Holy Snot, it's been a while - what happened?

Okay, so yeah, it's been a few years. What happened?

 Well probably the easiest way to say it is that I was fired from my job. It was a really good job and I made pretty decent money and allowed me to travel to climb give me plenty of free time and of course that's what led me here to create this blog in the first place as an extension of my Seven Summits Quest.

That firing led to a Mad Dash scramble to replace my income. First of all I tried to make money from my books, but I didn't have any of them ghost-written by that one super-successful ghost-writer dude, so that was a dead-end. I made arrangements with several international guide services, unfortunately about the same time Facebook went on a rampage and deleted all the fake followers they'd sold me and hid my posts from my own groups. I spent three years writing a 300 page hiking and mountaineering fitness training manual and released it at the same time as a celebrity author's training guide.

From one of my Ebay Sales

Pity party for me, hey?

So it was back to the 9-5 if I could find a job that would pay enough to make all of my bill payments go all smooth and happy. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way and I ended up having to move to Utah along the Wasatch Front where they were plentiful jobs in their new tech boom. And of course working 8 hour days and commuting for over 2 hours a day and having to deal with all of the miscellaneous family commitments and other major issues (like keeping cars running and moving everything out of storage and back into our house we were trying to sell) robbed me of all of my free time.

It was about this time that my oldest son decided to go ahead and switch from road bike racing to mountain bike racing and one way we could alleviate some of his fees was for me to become a volunteer assistant coach. I never been on a mountain bike before to be honest with you so I had to spend a few hours here in their learning how to ride a mountain bike because it's much more technical.

Mountain biking in backcountry Moab with my son

Anyway enough about that. Let's get back to climbing. 

I've been a bicycle commuter for several years off and on including 3 years round the year in Salt Lake City. you would think that there would be some carryover and of course there was riding on the relatively flat firm roads. I was quite a bit faster than most of the jr. team members that I was coaching. Over time I progressed to become a NICA certified level 3 mountain bike coach.

I managed to steal enough time from life and work and commitments to My son and good friend Todd to Ouray to spend a few days of the most intense ice climbing I could possibly squeeze out. we had a blast tons of fun did way more than I done on a single trip to Ouray ever before. I even experimented with doing a 2 rope 2 team member simul-climb as I belayed from the top. That was pretty good too.

Ice Climbing with Todd Gilles and my son

But no solo. 

I was trying to figure out a way to get in more climbing and thought I had it figured out. Unfortunately that's when I had my accident. I crashed a bike at 22 miles an hour. Ironically it was a commuter bike on a commuter Rec path on my way to the train station in the morning in the dark. I hit a pothole that was quite deep and large - about the size of an inverted bosu ball if that gives you an idea. I hit hard and tore up my whole right side - knee elbow shoulder hip - lost a lot of skin. I was able to get to work and back that day but over the course of the day I discovered that I wasn't able to raise my right arm.

At that point in time it looked like it would take about a year or so to get my arm back in shape, if ever. Unfortunately it was possible that it was permanent which kind of freaked me out. I was able to hold my arm out at a low angle enough that I could continue to ride the summer for my coaching obligations and began therapy on my own and with the help of a massage therapist.

Then came a financial crisis caused by the loss of our property in Colorado which was sold at such a ridiculously inverted deal that it would seriously take us 5 years to recover from it. Unfortunately the first year was really horrible to endure which forced me to have to sell almost every single last bit of my climbing stuff.

Someone got a heck of a deal on Ebay for these babies.

All of my gear closet gone. 

All except for a couple of choice pieces that I totally loved including my rope solo gear. I thought that I would be ready to do some ice climbing the 2017-2018 winter but I was wrong.

I've just started doing weights again for my upper body and stretching really hard to extend my range of motion and strength. Right now I can swing a tool to about neck level with my right arm which if I really really had to I could make work.

In the meantime I am going to just post a few stories here and there and maybe a few bits and pieces of things I have heard other people talk about on my various expeditions including guides and other expert climbers. Sorry for the long delay in all of this and I should have said something sooner but it was too close to home and I wasn't ready.

