“Fail More, Suck Less”

The title of this article by “Nerd Fitness” caught my eye.

“Last June I quit my day job with around $3,000 in the bank and no money coming in through Nerd Fitness.  I wrote an ebook with no back up plan and blew my expectations out

of the water for how many I expected to sell.  Back in November, I decided to book a ridiculous around the world trip on a whim, and everything pretty much managed to go right for me on it – I was even invited to speak at Google, which happened to also be my first ever speaking gig.   I wrote and launched two other ebooks while traveling, both of which built on the success of its predecessor and outperformed my highest projections.”

Wet vs. Dry

At Black Diamond, they tested the strength of wet slings vs. dry.

“Dynex runners don’t seem to be affected when soaked, which was to be expected. Nylon runners, on the other hand, show about a 10% decrease in strength when wet. Should this slight decrease in strength be concerning? Not really. The strength of these, wet or dry, are well above the product rating and pretty much any force that can be created in the field. Bottom line: runners are crazy strong, wet or dry.”

Why Date Outdoorsy Womyn?

Gear Gals has an article called “Five Reasons to Date Outdoorsy Women.” I liked this quote;

"The sad fact is that guys can go out and play more than women, and women who spend time in the outdoors end up with male partners for a lot of their activities. If this freaks you out, don’t bother with outdoors-oriented women."

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

Three sisters from India started a women’s guiding service in Nepal. Full story here.  Their website here.

"’We went door-to-door looking for women. We told them just to give it a try, but their families resisted; they were very afraid. We could only convince 10 women,’ Chetri said. In the dining room of their restaurant, they learned about first aid, avalanche warnings, acute mountain sickness, tourism, trekking and women's empowerment. ‘We were laughed at by

almost everyone. We had no idea if we were even doing the right thing by closing the restaurant.’
The challenges ranged from a taboo on women wearing trousers to a deeply entrenched resistance toward wives earning money, from doubts about women's strength and mental acuity to a cultural belief that women are bad luck on the mountain. Few women in Nepal have jobs outside of agriculture, harvesting rice and wheat, earning about US$3 a day, Chetri said.

Today, the Three Sisters trekking agency trains about 50 women a year and leads hundreds of foreign trekkers - independent tourists from Europe, the United States, Japan and India - over the Annapurna mountain range. In fact, depending upon the level of difficulty and time available they have specially-designed treks called Tea House Treks to lower reaches on the mountain.

Yellow Taggers

Today at VE, we had two well-known people pass their lead tests. This is Team M&M who are showing their matching yellow tags. (Miriam had passed her lead test quite awhile ago. But, today, she got a replacement yellow tag with her new name “Killer” ‘cuz she’s killin’ all the routes at VE.)

 

One of Team M&M’s goals, is to do a ceiling route. I think they have the energy for it.

This is team L&S showing off his new lead tag. When last seen, he was leading the arch and she was pulling a roof. A lot of fun was had by all. 

Wings Of Steel

You might need another part of your body to be steel in order to climb this route. A photo report of the 2nd ascent of “Wings of Steel” on El Cap. Here’s what they use to aid past some of the blank sections.

 

Luckily, they also brought some hydrating fluids with them on the wall.

Here’s Another Reason Not To Mountain Bike

The buck doesn’t stop here – he just runs this biker over.

“Mountain Biker, Evan van der Spuy of Team Jeep South Africa got taken out by a RED HARTEBEES at the Time Freight Express MTB race at Albert Falls Dam. Check out this crazy footage which was taken by team mate Travis Walker on his GoPro Camera - The BUCK sure does STOP HERE with Evan van der Spuy aka #BUCKNORRIS.”

Prehistoric Fingerpainting

No matter where you live, you can’t keep kids from marking up the walls. Including 13,000 year-old markings on the walls on caves in France.

“Many of the markings are thought to date back 13,000 years, to a hunter-gatherer culture known as the Magdalenian. The same culture is thought to have created the better-known cave drawings at Lascaux.”

Chick Report From Yosemite

The Marketing & Social Media Chick at Chicks Climbing went climbing with the American Alpine Club’s International Climbers’ Week. She asks:

“So, how does an out-of-shape rock climber end up in Yosemite?”

And proceeds to describe the climbs she did and the famous climbers she met. She mentions the “Alcove Swing” on El Cap, Here’s a video of it.

