Whether learning how to jam cracks or cruising 5.13 testpieces, tape gloves will prevent the back of your hands from turning into hamburger. Not only will this help you avoid needless suffering, it will allow you to climb exponentially more than the haughty non-taper who is sidelined by shredded skin.

As your main points of weighted contact, your feet matter. Placing them silently forces you to be deliberate and aware with your choice, placement, and movement onto and off each foothold.

The awesome power of Silent Feet

I’ve been complaining about this for a while, but unfortunately they’re not quite there yet. You can’t just click on a link for the PDF download. Instead, you have to load up the entire online magazine seeing page-by-page thumbnails and once the process is complete, you can then save the mag as PDF.

Part of the way there is better than nothing I guess…

If the goal of a free magazine is wide distribution, then why are they making hard for as many people as possible to read it?

My advice: publish straight to PDF. Put it on Amazon S3 or a CDN and allow us to link straight to it. Immediately more distribution that costs less than printing a paper magazine that will increase revenue from advertisers.

via Matt Wilder and @jmccartie

Trad climbing has lost some of its appeal, or is a smaller blip on the radar. I still know plenty of folks that prefer trad, but there was a day when there was only trad. Trad climbing may be analogous to a lost culture. In fact, it is a culture within a culture, and as with the loss of any culture, it’s inevitable that knowledge specific to that culture is also lost. My goal here is to create and catalog the (lost) techniques, tricks, and tips particular to, or useful for trad climbing.

(via @rockgrrl)

Duct Tape: For some reason that I will never understand, trad climbers have an affinity for duct tape that is almost as creepy as a mustachioed man winking at five year olds. What they do with this stuff, I’ll never know but what I do know is that to look like a seasoned trad climber, you need to have truck loads of this shit. But here’s the trick: you can’t keep on the roll. You’ve got to stick it to your parka, wrap it around nalgenes and toothbrushes for no apparent reason and use it to patch your carharts. Maybe someday you’ll meet MacGyver and figure some practical uses for this stuff.

Peter Beal and Dougald MacDonald both have some interested perspectives on this issue and I’d like to expand further on the topic.

Personally, I still enjoy reading climbing magazines. I subscribe to Climbing, Urban Climber, and Rock & Ice even though I’ve been considering letting my subscriptions lapse at times. I don’t get climbing news from magazines as they’re usually about a month behind. I love the photography, but that can be found abundantly on the web as well. Climbing video is important to me and you can’t watch a video clip of a sick new project in a magazine either.

So why have I continued to subscribe and read them then? It’s likely the combination of (mostly) good articles, reviews, accident reports (I think these are important learning lessons), and technique/gear tips they provide. Unfortunately, all of these could be ported to an online format.

What I would love to see is some sort of hybrid model from the climbing magazines. They could take a lesson from a main stream publication like the Wall Street Journal. I initially subscribed to the WSJ while in business school and at about $300 per year for a subscription to the delivered daily paper, it got to be too much (both in cost as well as paper volume).

After business school, I found the Journal offered the entire paper online for $99 per year. A fraction of the cost, though still a bit pricey, but well worth it in my opinion to still be able to read all the content I wanted while not having to pay for paper I was never having the time to read. Their site even provides the ability to have links to every article in each day’s paper sent in an email. The subscriber controls what and how much they want to read.

I was never going to continue to pay regular price for the paper subscription especially after my student rates ended. By offering the online version at a substantially discounted price, they were able to capture what economists would call the consumer surplus.

Climbing magazines have the opportunity to embrace this as well. How many climbers who are not willing to pay $30 per year on a magazine subscription may be willing to pay $5 or $10 for this same content online? A small percentage I am sure, but realize this is still $5 more than these publishers would have received otherwise.

True, publishers risk that some of their paying subscribers will migrate to the online only version, but with such relatively low subscription numbers as a percentage of the climbing industry’s participants, I would think it would be a welcome portion of additional revenue.

I’m not sure there is anything the magazines can do content-wise at this point. What else can really be added to print magazines? The future is online and it will be interesting to see how the they handle these critical decisions over the next few years.

Now my first jealous thought was “dammit, get back to work…”, but then I started thinking about technology and climbing. I know my agent carried some smartphone so he was probably checking his email and calling from the summit before rapping off.