Weight training selfie with my left hand.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Doing a lap in the Schoolroom at Ouray

Went to the Ouray Ice Park on the way through between CO and UT (work - ARGH!) and had a few hours to kill, so I scoped out the conditions (poor spring conditions, snowing, Red Pass closed). I was thinking of doing a few laps in the Gullies (my favorite) but it was really falling apart. With a belayer it would be fine, sure, but when you're solo it's better safe than sorry so I looked up the second bridge into the Schoolroom. There was no one down in the Gullies/Fingers area, but a few were in the Lead and Schoolroom area, and some obviously had gone up to the South Park area.

Oh, there were only a few cars in the lots. I mean few like 4. That empty.

So I changed into my climbing clothing for the warm and drizzly conditions. I was nervous about the road conditions, so I wanted to only go for an hour, tops. I headed up to the schoolroom and wandered around a bit at the top. There was one other team down there, on the North end so I went to the South end and set up a toprope, much like the Petzl specs called for.

I added in a third point with a Screamer, maybe overkill? But better safe and all that. I set up my rappel device and tied the ends of the rope to the rear loop on my harness. I wasn't sure if the rope was long enough (70M with about 5M cut off in an "accident" with a newbie) and I couldn't see over the edge as to what was under me.

I rapped down, over some exposed rocks and stair-stepped WI3-4 with some candlesticking. Sure enough I came to the end of the rope about 5M off the deck, and hanging over the river I stuck a few points, set up my MiniTraxion and Shunt backup, Ascended enough to take weight off my Reverso and unclipped it, then untied from the end of the rope. I knotted the two strands together and dropped them, hoping the weight of the knot would be enough to feed the rope as I climbed.

Oh, and this was all on vertical ice.

I climbed then, trying hard to avoid some of the exposed rock. I'm not up for solo on mixed climbing yet. Sure enough, it wouldn't feed, so about every 5' or so I had to crank up some rope through both the MiniTraxion and the Shunt. Oh, well. Good practice. I had some fun spicy moments mantling over some slightly overhanging sections with tricky feet, but overall a great time.

It started raining as I topped out, so it was time to get moving. I broke down everything and packed up. I was going to stop for a late lunch, but the road was icing up and I needed to get out of town. I couldn't afford to risk missing an appointment for business. About halfway between Ridgeway and Montrose the roads improved greatly.

I had to lay everything out to dry that night.

It was a ton of fun and I wished I could spend more time on it this season. I might be able to get something in on Lincoln while it's still in, but Summit County has been in the 40's for a week now, and Keystone Lake has closed for the season. The resorts can't be far behind. We'll see...

Slabby WI2 at Lincoln Falls CO

I went up to Hoosier Pass south of Breckenridge, CO just to see if there was any ice at all. From the roads in Summit County it appeared for all the world like there was nothing below about 12,000'. Surprisingly though the Lincoln Falls climbing area looked to be in great shape.

I went up the road to the water inlet to the Montgomery Reservoir and up the approach boulder field. There was powder snow over a thin sheen of ice which made footing treacherous. Coming back down would be like walking down a water slide.

At the ice I scoped out a few possibilities, but because I hadn't expected there to be anything really worth climbing I had only brought minimal gear. I decided a slabby WI2 would be okay, so I got my limited amount of gear out.

• 2 stubbies (short screws)
• 2 normal screws
• 4 wiregate draws
• 30 meters of 9.8 mm rope

I figured I could lead solo that. It's been a long time since I did a lead solo and I didn't want to spook myself too badly. I didn't think I'd fall off a WI2. At the bottom of the slab though was a great steep boulder field to fall into and break bones and stuff.

I had to snag a locker from my rapping rig on my harness to set up the bottom anchor. I messed around with tying into the rope, which caused a tough tangle that forced me to untie about 20' above my last piece to get it sorted out.

heading to a tree for a rap down, but not enough rope or gear

The ice up higher was too thin for anything but stubbies so I ran out pretty quickly. I headed to a tree for a rap down, but I didn't have any slings and the rope wasn't going to be long enough so I went back to the ice sheet. Then I had to downclimb from about 30' above the last piece without pro. That was a ton of fun on my first ice climb of the 2014-2015 season.

Anyway, I have to take more stubbies next time. And slings. And lockers. There will be a next time. Soon.

