By Justin Harkins, on January 21st, 2010 Hyalite in the morning.
Climbers spend a lot of time, energy, and money in the effort to keep themselves safe. A full rack of gear costs a small fortune, and the ability to use that gear efficiently and effectively takes years of experience. It’s no wonder there are literally volumes written on the subject.
A good belay anchor is a thing of beauty – equal parts gear, applied physics, and creative use of space – and, in this case, beauty often translates to safety. When you know those three large cams are equalized, backed-up, and bomber, it’s easy to relax and lean out over the five hundred feet of rock and air beneath you and focus on the task at hand.
Of course, the same things that make the belay so comfortable can make getting down a much more stressful situation. A pretty basic rock belay set-up will consist of three cams ($225), three wire-gate ‘biners ($25), two big lockers ($30), and twenty feet of 7mm cord ($8). That’s almost $300 worth of piece of mind at each belay. On the way up, it’s no big deal; the second climber just breaks it all down and hauls it [Read More]
By Kevin Landolt, on January 4th, 2010 The past couple of weeks have afforded me some incredible ski-tours in the Never Summers. I’ve been touring here since I was old enough to drive and I’m always psyched on the place. Lately I’ve gotten really excited about pushing longer trips into some of the more remote drainages along the Divide. While the usual Diamond Peaks, Montgomery Pass, Seven Utes, Lake Agnes area, etc… are all great destinations that offer good skiing, studying the RMNP border area on the map has me amped on longer, more committing tours. Snow-caves and heavy packs anyone? [Read More]
By Francisco Tharp, on November 23rd, 2009 “Shall I ski or shall I climb now? If I ski there will be trouble, if I climb it will be double.” [Read More]
By Discotoast, on November 19th, 2009 In his mid-20’s and already a prolific face in sport climbing and bouldering for nearly 20 years, Chris Lindner visits the Mountain Shop after the Fort Collins Outdoor Social Hour tonight for a multimedia presentation. I caught up with Chris from his new home in Gunnison, Colorado to talk about his climbing life and the show he’ll put on tonight.
See the event details here.
Themountainshop.com: Give me the rough outline as your life as a climber and otherwise.
Chris Lindner: My parents are rock climbers. They got together, they had me and they started climbing. I started going to the cliffs when I was two weeks old in the little baby carriage and they took me climbing every weekend until I was able to climb for myself. When I was three I was doing 5.10’s on toprope and when I was four placing four. That was when I first got noticed.
I got sponsored by John Bachar working for Boreal when I was six years old. At that time I was redpointing 5.12’s sport climbing. When I was nine years old, I did my first 5.13 and when I was 14 I did my first 5.14.
I’ve been climbing [Read More]
By Francisco Tharp, on November 9th, 2009 As we watched other fire circles from afar, and listened to tribal cries echoing between granite monoliths, I though of Ed Abbey’s line from his Havasu chapter in Desert Solitaire: “Like the Taoist Chuang-tse, I worried about butterflies and who was dreaming what.” [Read More]
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