Training The Core

Four exercises designed to strengthen the core and protect the lower back from Climb Strong. I liked this quote:

“Most climbers who do exercises like crunches do them to get rid of the fat on top of the belly muscles. At our gym, in fact, we often get new members coming through the door complaining of a “weak core” when what they really have is fat on top of a perfectly strong set of muscles. If getting rid of the fat is the goal,

there are better ways than crunches. A study from the University of Virginia showed that you would need to do 250,000 crunches to lose one pound of fat.  That’d be about 700 crunches every day for a whole year.”

There Are A Lot Of Crazy Sports

But climbing on manufactured walls with foam attached so you can use ice tools and crampons, is one of the craziest. Here are the results for mixed climbing at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail.

“Emily Harrington, who finished in second place for the women behind Dawn Glanc, said the foam made the climbing harder and harder throughout the day. The foam on the climbing wall was made to resemble ice — climbers could ax into it head-on, but they couldn't stand on it or ax into it from the top.”

Bermuda Triangle Of Yosemite

Descending Tenaya Canyon with his 78-year-old dad, a professional mountain guide almost drowns him by lowering him into a pool of water.

“When you arrive at Tenaya Lake, which sits at 8,150 feet, nothing looks difficult or desperate about the route’s start, but a short distance in the granite steepens and the plot

thickens. The descent covers ten rugged miles and drops 4,200 feet. There’s no trail, and during the scramble down there are plenty of places to break legs, crack skulls, and get swept away in high water. It takes capable teams a full day to complete, with time allotted for the odd picnic and a short nap in the California sunshine….

 

 

It has a long history of being dangerous, including this:

“In 1872, John Muir received no outside aid whatsoever when he solo-climbed out of Tenaya. Having barely begun, he slipped, smacked his head on a rock, was knocked unconscious, and tumbled downhill. A shrub stopped him just before a steep drop-off. He came to, dusted himself off, and climbed his way out with a concussion.”

Pioneers Of Black Hills Climbing & Caving

They are best know for their cave explorations. But they also pioneered rock climbing in the Black Hills of SD more than 50 years ago. Herb just died last Wednesday at 91.

“Conn and his wife, Jan, are best known as the pioneering explorers who mapped Jewel Cave. The southern Black Hills cave, now known to be the second largest in the world, was thought to be a small cave back in 1959 when the Conns first started exploring it

To help finance their caving adventures, the couple lived off the grid at a unique stone home in the Custer area without running water or electricity for more than 50 years.

The Conns first came to the Hills in the 1950s as rock climbers, but they gave up their passion for the peaks of the Needles once they found Jewel Cave when they were in their 40s, Wiles said.

They named many geographic formations in the Needles and Jan Conn was the first woman to complete a Devils Tower ascent.”

“I Was Swimming And…I Just Started Dreaming”

Welcome to the world of freediving. When the divers re-surface, many times they have to be reminded to start breathing again. As in this case:

“JUNKO KITAHAMA’S FACE is pale blue, her mouth agape, her head craned back like a dead bird’s. Through her swim mask, her eyes are wide and unblinking, staring at the sun. She isn’t breathing.

‘Blow on her face!’ yells a man swimming next to her. Another man grabs her head from behind and pushes her chin out of the water. ‘Breathe!’ he yells. Someone from the deck of a boat yells for oxygen. ‘Breathe!’ the man repeats. But Kitahama, who just surfaced from a breath-hold dive 180 feet below the surface of the ocean, doesn’t breathe. She doesn’t move. Kitahama looks dead.”

Here’s a video of a freediver flying/falling 130 feet underwater in the Bahamas. Near the end of the video, he climbs up the underwater wall he fell past. It’s stunningly beautiful as well as frightening to think about.

Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Climbers

I couldn’t help thinking of the title to that old country western song as I watched this video. Actually, if more climbers wore diapers like this one, there would be less waste at the climbing sites. (Hmmm….climbers’ diapers. Million dollar idea? Especially if they were called - let’s green light a little here – “Pump & Dumps” or “Wag Bag Briefs.”)

Teva Winter Mountain Games

Today is the start of the first-ever Teva Winter Mountain Games. Jumping bikes off snow ramps, mixed ice climbing and ski mountaineering are the three sports featured in the preview video below.

Genetics Of Altitude Sickness

I did not know that cows as well as humans got altitude sickness. Researchers have found 6 genes in humans that may contribute to the differences between some people acclimating easily to high altitudes and others getting very sick. They are studying this same problem in cows who are moved to higher altitudes in the summer for grazing.

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What A Dog Sees

Here’s a “dog cam” view of a park.

Beautiful Day at the Dog Park from Kelsey Wynns on Vimeo.

Aurora Borealis From Space

If you had to fly around the earth in a Space Station, at least you’d get to see a great light show.

“Time-lapse video from the ISS on Jan. 29, 2012. These sequences of frames were taken at the rate of one frame per second, therefore the slower speed of the video represents nearly the true speed of the International Space Station.
This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 29, 2012 from 10:18:13 to 10:31:28 GMT, on a pass from the North Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,000 miles west of California, to western Quebec.”

Teaching Climbing In Nepal

Kolin Powick of Back Diamond reports on his trip to Nepal to teach at the Khumbu Climbing Center. I liked this quote:

“A heart-in-your-throat flight into Lukla, and three days of walking through Namche took us to the village of Phortse and the home of the Khumbu Climbing Center.  I couldn’t have felt much more lame, carrying my seven kilo pack with camera gear as we passed porters carrying triple loads (91kg). Unbelievable.  To say the walk was spectacular would be quite the understatement.  I almost biffed it countless times as I was constantly staring up at Everest, Lhoste, Ama Dablam and Tawoche. Unreal”

Base Jumper Flies Close By His Friends

These guys shoot by their friends sitting on a ledge above a Norwegian fjord at about 150 mph. Best part is at the 1:00 minute mark.

Milky Way Over The Desert

Lots of great photos of the night sky taken in US National Parks. Like this one from Arches Park.

Why Massage Is So Effective For Sore Muscles

These experimenters had athletes exercise to exhaustion, then biopsied their leg muscle to see how effective massage was in repairing damage.

“Vigorous exercise causes tiny tears in muscle fibers, leading to an immune reaction — inflammation — as the body gets to work repairing the injured cells. So the researchers screened the tissue from the massaged and unmassaged legs to compare their repair processes, and find out what difference massage would make.

They found that massage reduced the production of compounds called cytokines, which play a critical role in inflammation. Massage also stimulated mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses inside cells that convert glucose into the energy essential for cell function and repair.”

And using Nsaids and other anti-inflammatory drugs, might retard healing.

Review Of Petzl’s Ange Carabiner

This reviewer used them for sport climbing in El Potrero Chico and thought they worked very well. I looked at these but didn’t like how small the gate opening was. He finds this not to be a problem.

“I initially thought the gate size would be a problem when clipping the rope, but the Ange’s larger basket makes the smaller gate opening work.”