I posted a longer article with more pics HERE if you're interested.

Superstar Preteen Climber Dies - Gear Failure

Tito Traversa, an Italian climber who just turned 12 years old and climbed 5.14, died in a tragic accident when a climbing partner assembled quickdraws incorrectly, leading to a groundfall after 8 quickdraws failed. This is horrendous [STORY HERE]

But it's also a warning to us to inspect, reinspect, test, and overprotect all of our gear and protection and anchors. The first picture is a toprope anchor on bolts and hangers at a crag in Colorado. Note that I extended the  lockers over the edge so that the rope wouldn't be dragged over any sharp rock while belaying up and down. I also added in a tri-cam and sling as a backup in case of failure. The tri-cam is wedged into an hourglass section of crack and took a bit of care in extracting. I knew it wouldn't fail.

This second photo is of a toprope solo setup on bolts and hangers done as per the instructions at Petzl's website.Note two knots in the middle of the rope with a short tail between them, each bolted to a hanger. I should pad the edge over the rock, or add a plastic tube over the rope. I could also extend the loop out to another anchor somewhere close without extension as a backup. This short cliff was essentially a highball boulder problem on the very low end of the V scale though. But if it were taller and more difficult I would totally consider more backup in this system.

The bottom line in all this is of course, to BE SAFE! Who would ever imagine 8 quickdraws in a row failing?

Old Lead Rope Solo

A few years ago a friend and I took the boys out to Rock Canyon. I ended up having to lead solo to set the toprope. Was digging in old pics and found this gem.

Butterfly Knots on Backup Rope

This is totally old-school, but you can use butterfly knots set about 5-10' apart on a rope as either your backup or even as your primary protection for toprope solo. Just put a bunch of them along the rope you'll be using, make sure they're tied well, and off you go. You clip them just as you would clip a bolt as you ascend. It will make sense if you give it a shot.

Lead Rope Solo on a Mammut BRD

Just don't do it. I took the kids out to a local crag for some fun toproping and was lazy so didn't feel like the hike to set up on the little 5.6. The 5.7 next to it is easier to get to from the top of the crag on a little hike, but the 5.6 is  bit harder to get to, with either a really nasty hike around the cliff or a little traversing unprotected. I decided to lead up the 6, and discovered I'd forgotten my GriGri in my ice climbing bag. So I hooked up this Mammut BRD as in belaying a second. It worked okay for "falling" but climbing was a real drag, requiring two hands to pull rope through. Just don't do it.

Ice Climbing Stairway to Heaven Toprope Solo

Ice Climbing season is finally here in Utah. I climbed some in Utah before Christmas with some friends. I climbed in Colorado at Lincoln Falls with another friend during the Holiday. Since I'm going to Ouray for the Ice Fest next week I decided I needed to get in some more ice climbing practice.

View from the Nunn's Park parking area approach to Stairway to Heaven in Provo

It's been really cold this past week, with temperatures around 5-10 degrees F. I was told by a friend that Stairway to Heaven was in good condition. Stairway is a classic route that sometimes is over 5 pitches tall. It's near the Bridalveil Falls climb in Provo Canyon. I was working a half-day and had the afternoon off. I decided that I could do some toprope solo ice climbing. I took a bag of my clothes and gear to work and changed when my shift was over. I drove up the canyon to the Nunn's Park parking area where there were a half dozen cars already. I could see it being pretty busy on a sunny but cold day. I used to be a lot more shy about rope solo ice climbing, but now not so much.

Stairway to Heaven Ice Climbing in Provo Canyon

Ice Climbing Stairway Approach

I walked up the snow and ice covered road for nearly a half mile to the ascent up the gully to the ice climbing area. I saw crampon tracks the whole way, and stopped to put my crampons on before going up the gully. It is a steep climb of about 400' to the foot of the frozen falls. Last time there was hardly any snow on it. This time it was a very good thick packed snow ramp and easy in crampons. Well, easy footing but steep. As I hiked up I rested a bit to keep my heart rate down. I moved slowly and scoped out a line a little to the right of where we had climbed over two weeks ago. The ice looked very thick there.

