, about as large as you would normally want to go, the ADT only puts 130 pounds on each anchor. Again, not close to catastrophic. (If your anchor placements can't hold 130 pounds, you've got some much bigger problems!)

So check that out, load multiplication is not really a problem!

For you engineers and more visual folks who want to see the math behind this and some nice diagrams, check out this webpage from our New Zealand friends at Over the Edge Rescue.

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Rappelling on adjacent rings?

I've heard this question a few times: What about rappelling on adjacent rings? Does that create any sort of a dangerous death triangle? Short answer is no. The angle created by your rappel device in the photo is quite small, 30° or less. This creates a load on each anchor point that's just a bit more than your body weight. The bolts can easily handle that, plus they can take a load in any direction, so no worries. (Check out the HowNot2com video link at the bottom, at around 12 minutes, to see some testing on this.)

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Stone hitch?

Here’s a similar situation. There’s a Stone hitch tied below the anchor, which isolates each strand of rope, typically so you can rappel on a single strand.

Does this create a dangerous ADT on the anchors? Yes it's an ADT, but with those bolts it’s certainly not dangerous. For rappelling, where the load is never going to be more than 1-2 kN, load multiplication is of no concern.

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Lowering from an adjacent route?

Scenario: Say you have two different bolt anchors that are the same height at the top of the climb. If you climb the left route, clip 1 anchor, traverse to the right, clip the other anchor, and then lower off without pulling your rope through the first anchor, are you making any sort of dangerous ADT?

Answer: no. A clever engineer friend of mine calculated that the force on each anchor is just a little over the climber’s body weight. (To be more specific, the right anchor takes about 1.25x the climber’s weight, and the left anchor takes about 0.9x the climber’s weight.) So the takeaway: no problem!

If you do this, be aware that you’ll need more rope to safely lower your partner to the ground, so be SURE your rope is long enough!

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What are the real world forces?

In the “rappel setup” photo near the top of the page, the joining knot is on the legs of the triangle between the load and the anchor. What if we put the knot on the base of the triangle instead, horizontally between the anchor points? Would the knot see increased forces, or decreased forces?

In the photo below, we have an approximate equilateral triangle, with 60° in each leg, and the joining knot, a Flemish bend, between the two anchor points. Say we have a load of 100 kg hanging off of the rappel ring. Will the knot see less than, equal to, or greater than 100 kg? Take a guess!

Answer: quite a bit less. That's because the friction on each of the anchor points absorb some of the load. The actual amount depends on the slickeriness of the material you're using, and what it's actually running through at the anchor, but the takeaway is that the base of a triangle sees the lowest amount of force. Is that surprising? It was to me!

(Note on the photo below: yes I know you could put your rope directly through the rappel rings and ignore the entire ADT rigging, but I needed to set up like this to get a equilateral triangle with the length of cord I had . . . =^)

The theoretical force on each bolt would be the same as the load, or 100 pounds. But because the cord is running through the rappel rings, this friction actually reduces the force going to the hangers, which is a good thing. With a 60° equilateral triangle, about 80% of the load goes to the bolt, and about 36% is seen by the knot (a Flemish bend, in case you’re wondering).

Below is a screen grab from our friends at HowNot2.com who tested pretty much the same set up.

With a load of 2.4 kN at the master point:

• the base of the triangle between the anchor points saw a load of 0.9 kN, about 36% of the load.

• each bolt saw a load of 1.96 kN, about 80% of the load.

(There's a link to the whole video at the bottom of the page.)

image: HowNot2.com, screeng rab from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQNpjnJe40

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Changing the direction of force

Here's a diagram that shows a bit how that works. (Original diagram credit: Over the Edge Rescue).

In the diagram, we have an ADT with angles of 60° on each side, an equilateral triangle. “A” are the two anchor points, and “L is the load.

Check out the blue arrows pointing inward from the anchors. This is known as the “resultant”, and it's the change in direction of force caused by the ADT. This means that instead of having the force going down the legs of the anchor directly to the load, it's instead directed inward, halfway between the base of the triangle and the two legs.

In this example, if we have a load of 100 kg at the bottom, 0.6 of that load (red circles, 60 kg) goes to each leg of the anchor. This results in a theoretical force of 100 kg on each of the two anchor points, pulling in the direction of the blue arrows. (As we saw above, in the real world because of friction, this force on the two anchor points would be reduced, but for here let's use the theoretical model.)

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Here's an example of how this “resultant” force might cause a problem: two pitons in a horizontal crack. Either of these would probably be good for a more downward pull, which we would have with a “V rigged” anchor.

However, the ADT puts a larger INWARD force on the pitons, which could cause them to fail. This is another problem with the ADT, loading gear in a direction you may not have anticipated.

(image credit: Karsten Delap

image credit: karsten delap, from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW15yKu1ATM

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More resources . . .

Sheesh, the ADT even has its own Wikipedia page!

Our New Zealand friends at Over The Edge Rescue have an article that will appeal to the engineers.

IFMGA Certified Guide Karsten Delap has a nice article on his website, along with the video below.

HowNot2.com has a detailed video on the ADT.

Pre-thread the haul pulley

For any kind of serious hauling, big wall climbers use a progress capture pulley (aka “PCP”), such as the excellent Petzl Micro Traxion. The little puppy is expensive and extremely important, so it’s critical to never drop it!

If you pre-thread the haul rope through the pulley, it’s faster to set up and you’re much less likely to drop either the pulley or the rope. (This may seem like a small detail, but attention to little things like this adds up, reduces cluster, and collectively can make your big wall climb a lot smoother.)

Some climbers like to use a tag line system that involves pulling everything you need at the new anchor up on one thin (5 or 6 mm) cord after they finish the pitch. This approach has pros and cons; climbing with less weight good, takes a bit longer to set up the anchor and haul, not so good.

