Here is (almost) everything you need to know about the different kinds of pull-ups. I like this quote:
“Pull ups are a great exercise, one of the best, combined with a push type exercise i.e. basic floor push up, and a bit of running, you can become very fit. That’s the end of the story”
The Smileys climb their 36th of 50 Classic Climbs – Mt. Huntington in Alaska. Tough travel through deep snow as well as hard technical climbing:
“The first anchor on the Spiral consisted of three old pitons at a hanging stance. More mixed climbing followed, which opened up into a 65-degree snow slope. The snow was fluffy,
so I had to dig a vertical trench to make upward progress. This was both time consuming and exhausting. The heavy snow year covered up most of the fixed belays, so I dug for 20 minutes to expose a crack for an anchor, 195 feet above the last.”
Huntington from Mark Smiley on Vimeo.
Sure, your friends told you it was a bad idea; that you couldn’t do it. But you believed in yourself and you did it with enthusiasm.
OK, it didn’t quite work out like you planned. (And, it turns out, your friends were right.) But still, why not do it with enthusiasm?
2 of the top 5 tallest climbing walls are in the U.S. This is the tallest climbing “wall” a- a 540’ dam in Italy.
This is the cutest one:
An article about women climbing without men – the horror. I like this 1929 quote from a male alpinist:
“..Now that it has been done by two women alone, no self-respecting
man can undertake it. A pity, too, because it used to be a very good climb.”
She writes:
“Even now, 75 years after Underhill’s ascent of the Grépon, when I’m with my girlfriends at a popular crag or high in the mountains, we still encounter comments ranging from complimentary and kind to condescending and rude, their message being that we are women and we are climbing, a combination unusual enough to warrant commentary.”
OK, here is what I always think when women say they get rude comments from men: Men get rude comments from other men. So what? Men can be rude. (BTW, women can be rude – say it ain’t so!)
Climbers can be rude. There’s nothing special about climbers that way; they are all-too human. And humans are goofy, mean, rude, etc.
And it is unusual to see women climbing alone. So why wouldn’t men comment on that?
This is Core – Tastic.. Here’s Killer Hoopin’ the core.
A mountain biker descending a mountain in New Zealand. I like how fast he goes so he doesn’t have to stop and look at the scenery. Scenery’s all around us - no big deal. Going fast, now that’s’ a big deal.
An account of a recent NIAD attempt of El Cap. I liked this quote:
“Originally, I had planned to try the biggest climb of my life with my trusted partner and good friend, Seth. But after a couple of training climbs, he changed his mind and pulled out of the project. So I went with the next best thing: a kid I met in the parking lot of Yosemite's Camp 4.”
In this photo, Nature almost looks beautiful. Although, I bet he got eaten alive by bugs when he took this photo.
“Grand Prize Winner of Outdoor Photographer Magazine’s 3rd Annual Great Outdoors Photography Contest and will be published in the July 2012 issue.”
Details of the photo here.
Here’s a solution I think I will try. I think it also is good for robbing banks.
A trip report of a few days spent in Ten Sleep by some Denver climbers. I like this description:
“We climbed our first day at the ‘Home Alone’ crag which boasted a 1 minute approach. They weren't kidding. You literally walk from your car, right into this corridor.”
Climbing in Cuba is deemed “peligrosidad” or a danger to the state and it is banned. No one knows why. Climbers can be arrested and imprisoned. Yet the allure of the great climbing there brings tourists from all over who work together to figure out how to avoid the guards. Including this guard with a true Catch-22 approach:
“In March, one guard, a congenial man in a green button-down shirt, said: ‘We don’t like to say climbing is prohibited. Climbing isn’t prohibited, because prohibited is an ugly word.’
But may one climb?
‘No,’ he said.”
One of the locals hopes the tourists never stop coming.
“It is a bit of reassurance for him that tourists continue to climb most days, too. They kill mornings waiting for the guards to quit, usually around 2 p.m. They get to the cliffs before the guards are on duty, around 9 a.m. They climb on cliffs the guards do not frequent and wear dull colors to blend in with the rock. On Sundays the guards don’t work at all.”
Finally a solution to the age-old problem of spreading butter on bread.
Obese people who lost weight were put on 3 different diets: low fat , medium carbs and high fat and protein. The people on the higher fat and higher protein diet burned more calories doing the same amount of exercise.
“On the very low-carbohydrate diet, Dr. Ludwig’s subjects expended 300 more calories a day than they did on the low-fat diet and 150 calories more than on the low-glycemic-index diet. As Dr. Ludwig explained, when the subjects were eating low-fat diets, they’d have to add an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity each day to expend as much energy as they would effortlessly on the very-low-carb diet. And this while consuming the same amount of calories.”
I like this part:
“From this perspective, the trial suggests that among the bad decisions we can make to maintain our weight is exactly what the government and medical organizations like the American Heart Association have been telling us to do: eat low-fat, carbohydrate-rich diets, even if those diets include whole grains and fruits and vegetables.”