Ascending the gully to the base of Stairway to Heaven

I stopped at the foot of the falls and put in a screw to attach my water bottles to the ice climbing wall so I wouldn't have to haul them up with me. I had two water bottles, one with electrolyte mix [my favorite right now is Camelbak Elixir 12 Tablet Tube], and the other with water. I also had a shaker bottle of protein mix, since I hadn't eaten in a while. I put on my insulated jacket, holstered an ice tool and using the other as a pole, hiked up around the right to the first shelf.

Fat ice climbing conditions at Stairwaybr/>
There was a pretty good flow of water at the far right side. I stepped carefully over the ice and gravel bridges t hen onto the ice and snow shelf. On the way up I had eyeballed a landmark to tell me where to set the anchor on the chains over the route. Sometimes they're buried in the ice and hard to find. Sure enough they were buried in the ice, but the pipes marking them were sticking out. I used my ice tool to chip them out. Water was loudly gurgling behind and around the chains, and dripping down the surface of the ice. It seemed weird to me to have running water at 5 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess it's sunny enough to melt the snow and ice up higher in the sun, even though the ice climbing down here is cold in the shade.

Toprope Solo Anchor System based on Petzl System

Ice Climbing Solo Anchor Setup

I clipped into the anchor to protect myself in the unlikely event of a slip and fall. The edge of the world here is about 8' from the anchors. Not really much time to self-arrest. I took off my pack and clipped it in, stowed my tool in a deep slot in the ice someone else had used and made an anchor. I usually use two short ropes in a system I learned from the Petzl website. It's pretty well doubled up and redundant and all the important things. I flipped the ropes over the edge of the world.

Ready to rap down over the first pitch of Stairway to Heaven

I set up my rappel using my handy-dandy Petzl Reverso 3, then unclipped my tether from the anchor. The locker was covered in a thin layer of ice. The webbing of my tether was totally stiff. Water had soaked into it and turned into ice in the webbing. I bent it around my neck without thinking too much about it, then rappelled over the edge and to the bottom of the route I'd selected. Sometime while I was up setting my anchor a couple of other climbers had started lead ice climbing about a hundred feet to my left. No biggie. I straightened up the ends of the rope and tied in knots about 2' off the ground. I clipped the water bottles to them for weight to help the system feed. I set up the most recent toprope self-belay version on the Petzl website using a GriGri and an ascender, but the GriGri wouldn't feed with just the water bottle weight.

Toprope Solo Rig based on Petzl Instructions with some modification YMMV

Ice Climbing Solo System Failure

I switched to the Shunt trailing about 18" off my harness. I doubt I'll reach for it in the middle of a fall and disable the cam [see article about Petzl Vague Shunt Warning]. I'll try hard not to anyway. Just a quick aside. This is actually very dangerous in spite of any light I might make of it. Please don't ever do this. I started up the route then. The ice was very plastic to the right side, and a bit brittle to the left. Weird. The ropes fed really nicely. It was awesome fun climbing. Suddenly the rope seemed a bit tight and heavy. I looked down to see the pink rope from the Shunt looping and the water bottle coming up after me. The Shunt was coated in ice. I reached down to shake it free, but it was down between my knees courtesy of the 18" of webbing. I was about 25' up the 60' route. The ascender was feeding nicely though.

At the top. Whew! That was a tough solo. (note frozen rope loops under feet)

For a while. For about 10' actually. By then I had a frozen loop of stiff pink rope maybe 20' long. The Shunt rope. Now I had a loop forming of the yellow rope. I pulled on the ascender and fed some rope in. I decided that I only had about 20' of ice climbing to go. If I were leading I would probably just top out without any more pro. That was the logic of the moment anyway. In fact, a few years ago I was leading a little to the right where the cliff was 50' tall and had set only two screws. I was sinking my right tool perfect on every swing. My left was off the mark a bit and took a few swings. In the interest of safety I began switching. I stuck it with my right hand, grabbed it with my left, then took the other tool in my right and stuck that. I did that for the last 10' of ice climbing. As I crested the bulge my feet came off the ice and I did a pullup over the lip. I made it to the top. And I was really wasted.