A more traditional approach is the leader climbing with the haul rope and the PCP attached to their harness. This tip is for them.

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A note on the harness and gear loop . . .

Typically on a big wall, you'll have a more burly harness then the one shown here, with a designated hauling loop. The harness I’ve used on my big walls has been retired and I haven't replaced it, so I used my current one (Edelrid Sendero, which I love) for the photo.

Personally, I'm fine with using a standard gear loop for the tiny load of a rope like this, but you may want something stronger. Think of it this way: if you're comfortable putting $500 worth of cams onto a single gear loop and not worrying about it breaking and losing your cams forever, then why are you concerned about the haul rope, which would probably just drop down to your partner at the lower anchor?

If you have a harness like this one without a full strength haul loop, you could girth hitch a 30 cm sling around your entire waist loop and use that instead.

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Check out the photo above.

On the left is the old-school technique: just clip the gear to your harness. This increases the chances of dropping the rope or the PCP, plus you have to put the rope into the pulley at every anchor. It hasn't happened to me, but I have seen a dropped haul rope, whoops!

(Notice on the left photo, the pulley is clipped to one of the side gear loops. This at least makes it less likely you’ll fumble or drop it, rather than using the rear gear loop.)

On the right, the haul rope is pre-threaded through the PCP. Engage the cam in the PCP. Tie a bight knot with a small loop into the end of the rope, clip it with a non-locking carabiner, and clip that carabiner into the PCP locking carabiner. You should never have to remove the haul rope from the pulley for your entire climb.

To pair with the Micro Traxion, Petzl recommends using an oval locking carabiner (which can be a bit hard to find) or a standard HMS carabiner. Here we’re going with the classic Petzl Attache. (A locking “D” carabiner can work with a PCP, but it's not ideal.)

When you reach the anchor, clip the non locking carabiner with the haul rope somewhere on the anchor. Ideally, you clip it on the side where the leader will start the next pitch, so it's all ready to go and easy to grab (and remember). Sweet, now you can't drop the haul rope.

Only THEN do you (carefully) unclip the locker and PCP from your harness and clip them to the hauling point. Schweet, just about impossible to drop the haul rope or the PCP. Plus, the rope is already threaded and you can start hauling sooner. Being that one of the first tasks of the leader is to set up the haul fast and pull the bags a few meters off of the lower anchor so your second can break it down and get started, this is a good thing.

Minor safety note: after you clip the PCP to the anchor, remember to engage the cam on the pulley BEFORE you start pulling up rope. Reason: if your overeager partner below were to release the bags too early, their weight would come onto the cammed pulley. If you did not engage the cam and pulled up a bunch of slack, you could potentially have a free-falling haul bag put a huge shock load onto your anchor, big problem!

What's a good way to make a big wall anchor? Excellent question! We cover it in detail at this article.

The no twist Munter hitch rappel

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Rappelling on a Munter hitch is considered by some to be an outdated, old school technique, right up there with hip belays, hexes, and braiding your own harness out of blackberry vines.

However, in some cases it can still be useful:

• If you know you have some short rappels on a canyon explore, ski mountaineering trip, bushwhack hike or similar, and want to take minimal gear

• Ropes are frozen and hard to get into a rappel device; sometimes the Munter is the only thing that can work

• You're using ultra skinny 6 mm static cord (like the Petzl RAD line) which is too small for a standard rappel device

• You don't have enough locking carabiners (or forgot, or never learned how) to set up a carabiner brake

• Dropped or forgot your device (whoops!) and for whatever reason do not want to be lowered

• Have to rappel in some kind of emergency situation (river rescue?) when you're seriously short on gear

• Need to rappel past an overhand knot (fairly advanced maneuver, learn about it here)

• Want to earn some Euro style points =^)

Why can a Munter rappel be problematic?

1. Not create enough friction (more concerning with small diameter newer ropes or single strand)

2. Depending on which way you face the carabiner, the rope can rub against the gate

3. Most important, the normal way it’s done can twist the holy hell out of your rope! This is more than an annoyance, because if you have twisty “pigtails” in your rope and then try to pull it through the rappel anchor, the twists can bunch up and cause the rope to get completely stuck at the anchor, big problem.

(Side note: here's a good way to remove any kind of twisting from your rope: clip a tube style belay device into any sort of an anchor around head height, and feed the rope through the device.)

Below: Standard way to set up a Munter rappel. Pretty much guaranteed to twist your rope.

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However, there is a simple modification you can do to the hitch that will keep those evil twists away. I first saw this technique in a video from Petzl Germany. I have to say I was a little skeptical when I first saw this, but I've tried it a couple of times and it works just fine.

Pass the brake strands over the TOP of the hitch, then pass them back UNDER the carabiner to your right hand. Rappel normally, with no twisting.

Notes . . .

• This adds a little more friction and slightly slows down your rappel, but most of the time that's a good thing. If you have fat, old, crusty ropes, and you don't weigh much, it might add too much friction. As mentioned at the top of the page, practice in a controlled environment is mandatory.

• This method works best on a standard harnesses with a fairly stiff belay loop. If you have a lightweight alpine harness with kind of a floppy belay loop, the loop can twist when you do this, and it doesn't work so well.

• You might be familiar with the “Supermunter.” This is a Munter hitch, with the brake strand making an extra pass around the hitch and being clipped to the carabiner. This can be a very useful tool for lowering huge loads on a skinny rope, but it's not recommended for one person on a double rope rappel because it adds too much friction and you probably won't be able to move. More on the “Supermunter” at this article. This modified hitch is very close to a Supermunter.

• When practicing, don't be too concerned which strand of rope is on the top or the bottom. The ropes tend to put themselves in the proper orientation when she put weight on it and start actually descending.

• I'm certainly not saying you should start rappelling on a Munter all the time. But if you ever need to, keep in mind that with this technique a Munter rappel works fine with minimal twisting.