“Get Your Own” Cookie Dough

The Smileys complete their 32nd summit – Bugaboo Spire East Ridge. At the end of the video, he’s eating raw cookie dough and she asks if he brought any for her. He tells her, “Get your own.” It looks delicious. It is an unbelievably beautiful area with notoriously bad weather. Even though they were climbing in August, they had to clear snow out of the cracks so they could put in gear. Read their whole story here.

I went into the Bugaboos in the winter with Johnnie Mac. We were towed in on our skis for the first 22 miles with a snowmobile – the part in the video on the dirt road.. Because it was winter and the porcupines were less active, we didn’t have to cover our car with chicken wire. It is an unbelievably beautiful area with notoriously bad weather.

 

Bugaboo Spire's East Ridge from Mark Smiley on Vimeo.

Makes Me Want To Stay Indoors

This beautiful time lapse with music, makes me want to stay indoors and watch time lapse videos of Nature. Why would I go outside when I can see stuff like this without having to worry about the weather?

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

“Do One Thing A Day That Scares You’

I like the thought of doing one thing a day that scares me, as shown in the first frame of this video. The problem for me, is that it scares me to leave the house. And that’s a low hurdle.

But I was impressed by this guy who paralyzed himself by skiing and still continues to push his limits in a ski chair. Admirable? Or nutty? I think it’s both.

Pete & Fabrice – Read This

Maybe this is only for Pete, Fabrice and me, but I loved this story of 3 friends with only three years of climbing experience, who completed a climb of the Nose on El Cap just recently. They have a gear list, a pitch-by-pitch description and lots of photos. (Including a photo of all the bottles of urine they carried out with them. Icky!) I like this quote:

“Three years ago, I entered Yosemite Valley on a backpacking trip with friends, spotted El

Capitan and knew that someday I wanted to climb The Nose. I by no means considered myself a climber. I had pulled on plastic and clipped a couple bolts but I had no experience with traditional climbing and no knowledge of aid climbing. All I had was a set of quickdraws, a harness and some motivation….We had a gut feeling that we would be drawn to climbing big walls and that all we needed to do was buy the gear; so we shelled out the cash and equipped ourselves to aid climb.”

Of course, living in California, gave them a huge advantage over us prairie folk.

Superpin Bolt Removal

Lots of discussion over the years whether Superpin in the Black Hills e is a 5.10R or 5.10X. This summer, after 35 years, the sole bolt that is about 2/3 of the way up the route, has been removed. Now it is certainly 5.10 X.

Here’s the forum on Mountain Project about it and here’s some more discussion at Supertopo. Here’s how Mountain Project describes the protection on the route:

“Currently none. After removal of the retro-bolts in summer '11, there is now no protection above the crux bulge.”

 

The bolt was placed there after a piton, which the first ascensionists used (as far as I can tell), broke off. It will definitely cut down on the number of climbers willing to lead this route. Personally, I think that is good; climbing is too dangerous to allow people to do it. It should be banned.

The Future Of Outdoor Climbing?

I’ve noticed so many people who use the outdoors, resent paying for its use. This seems particularly true for climbers. Spend hundreds of dollars on gear but expect free campsites. (Another example is the few climbers who will donate to the Access Fund to have bolts replaced at outdoor climbing areas.)

This essay is about the future of outdoor climbing based on an interview with the owner of the Horse Pens in Alabama – a famous bouldering area which is privately owned.

“Kids come here today and have zero respect for this land, and they want free access to it

as well.  Well, someone pays taxes on this land I tell you.  Someone pays for the electricity, the water, and upkeep of the grounds.  That person is me, and I would do just as well to NOT HAVE CLIMBING HERE AT ALL.  Horse Pens doesn’t need it.”

The author of the essay says:

“The laws of supply-and-demand work here too: buy the access and build a toll booth.  It’ll happen one day.  Everything will be restricted like Hueco, only without the petro-glyphs and Native American nation having their backs…. Limit the use on high volume areas (could probably just make the grades really sandbagged nowadays).  Preserve the land.  And keep track of the traffic that ruffs up the rock.  I was climbing at the biggest gym in the country last week, and out of the 300+ people in there, all being climbers, I knew 4. And I am really glad that this plastic Jupiter exists, because that amount of traffic on any outdoor area would be devastating,…”