Water soaked and frozen ropes

I clipped in and pulled up the frozen ropes. They were stiff and the ice climbing self-belay system was frozen up. I unclipped the gear and stowed it on my harness. Both ropes, yellow and pink, were frozen for most of their lengths. I realized then that if I had fallen going over the bulge at the top I would probably have taken a 40' whipper. Maybe more with rope stretch. I did have really good sticks with the tools though. I set up my rappel. It was difficult getting the rope to fold into the belay device. As I passed over the edge of the world, the rope began to slide through my hands. It was covered in an icy layer all the way down. Fortunately the ice had to peel off passing through the Reverso, so that slowed me down a lot.

Ice on the rope, my glove, and the Reverso while rappelling

Partway down I decided that one lap was good enough for ice climbing under these conditions. I put on my insulated jacket and drank my protein shake. About that time another solo climber came up and I chatted with him a bit. I went to the top to retrieve my ropes and pro, taking my backpack to load it in. I walked around the far right again. I had to chip out my stuff and bang the ice from it. I had to dig out my ice screw. The ropes were really stiff and wouldn't go into my backpack very well. They took up about half again as much space.

Frozen Ropes after ice climbing solo on Stairway to Heaven

I managed to squeeze everything into the bag and exchanged information with the other solo guy, in case we decide to do any ice climbing together in the future. I hiked down the gully and left my crampons on all the way to the road.

Hiking back to the car after my ice climbing adventure on Stairway

Ice Climbing Aftermath

At home I dumped out my pack to start thawing and drying out my gear. Overall it was an amazing and educational ice climbing experience. From now on I'll have to carry an extra screw, sling, and set of lockers as an emergency measure. If my rope and system get junked up with ice again I can just quick set a screw, clip in, and hang while straightening everything out. I can also go old school and tie in to the rope with a sliding clove hitch rig.

Stiff rope after ice climbing in running water on a freezing day

Toprope Solo Anchor

Stairway to Heaven Toprope Solo - January 13

Top of approach to Stairway

I decided after my fun at Ouray last week during the fest that I would toprope solo on Stairway, and try to do a few laps at least. I hiked up the really bad condition approach gully - there is no snow so the scree and garbage rocks are just sliding all over, and down to the dirt in places. Really bad footing. Going down will be pretty tough.

I paused around the corner of the first shelf and put my crampons on, getting out a tool for self-belay on the way over the steeper spots, and headed over to the chains. I passed the usual chains over the little WI3 I normally set up on, and kept going to the next set, over the taller section left of the rock band. From what I remember seeing from the bottom, this was either high WI3 or low WI4 (Water Ice Ratings Explained).

Anchors as per Petzl

I set up a real live official Petzl style toprope solo anchor (they sometimes have an intermittent link on the microcender page about toprope solo systems). I've messed with it some in the past, but this was the first place it just worked out (the two side by side bolts helped). I tossed the ropes down the route and rapped down. At the bottom of the route is a large sheet of ice runoff steep enough you don't want to fall, going down about 100' of trail, and I didn't want to lose my pack, so I put in a screw, hooked my pack to it, and then suspended my somewhat empty pack on the ropes to weight them so they'd feed properly in my system.

looking down on gear and pack

I had some minor issues on the way up with the ropes being pulled under my feet, but my Microcender and Shunt fed nicely. Based on the amount of rope left over from each strand, I figure the route was about 90' long. A bit longer than what I was doing in Ouray. At the top I had serious issues getting enough rope free to set up my old-school Petzl Reverso. The first 20' or so of rappel was also very tough, but once I got firmly over the edge and vertical, I managed to slide down nicely enough.

rappel rig - shunt hanging

I unclipped the pack from the rope, and instead clipped in my Nalgene and bag of anchor gear. Maybe about 4 pounds of stuff. Warmed up for a few minutes, then took off again for a second lap. This time it was much nicer. Fed well, and I could switch from ascend to descend mode in only a few minutes, and sliding down the rope was nice and smooth. I decided to do a third lap, warmed up, then up I went. Had an audience for most of my climbing. A group came up during my first lap, and an unroped soloist came up during my third lap and said "Hi" on the way past at the clifftop.