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Single strand with a “super Munter”

Another option for the Munter rappel is to descend on a single strand, and use a “super Munter”. Fix the rope at the anchor so it can't slide through, rig a super munter on one strand with a large carabiner, and down you go. Depending on your weight and the rope diameter, this should work well with a single strand and also result in a no-twist rappel. (Of course, the last person down on fixes the rope and needs to descend on two strands.)

Here's an Instagram video showing how it works.

Here's an article on the super munter.

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Check out the short video from Petzl to see how it's done.

Rigging the 2 strand "mega toprope"

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

If you're not confident you can do this technique correctly, then go top rope somewhere else.

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This Crafty Rope Trick comes from Adam Fleming @adam.fleming.climbs Adam is an AMGA Certified Rock Guide based in Utah.

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Indian Creek Utah, and many other climbing areas, hosts some LONG pitches. Even with 80 meter ropes becoming more common, sometimes you'll need two ropes in order to return to the ground and toprope those mega 200' routes. Here's Adam’s preferred method. This is one of several ways to do it.

Before we get into the techniques, here are some important considerations:

• This is uses some fairly advanced techniques, so pay attention! (But if you’re top roping 70+ meter pitches you're probably ready for it.)

• The video link below shows the leader descending with a single strand, counterbalanced rappel with a Grigri. The counterbalanced rappel may be new for a lot of people. The leader is counterbalanced by the weight of the belayer on the ground, which means even though the leader is rapping, it's vital that the belay always remain ON. Talking it over on the ground and having complete agreement with your partner is vital for safety. As mentioned above, practice this in a controlled environment first! Remember, stay on belay the whole time!

• The counterbalanced rappel is a good approach if the route is overhanging and/or traverses, because the leader can rappel directly to the ground without having to rappel through gear that might be difficult to unclip and then re-clip. If the route is more or less straight up and down and vertical or less, the standard two strand rappel with a tube device is probably fine.

• A Flemish Bend or Double Fisherman's Bend is the preferred joining knot because it handles cyclical loading (subsequent loading and unloading) better than other common bends, such as the flat overhand bend. Adam uses the Flemish Bend (not to be confused with the flat-8) because it is easy to untie.

• Ropes stretch! One popular 9.8mm rope has a static elongation of 8.6%. That means it could stretch over 34' at the start of a 200' pitch. Keep your climber extremely tight when they are near the ground and above ledges. Before the climber starts, they can “pre-stretch” the rope by fully weighting it, and the belayer can take in the slack through the Grigri.

• A static rope can be used as the tagline and greatly reduce dangerous rope stretch. Be sure the climber always ties into the dynamic rope if you're incorporating a static rope.

• Half/double/twin ropes stretch even more than single ropes and can be hard to control when lowering. Adam prefers single-rated ropes when using this method.

• A Grigri (or similar Assisted Braking Device) is highly preferred for this technique. They allow you to more easily manage the additional stretch.

• Have the first top-roper clean most of the gear but leave any necessary directionals, reclipping them while lowering.

• Adam keeps the upper belay device on the rope when lowering climbers. This makes the transition when another climber ascends a touch faster and easier.

• While this method can be done with a single belayer, it's often easier with a pair of belayers (one for each rope) who assist and check each other during the transition.

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Regarding passing the knot when belaying. . .

The video below shows different techniques to pass the knot. You may think this is unnecessary, all you need to do is pull the knot up until it touches the anchor, have the climber on the ground tie at that point with a figure 8 on a bight and maybe a couple of locking carabiners, and off they go. When the climber reaches the anchor, the knot should be at the belayer, and you don't need to pass it. Easy, right?

Sounds good in theory, but . . .

1. When tying in short, the climber will have rope dangling down between their legs. This can be pretty annoying.

2. Because of rope stretch, the belayer very likely will have to pass the knot anyway. One option is to walk backwards from the base of the cliff to take up some of the rope, but in many places doing that’s not an option. You might get lucky and not have to pass the knot when belaying, but it's better to be prepared to do it with an extra device and ideally an extra person to help.

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Like most fairly complex things in climbing, it's a better show than a tell. Here's a video from Adam showing how it's done.

Rappelling - How to pass other teams

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Short version: the climbing team adds one of their locking carabiners onto their anchor. The rapelling team uses this carabiner to clip their rope, without threading the rope through the actual anchor hardware.

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“You should never clip the rappel rings/chains for your anchor when ascending, because rappelling teams need to use them!”

Have you ever heard that one?

On a popular multi-pitch route with no walk off, where the descent rappel is the same as the climb, it's very common for a rappelling (descending) team needing to get past a climbing (ascending) team. (Red Rock Nevada, I’m looking at you.)

On a big wall climb, a team that's bailing / retreating may need to do many rappels, potentially onto other teams coming up the same route where the anchors might well be clogged with the typical big wall cluster.

The objective is simple: for the teams to pass as quickly, safely (and politely) as possible. So, what's a good way to do this?

While it’s probably drilled into your mind that when rappelling, you ALWAYS thread your rope through the existing hardware (chains, quicklink, ring) you actually don’t have to do this. All you really need is a safe place to attach your rappel rope.

To expedite passing, consider this (unconventional) method: the climbing team clips one of their locking carabiners to the master point of their anchor, and the rappelling team clips their rope to the climbing team’s carabiner.

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To be clear, I am NOT saying that you should do this every time, or that you should build anchors that always obstruct the rappel hardware. Depending on the situation, it might be a better call for the descending team to use the chains, not your master point. This is another simply another tool in the toolbox for more advanced climbers.

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What's cool about this method?

• There's no finagling the rappel rope underneath any existing anchor cluster. Instead, it gets clipped on TOP of everything that’s already built. (This can be even more important on a big wall, where anchor chains might be clogged with gear and pretty much inaccessible.)

• This can be a bit faster to set up, because you're simply clipping the middle mark to a carabiner, instead of threading the rope through the hardware and pulling half of it through.

To be fair, let's look at some possible downsides:

1. The climbing team can’t leave their anchor until the rappelling team is finished. Most of the time this shouldn’t be a problem, because a competent team rappelling should be down and through the anchor in just a few minutes. (If the climbing team is pretty much ready leave the anchor, then the rappelling team can simply wait for a couple minutes until the anchor is completely free.)

2. The climbing team may not have a spare locking carabiner. (Maybe the rappelling team can be generous and donate one of theirs.)

3. Having a legible and accurate middle mark on your rope is pretty much required. Fortunately most newer ropes have this. If yours does not, get a Beal rope marking pen and add one.

4. Hopefully obvious, but if the climbing team is on a sketchy anchor and the rappelling team is not comfortable using it, then you need to work out something else. (On popular routes, hopefully all the established anchors are well-maintained, so this should not be a problem.)

5. If the rappelling team has any rope issues, like tossing the rope, starting down, then having it get stuck or some other weirdness, the climbing team might be pretty much unable to move until it gets sorted out. Hopefully the team heading down is competent enough to get through smoothly and make a decent rope throw, but there's potential for a hang up here.

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Maintaining good vibes:

While descending parties usually have the right-of-way, there’s no reason for anyone to be a jerk. You and your partner are out to have a good day climbing, same as the other team.

Whoever raps first, it might be wise to hang out (literally) for a minute next to the lower anchor, explain your approach, and get some buy-in from the other team before you just swing in and start rigging. Conversely, if you’re the ascending team and someone raps down to your anchor, explain to them that you have a way to make the pass happen faster, which benefits everyone. (Not many people are aware of this method, and you hopefully can use it as a teachable moment.)

Here's how to set it up.

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The ascending team is using the bottom chain link as their master point. What inconsiderate jerks, how can anyone rappel past that!?

(Yeah, I know most people don't build anchors like this, but let’s use an extreme example - even when the chains are completely blocked, you can still rappel past it.)

No problem! The ascending team simply adds one of their locking carabiners (blue) to their master point carabiner . . .

. . . and the descending team clips their rope (blue) into the ascending team’s locker.

Are you concerned about multi-directional loading on the master carabiner? It's not really a problem.)

Pulling up slack rope? Try a redirect

This video comes from IFMGA Certified Guide Karsten Delap. Connect with Karsten and see more tips like this on his Instagram, YouTube, and website.

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When you finish a pitch, you need to pull up the slack before you put your second on belay. Yes, this is a pretty simple process and usually you don’t need to overthink it, just start pulling the rope up hand over hand.

However depending on your stance, anchor configuration, rope friction on the terrain below, and the amount of rope you need to pull up, simply redirecting the rope through a carabiner clipped to the anchor can increase your speed, efficiency, and comfort. If you're making lap coils, or even a pancake stack on a nice ledge, redirecting through a high point usually keeps things more tidy.

This method also has the benefit of working out most of the kinks or twists in the rope while you're doing it.

The same trick works really well if you need to stack a rope inside a rope bag or a backpack. If you don't have a high anchor point, like on the top of a climb, put the pack or rope bag on the ground in front of you, drape the rope over one shoulder, and pull the rope down hand over hand into the pack.

Here's a nice diagram from @climbing.technical showing the “over the back” method. (If you just have a T shirt, watch out for rope burn. =^)

image: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcPyST1hde0/

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Like many things in climbing, it's a better show than a tell.

Here's a short video by IFMGA Guide Karsten Delap showing the technique.

Retreat anchors - sport climbing

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Practice vertical rope techniques with a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Takeaway:

• Dos: Lowering off of a single snapgate carabiner is probably gonna be fine. If you're not comfortable with that, use a locker or put some tape on a snapgate.

• Don’ts: Avoid using quicklinks, because they can be hard for the next person to open and complicate others using the route. Don’t lower off the hanger, nad for sure don’t lower off a sling!

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Not comfortable lowering off of a single snap gate carabiner? Make a “cheapskate locker” with a few wraps of tape securing the gate. Stick the tape end to itself to make a tab for the next person to clean more easily.

• Is this a little harder for the next person at the route to clean? Yes.

• Is making it convenient for the next person more important than your comfort and level of acceptable risk when lowering off one bolt? No.

Ever bailed from a sport route? If not, it's probably going to happen someday, and when it does, you’ll need to have a retreat strategy.

When you bail from a route, be at a one pitch sport climb or an alpine multipitch, the objectives are similar: Get to the ground in one piece, with each anchor point strong enough but not overbuilt, and leave a minimum of gear behind.

Reasons to bail on a sport climb include:

1. “Ambition exceeding ability” - the climbing is too hard for you to complete

2. It’s getting dark, rainy, lightning, etc.

3. The route is longer than the rope you’re using, meaning for a one pitch sport route, the middle mark of the rope goes through your belayer’s device before you make it to the anchor. Hopefully you have both an attentive belayer who notices this, and a good middle mark on your rope. (Next time, bring a longer rope and read the damn guidebook!)

Hopefully, you’re on a modern sport route that has properly stout bolts and hangers. If you trust a bolt to take a lead fall on, you should certainly trust it to be gently lowered from, right? One encouraging thought: the maximum force possible on an anchor when lowering is not much more than double your body weight, 2 kN (about 450 lbs), which should be well within the strength rating of even a poorly placed bolt.

If you happen to be on a bolt that looks sketchy, you can reduce the force on the bolt by rappelling instead of being lowered. This puts only your bodyweight on the bolt. Because of the pulley effect, lowering puts approximately two times your bodyweight onto the anchor. Hopefully the next bolt lower down inspires a little more confidence.