Microcender and Shunt - close enough

There's the promised gear pic from the side to more clearly show the Microcender attached to my belay loop, and the Petzl Shunt trailing on my rappel rig. You might see the Shunt hanging on my rappel pic above - faster transition to just let it hang out of the way as I descend. On my third lap I got really pumped in my left forearm. At the top as I crested the edge I actually swung with the right, matched and hung, swung with the right, etc. Really tired. Guess without the extra rest of belaying someone it's pretty intense - need more workout sessions for my arms and hands I guess.

route up the rope

At the top I freed myself from my system, then tied the two strands together with the classic Euro Death Knot, memorized a few times which rope to pull, then flew down. When I pulled the rope for some wild reason it decided to smack me in the face, knocked my glasses off, and they slid down about 30' on the ice sheet. I pulled out and put on my sunglasses, packed up, then went down to get my glasses. They were exactly where I last saw them sliding. Nice.

route just to right of belayer

On the walk out a group came around the corner (Millers Thriller?) and knocked some huge rocks down, and started yelling. I turned to look at it, and it was awesomely huge looking from my perspective. I was going to stand still and wait it out, but managed to slide down the scree and ended up on my face. Nice ending to the day. The rock stopped a ways above me.

Since I'm so slow sliding down scree that they passed me on the way down, and I talked to one of them who was in Salomon hiking boots. He recommended I try to get LaSportiva to replace my Batura with the new version, since I have a zipper tooth missing. Dunno - might do that if they still have the same last. The Evo last does not fit at all.

Anyway, tons of fun, nearly 300' of vertical in about an hour. Good day.

Petzl Shunt Vague Warning HUH?

Petzl statement on a special use of the Petzl Shunt

In the article above, you'll most likely read some very confusing double-talk about not using the Shunt for certain backup procedures, primarily in industrial situations.



My guess, without reading the whole ISO manual on it, is that it refers to a situation very similar to that used for backing up a toperope solo. I dug around in my Old Ropesolo Blog on Blogger but couldn't find a picture to show you what I'm describing. I'll see if I can take one later.



The system I've been using lately has been a Petzl Microcender as my primary self-belay on one strand of rope, and the Petzl Shunt as my backup on the second rope.

I have tried to let the shunt trail a bit lower, with some success, and there are some different schemes that you can come up with from digging around on the Petzl website, but if it doesn't make sense, then it's better to not get into it at all. Right?

Anyway, bottom line, from my own miserable understanding of the Petzl article, is if you think you're falling, you don't grab the rope, either above or below any device that auto-locks, like either of these. That could impede the locking function and cause you to fall. That could cause you to be injured severely. That could cause your heart to stop. Think about it long and hard. Please?

Red Rock - The Wild - 8-11-2011

Didn't get this up when I did it - a whole month has gone by. Alas ...

Took the boys up Rock Canyon to "The Wild" to meet Ryan for an evening of climbing. Loading a new harness into his new backpack, there was a glitch and Ryan ended up at the cliff with no harness. Since the boys had put a lot of effort into the hike in, I decided to Lead Solo the 5.6, so I set up a couple cams at the bottom and equalized them.

I started up, and tied off the first draw, partially to keep the anchors pointing upward. I had forgotten to put in a third piece to hold the anchor up, and had to hold them up as I climbed the first few feet, and have Ryan untangle me.

Below: note the Grigri at the junction of my legs. This isn't optimal, and it had some drag, and fed like crap later in the climb, but it's what I had with me in the pack at the time. Not sure if the Eddy would have been better or not. One of these days I'm going to opt for a Soloist or whatever it is now.

 Below I'm having trouble getting the Grigri to feed, so I'm going to go ahead and clip off on the bolt. I'm using a rappel rig that Dawn Glanc taught me in Ouray last winter. I like it pretty good, and have started leaving it rigged for just such an occasion.

As I came down I cleaned, and then set it as a toprope for the boys, and let them climb for a bit. When they were done I reset the cams, added a third anchor point above the locker the rope was tied to so it wouldn't droop while I climbed, then set up a Petzl Microcender and used that without a backup. I had read recently on the Petzl website how they want us to do it now (which is quite nice of them) but haven't gotten around to testing it yet, and didn't want to do anything new this time. My son took the pics above, and didn't take any of my toprope solo, but you've seen it all before.

I'm probably going to do some more routes in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for a test of the new Petzl system.