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What if you’re bailing from one pitch sport route, and more than half of the rope has already been used? Well, that means you can’t lower off from that point and make it to the ground or the previous anchor.

First, make SURE your belayer is tied into the rope end or at the very least has a knot in the very end (aka a “closed rope” system) so they can't drop you. There are a few different ways to handle this, but this is probably the easiest one: Lower to one bolt fairly close to the ground, tether yourself to that bolt, pull your rope, and then lower off again from that lower bolt. Yes, this requires you donate one more carabiner.

Are you bummed you're leaving gear behind? Of course you are. Think of it as the price of a lesson in humility and judgment, and try to do better next time.

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Safety note: Do not thread the rope directly through a bolt hanger for either lowering or rappelling! The sharp edge might damage your rope, and if you rappel, the extra friction might make it impossible to pull your rope down. Please, never consider doing this and always leave behind a $5 carabiner instead. (Scroll to the bottom to see one possible solution if you come across anchor bolts with no hardware.)

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You can lower from basically four gear options:

1. regular carabiner

2. locking carabiner

3. quicklink / maillon

4. taped gate carabiner

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1) Regular carabiner. Most of the time you can pilfer a carabiner from one of your quickdraws, leave it on a bolt, and lower off that.

This is probably going to be fine most of the time, because if you have a smooth lower under a constant load, it would be quite difficult for the rope to do anything weird in the carabiner. But the load may not be constant: you may have to start/stop, bypass ledges or vegetation, stop and clean gear, etc. All of these could cause some strange carabiner jiggling, cross loading, or some other unwanted some rope/carabiner weirdiosity. So because of this, many people are more comfortable with something that can be locked.

If the bolt you’re lowering from doesn’t give you a warm fuzzy feeling, then leave another carabiner on the next bolt down. In the highly unlikely event of the top bolt failing, you should be caught by the next one. Yes, this does involve leaving behind a second carabiner. (That's never happened in the entire history of climbing as far as I know, but hey, it's cheap insurance.)

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2) Locking carabiner. Not only is this a secure option, it makes it easy for the next person up to clean and remove it. That's a big bonus, so this is a fine choice. (Don't crank the gate down too hard.)

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3) Quicklink / maillon. These offer an inexpensive locking lowering point, but they have a couple of downsides. The locking sleeve on the quicklink is probably going to cinch down, maybe get rusty, and be hard to open without pliers, which makes cleaning it problematic. It's more courteous to leave the route in better shape for the next person by lowering from an easy-to-clean carabiner instead.

Plus, depending on the size of the hanger, the next person on the route may have a hard time clipping their quickdraw past the quicklink. If you come across a quicklink (or something similar) on a hanger and you can't remove it, it's best practice to clip your quickdraw directly to it or under the link, as shown below.

Plus, quicklinks are a bit heavy and a single use piece of gear, and for that reason alone many people choose not to carry them.

If you clip a quickdraw on TOP of a quicklink in the same hanger, it can lever the carabiner and actually break it yikes! See this Instagram video of it actually happening in real time.

Photo from instagram.com/zacwronski/ showing a carabiner that broke after being clipped on top of a quicklink, yikes!.

image: instagram.com/zacwronski/

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4) Taped gate carabiner (aka cheapskate locker). Here's a simple and inexpensive option that only requires a bit of forethought. If you have a tiny roll of tape on your harness, a strip or two stuck inside your helmet, or a premade “bail carabiner” with some tape already wrapped around the spine, you can tape the gate of the carabiner closed. This is known in some circles as a “cheapskate locker.” (Thanks to IFMGA Guide Jeff Ward for the “pre-made bail carabiner” idea, wish I thought of that one!)

Although you might think this looks a little sketchy, the cheapskate locker has been used by big wall climbers for decades, and is “super-good-enough” as an improvised lowering point. Provided you have the tape, this is a low cost, secure, and easy-for-the-next-person-to-clean method.

Please be courteous for the next person up the route who is going to clean this: fold over the end of the tape on itself to make a little tab, so it’s easy to unwrap.

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When I posted this on Instagram, I had a fair number of comments criticizing it for being “hard to clean”. To those people I say: 

• Someone’s right to choose the method and level of risk tolerance when lowering off a single bolt is more important than slightly inconveniencing the next person up the route, IMHO.

• If you seriously think this would be hard to clean, perhaps you need to work on your clipping skills.

Dealing with this carabiner should not be a surprise in most cases, because you hopefully spotted this from the ground before you started. 

I’ve come across a taped gate, quicklink, etc. on hangers many times. I’ve never had an issue. Simply clip a quickdraw under the quicklink / carabiner (most all modern bolt hangers have room for two carabiners.) Keep on climbing, and clean it when you lower off and have two hands free.

If you want to clean it on the way up, clip the rope to your draw, and call for a take. Remove the tape or locking carabiner. Again, hopefully the previous person was courteous and left you a little tab of tape to easily unwrap it.

Did your redpoint get ruined? Boo-hoo. (Look on on the bright side, you bootied a carabiner.  =^)

Pre-made bail carabiner: Wrap a few inches of athletic tape around the spine. Use it as a regular carabiner for any purpose; the tape is always there when you need it for a cheapskate locker.

Make it easy for the next person to remove it by folding the tape onto itself to make a little tab.

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A suggestion from Petzl:

While a bolt failing during a body weight lower is very, very, unlikely, here's one way to reduce your risk if you're concerned about it.

If you add a friction hitch to the rope going down to your belayer, and slide this along as you’re lowered, it might prevent you from taking a ground fall if the top piece fails (extremely unlikely) in some way. If you're doing this, you should only take a fall down to the next piece/bolt below you, because it isolates the increasingly larger loop of rope that’s being created as you descend. One more reason to carry a prusik when you lead.

• Would a fall on this be terrifying? Yes!

• Might the prusik melt and damage your rope? Possibly yes!

• Are both of these better than the alternative? Yes!

This may be little hard to visualize, so have a look at the nice illustration below from Petzl and hopefully it’ll make sense. According to the diagram, Petzl has tested this, and it works. (Note the diagram shows a quick link on the top bolt, but as mentioned above, a carabiner is recommended.)

image: petzl.com

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Finally, a tip on not exactly bailing from a sport route, more about what to do if you come across a pair of bolt hangers that don't have any rings / chains / rappel hardware.

This happened to me at Smith Rock. My partner and I climbed a route that was brand new; so new that the route developer had not yet put chains at the top. We finished the route, and found just a pair of bolt hangers. After some head scratching, we decided to clip one carabiner to each hanger and lower off. This got us to the ground, but the rope was very difficult to pull, and we had some nasty rope twisting, because the carabiners were lying flat against the rock instead of perpendicular. Lesson learned! (Here's a longer article that explains this phenomenon.)

Here's one of many ways to deal with this, assuming you have a cordelette.

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1. Pass a bight of your cordelette through each of the bolt hangers, making a big letter “M”.

2. Bring the loops together, tie them off in an overhand knot, and add a cheapskate locker. The cord is doubled up going through the hangers, which should give a little more peace of mind. While certainly not ideal for a long-term anchor, it’s definitely strong enough, and fully redundant, to rappel on. The cost is about $10 for the cord and $5ish for the carabiner; less than leaving behind two quickdraws.

Here’s a close up of the cheapskate locker.

Retreat anchors - alpine climbing

This article was written with assistance from Max Lurie, an AMGA Certified Rock and Alpine Guide. Connect with Max at his website and Instagram.

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Be it challenging weather, poor route conditions, route finding errors, or just general loss of mojo, there can be lots of valid reasons to turn around on an alpine route. It may not be something you actively planned for, but it needs to be handled with the same level of focus and detail as any other part of your climb.

When you retreat / bail (and yes, it’s “when, and not “if”), be it a one pitch sport climb or a major alpine adventure, the objectives should be similar: get to the ground in one piece, with each anchor point simple to build and strong enough to rappel on, and leave a minimum of gear behind.

Let's be clear on one thing: this is no time to be a cheapskate. Yes, we hate to leave gear behind, but if you HAVE to leave your beloved #3 Camalot for a rappel anchor, then do it without hesitation. The simple question is, what's your life worth? At the same time, you don't want to over build your anchors, and leave behind gear that you might need lower down if multiple rappels are required.

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Alpinist Steve House has a terrific video on “Failing Well”. “Success on a climb is going up, making good decisions, and coming back. That's the outcome we should be attached to. To me, that’s what ‘fail well’ means.”

Six minute YouTube video, highly recommended. Takeaways:

• Strategic retreat is an inherent part of alpine climbing. It’s a skill that improves with practice.

• Having solid retreat technique can give you the confidence to try harder routes, knowing that you can retreat from just about anywhere.

• Maintain awareness when ascending. The way up might also be the (unplanned) way down. Remember potential anchor points, problem areas and the right way to go.

• Retreat is often done under stress, tiredness, darkness, bad weather, etc. All the more reason to turn up your focus and awareness to counter these compounding factors.

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Some general guidelines for retreat anchors . . .

Use two equalized pieces whenever possible. Sure, the classic climbing books are full of epic stories of rapping off of a single stopper or piton. One that’s perfectly placed should be sufficiently strong, but that shouldn’t be your first choice unless things are really desperate.

This anchor is only for rappelling, so the “rules” change a bit. The belay anchor general principle of striving for “three good pieces“ doesn’t necessarily apply to a rappel anchor. If you rappel smoothly on a dynamic rope, the anchor will only see about 1-2 kN, and the direction of force will always be down. So good news, your anchor doesn’t need to be multi-directional or tremendously strong. However, we're still aiming for some other core anchor principles of strong (enough), redundant, load distribution, and no extension.

The examples below don’t use carabiners on the gear. You’d never make a proper belay anchor like this as regular practice, but it's acceptable for an emergency rappel anchor. It's fine to run cord or webbing through stopper wires for a rappel anchor; it holds 8+ kN. (See previous point, the rules change a bit.)

To minimize forces on your anchor, rappel smoothly and don't jump / bounce around.

Keep your rigging simple. You should really only need one or two variations on the basic theme, so no need to get overly fancy. You're probably going to be doing this under a bit of stress, and bailing on marginal anchors is not something most people practice very often. Keeping your rigging clean and simple makes it easier to check and to remember.

You're going to need a fair amount cordage (and maybe a few slings) so plan ahead. 5 mm cord (rated to about 5.5 kN) is light and easy to carry, so consider that if you anticipate making a lot of anchors. Tying those pesky knots always seems to take up more cord than you think! Plan on about 2 meters of cord per anchor. You can get away with a bit less if the gear placements are right next to each other, or if you use some clever knots like maybe a fisherman’s.

What about webbing? Tubular webbing can work as a retreat anchor, but it has a few downsides compared to cord. 1) Webbing strength drops off quickly if it gets damaged, unlike cord that has more of a protective sheath. 2) Webbing is more easily degraded by ultraviolet light. 3) Webbing usually requires tying a water knot, which can be a little finicky and a hassle to tie if you have gloves and/or cold fingers. For these reasons, cord is usually a better choice. (See an example below of how to use a sewn sling.)

Use your cordelette. Six meters or so of cord (7mm is the standard) makes a cordelette for the way up; you can think of that is equal to about three potential anchors if you need them for the way down. If you and your partner each carry a cordelette, together that should be good for about 5-6 anchors.

Carry a knife, so you can cut up your cordage (or maybe even an end off your climbing rope) to make an anchor. Also, a knife is useful for cleaning up any rat nest of old sun-crusted cord and webbing you often find at alpine anchors. Good rule of thumb, if you add cord to improve an existing anchor, remove the oldest piece(s) and take it with you.

Don't have a knife? It’s remarkably easy to cut through rope or webbing with a small length of 2 or 3 mm cord. Tie a bight knot in each end, clip the loops to a pair of carabiners for handles, and then rapidly saw back-and-forth through the material that's under some tension. You’ll cut it through in a few seconds.

Look first for a tree or rock horn. Give it a good kick first to assess its strength. You can drape a sling or tied loop around this and use it for a rappel, with no gear left behind. Note: use caution with putting the rope directly around/over a tree or rock horn; the friction could make pulling the rope difficult or impossible.

Stoppers and maybe a knife blade piton or two are good choices for retreat anchors. Stoppers are inexpensive, strong, easy to check if you have a good placement (well, the bigger ones, anyway) , easy to bounce test, and can be set in rock that’s dry, wet, icy, or muddy. If you happen to have a hammer, such as on an ice tool, feel free to use it to smack on the piton as well as the stopper. To weld in a stopper placement, you can beat on it Neanderthal-style with a fist size rock (and maybe your nut tool). But a hammer is always going to be better. No one's going to be cleaning it, so don't be shy. If you find a fixed piton, see if there’s a nearby stopper placement you can use to equalize the two pieces.

Time for a Tricam? Tricams sometimes don't get a lot of love, but they can be pretty sweet for retreat anchors. They can fit in parallel cracks, you can use them as a stopper, and they are inexpensive.

If you anticipate doing many rappels, you may want to take a few older carabiners with about 3 inches / 5 cm of athletic tape already wrapped onto the spine. This lets you make a “cheapskate locker”, which adds extra security to your rappel with zero extra cost. You can use the carabiners when climbing, and also have them as a convenient and secure anchor point when rappelling. Always good to get double duty out of your gear. (Thanks to IFMGA Guide Jeff Ward for this crafty “pre-wrap tape on a carabiner” tip.)

It's good practice to backup the rappel anchor with another solid piece or two when possible. Then, bounce test the anchor, and send the heaviest person down with the biggest pack first. If primary anchor holds fine for them, it should also hold for the lighter person going down second. The second cleans the backup gear and descends on the primary anchor. (This climbing axiom seems to have been made by large, heavy people . . . =^)

Add a metal connection to the master point, or not? If you carry quicklinks (5mm is a good size for a bail anchor) or rappel rings, this is a fine time to use them. Quicklinks have the advantage of having a very small opening, so it's impossible for a knot to pass through, which makes setting up a double rope rappel a bit easier. This is also a good time to donate your least favorite carabiner.

It's also okay to run the rope directly through the cord. Just know you're going to have some extra friction (and potentially damage the anchor cord) when you pull your rope. Normally you wouldn’t do this because it's best practice to leave the cord in good condition for someone else, but if you’re retreating, hopefully no one else is going to be using that anchor for a long time, if ever.

Be wary of the “bail trail”. Don't be tempted to depart from your route to go towards a retreat anchor that someone else has left. If your route description says “belay from the ledge”, and you see some sketchy looking stoppers equalized with a shoelace on terrain that looks clearly off route, that probably means it's a bail anchor and not a belay anchor intended for ascending.

Leave a cam if you have to. Yes, your life is worth it. If you have a perfect placement for a larger cam, versus fiddling around trying to equalize several different stoppers, go for the one cam and get the hell down, especially if you have multiple pitches to go and it's starting to rain, getting dark, etc.

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There are some approaches to building retreat anchors that can be definitely strong enough for rappelling, yet require a minimum amount of gear - and maybe no carabiners at all.

Let's look at a few.

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1. Place two good stoppers. Thread some cord through both of them, and tie a flat overhand bend to make a loop.

2. Pull down the cord, making a “U” shape.

3. Girth hitch a carabiner (here another cheapskate locker) or a quick link.

This approach is fast, requires minimal fiddling with knots, and uses a small amount of cord.

Potential downside, you need to leave behind some hardware to make the girth hitch. (If you had another foot or so of cord, you could tie an overhand on a bight here rather than the girth hitch.)

If you're new to the girth hitch master point, yes, it's legit and yes, it’s redundant. Read a more on the girth hitch anchor here.

A note on stopper placement: In these examples, the gear is placed close to the outside of the crack, because that's where they fit. But feel free to bury them deeper if you think it gives you a stronger or more secure placement. No one is probably ever going to clean these, so don't let that be a concern.

Below left: girth hitch around a “cheapskate locker”; below right: around a quick link. (If you had another foot or two of cord, you could tie an overhand on a bight instead.)

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Next: instead of a girth hitch we have an overhand knot tied in both strands. This takes up another foot or so cord than the girth hitch, but gives a redundant two strand loop at the master point.

Want the ultra-minimalist approach? Run the rope directly through the cord. Yep, an anchor with zero carabiners! =^) The rope pull may be slightly more difficult because of the extra friction, but it should pull just fine.

Note, don’t make a regular habit had a building rappel anchors like this, especially if they're going to be used by anybody else, because pulling the rope will likely damage the anchor cord. But here it's an emergency retreat anchor, so it's acceptable.

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How about a sewn sling? Yes, you can girth hitch a Dyneema sling directly to a stopper wire like in the top placement. Believe it or not, that’s been tested to about 8 kN! (Again, don't get into the habit of making regular anchors like this, always use a carabiner if you have one. Remember, this is for a rappel anchor.) The connection point once again is a cheapskate locker with a girth hitch.

Here's another way to use a sewn sling. Girth hitch each strand through your gear, tie an overhand knot to roughly equalize the load (aka SWAMP anchor), and add a cheapskate locker.

(Extra credit if you use fun skull & crossbones hockey tape like this. =^)

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I think you get the idea. To summarize:

• Distribute the load to two good placements whenever possible.

• The anchor only needs to hold 2-3 kN maximum; strength is not the top priority.

• Choose a rigging method that allows for “no extension” if one piece fails.

• You’ll need about 2 meters of cord for each anchor. Bring extra cord if you anticipate multiple rappels.

• Keep rigging consistent and simple.

• Back up the anchor when possible for the first person down.

• Bring a knife.

• Pre-tape a few cheapskate lockers to leave behind.

• PRACTICE on the ground before you have to do it for real!

What's in my pack: Denali gear by Mark Postle and Steve House

Steve House and veteran guide Mark Postle have more then 30 Denali summits between them. Learn what Denali gear they like (and don’t like) in this article and in two videos from Uphill Athlete.

They review pretty much every piece of gear, naming exact brands and models. What do they cover?

• What temperature rating sleeping bag should you bring?

• Why are baby wipes (usually) a bad idea?

• Do you need gaiters? How about a headlamp?

• How much sunscreen should you bring? (Hint, not much)

• What's the best size and shape of duffel bag to go on your sled?

• Who’s the most important person to make friends with when you land at base camp?

• Pro tip: At camp, remove your liner boots, put on your down booties, and then put your foot in your outer boot to wear around camp.

• Pro tip: if you’re wearing puffy pants, you can unzip the fly and clip the rope to your belay loop through the fly. 

You get the idea - loads of tested expert tips! (Plus, a pretty long list of things you should not bring.) If you're headed to Denali, have a look.

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Here's a video covering clothing and personal gear with Mark, about 45 minutes.

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Here's a longer video/podcast version on the same topic, with additional expert advice from Steve House, about 2:12.

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And finally, here's the original article at Uphill Athlete, with a summary of the gear list.

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Weekly hi-res satellite imagery in CalTopo

A common question for backcountry users: How much snow is on the ground, right now, at a given location?

• Is the trailhead snowed in?

• Is my intended campsite under snow, or is there some exposed ground?

• Are there some snow patches available for drinking water on the ridge climb I want to try?

• Can I still get a few more runs in, or is backcountry ski season really over?

• Is the brush filled valley you need to cross still covered with snow, making it much easier?

• How does the snow level at a certain location compare from year to year at the same time?

Yes, you can look at snow depth models, as we cover in this article, but often seeing the snow level directly is really helpful, especially when you can overlay track and waypoints of your intended route over the top.

Well, as usual, CalTopo has you covered.

For subscribers at the “Pro” level ($50 a year) CalTopo, the best backcountry mapping software, now offers weekly, high resolution satellite imagery. This can be a very useful tool for trip planning, because you can see current snow levels in the satellite imagery overlaid on a base map, along with a GPX track and waypoints.

Bonus, you can print this, which you can’t easily do with the Google satellite imagery in CalTopo.

Summer 2021 update: imagery now is available six or more times a month rather than weekly, so sometimes you get imagery on a five day cycle, even better!

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Other options . . .

Before we take a closer look at CalTopo, note that there are some other ways to view recent satellite imagery.

Gaia GPS has a map layer they call “FreshSat”. This is available for a premium level subscription of around $40 a year. This works pretty well, but the resolution does not seem to be as good as the CalTopo layer, and you can only see the most recent imagery, instead of the historical imagery that CalTopo offers. But, if you already have a Gaia Premium subscription, give that a try and see how it works for you.

You can also look at the Sentinel satellite imagery, which is basically free, but the user interface has a bit of a learning curve. If you want to explore this tool, use the link above.

What about Google? Google does offer wonderful high resolution satellite images, but as of summer 2021, it's definitely not on a weekly basis. Depending on where you’re looking, updates can be many months apart. So, if you're looking for current snow coverage, Google is probably not going to work.

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Let’s look at a few examples in CalTopo, here of Mt. Adams Washington.

Here’s the default “MapBuilder Topo” layer in CalTopo, along with the GPX track of the climbing route, shown in red, with waypoints added for the trailhead, camp and summit.

(Tip: it's helpful to have a track like this and a few waypoints, because if you change the opacity of the underlying map, the opacity of your tracks and waypoints stays nicely visible. More on that below.)

From the Map Layers menu in the top right, you can choose “Sentinel Weekly”. (If you don’t have the Pro level subscription, these options are grayed out.)

From the “Sentinel Weekly” drop-down menu, you can look at historical imagery back to 2017.

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A great feature of CalTopo: stacking one map layer on top of another and then changing the opacity. Here’s the MapBuilder Topo layer stacked on top of the satellite imagery, with the topo layer set to 33% opacity. This lets you see both the snow line and the underlying roads, trails, contours, etc.

Notice that the red GPX track showing the route and the waypoints remain at full brightness and easy to see, regardless of what level you set the opacity.

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Yes, this weekly satellite imagery does cost $50 a year. Is it worth it? If you spend a lot of time in the backcountry, and want the most recent imagery to help plan your trip, probably yes.

Fortunately, there are other CalTopo subscription options. While it doesn't offer weekly imagery, many people find the $20 subscription to be a good balance of features and cost. Even the free version of CalTopo gives you a lot, but I encourage you to subscribe at some level to support the small team who makes this wonderful tool available. Software developers have to eat too!

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Here's a sequence of (pretty much) monthly images of Mt. Adams in spring-summer 2020. Getting cloud-free images in the Pacific Northwest can be difficult, so the images are not all 30 days apart, but you get the general idea. Again, notice the approximate 30% opacity of the underlying map, which shows trails and roads and contours.

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Finally, here's a sequence from Mt. Shasta in Northern California in July, 2017-2021. This helps answers the question of what's the snow level like this year compared to previous years? Short answer, 2021 is dry!

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And hey, if you're stuck with me for this long, here's a little YouTube composite of the Mt. Adams imagery. Enjoy!