Personally, while I’ve had the ability to do business while climbing (by using my iPhone at the crag), I’ve always hesitated for a couple reasons.

First, there are the financial issues. These devices are not cheap and I’m not interested in breaking one by throwing it into my pack while climbing. I know his can be mitigated with a nice case, but it’s still an issue.

The second factor is simply the separation of work from play. While I know many times working on a project or training for climbing feels like work, it’s still climbing. I’ve always believed that a bad day climbing is still better than good day working.

I’ve also been thinking about how mobile phones and other technology could be used for climbing, especially as guidebooks. Flashed is selling guides to some areas for the iPod. Mountain Project has a nicely optimized site for the iPhone. There’s also a couple climbing related iPhone apps now.

Each is a great idea, but relies on the premise that you’re willing to take your device out with you climbing.

When I look at my large collection of tattered and dirty climbing guide books, I can see that I’m perfectly happy to throw them on the ground and generally handle them with little care while out climbing. I’m not sure I’m willing to do that with an expensive electronic device.

With the relatively recent demise (and subsequent potential rebirth) of Alpinist and the launch of Dead Point Magazine (completely available online), where is climbing media headed?

Climbing guidebook services like SuperTopo and Dr Topo appear to have had some success with the PDF ebook model, but how many of you actually use them? And if you do, don’t you eventually just print them out to take climbing anyway?

Print media is not going to disappear anytime soon, but what will the future look like? Will print publications grow or should we begin to embrace the emerging digital formats? I’ll explore my thoughts on this question in part 2, but what are your opinions?

Should I even write about Fred? I’ve been bouldering avidly for 14 years and I still feel under-qualified to try to write any sort of authoritative article about him. I’ve slept on his floor on trips to Switzerland, I’ve shot footage and pictures of him, I’ve hosted him on a visit to Colorado, and I’ve flogged myself trying to repeat problems he opened in Hueco, Fontainebleau, Australia, Switzerland, and South Africa.

My favorite quote in the post:

Every time I visit Fred it’s like hitting the reset button. I come away with a sense of how the sport is supposed to be practiced… with tolerance and dedication.

The finger issue was going to be more tricky as he wanted to focus on treating one thing at a time, so since I was going to be off climbing for 3-4 weeks anyway while treating the tendinitis this seemed a reasonable thing to do. Surely this much time off would heal things right?

Well, as soon as I had the green light to (lightly) climb again about two weeks ago, my second day out I started to feel that same pain and tenderness after about 30 minutes of light climbing. After calling the doctor, he referred me to a hand orthopedist.

I had my appointment with him yesterday and was given the sobering, though not surprising, diagnosis of a partially ruptured A2 pulley on my right ring finger.

This is probably the most common finger injury among climbers and now that I’ve had it officially diagnosed, I’ve likely had this injury about a dozen times over the last 18 years of climbing.

Ironically, there’s some good news in here. The bad news is that the pulley has a partial tear and hurts whenever it gets re-aggravated or re-torn.

The good news is that the doctor says there’s nothing that can be done surgically (that would actually benefit my condition) and the only real way to fix this is to not use it at all (i.e. stop climbing for an extended period of time).

Unfortunately, I don’t feel any pain after about 48 hours so it’s tough to know how long to rest. The doctor’s recommended treatment is to slowly start climbing again while doing two things.

First, tape the pulley strongly to give it support and keep it attached to my tendon. This is the second doctor I spoken to who specializes in treating athletes (including numerous climbers) that has strongly recommended taping fingers for pulley injuries. In addition, I’ve injured every single finger on both my hands (yes, including pinkies) and taping has always helped me in the recovery process. Yet, I still meet climbers who tell me taping doesn’t work or even makes the problem worse.

I’m officially going to say it right now – if you read or hear the contrary, that taping for pulley injuries is bad or does not help, it’s probably bullshit and I’d be highly skeptical of anyone stating this as fact. Forget for a moment what any climber or doctor has to say about this. Simply think of the biomechanics involved here. What do the pulleys do? They keep the tendon attached. So using tape for a short period of time while actually climbing is simply going to assist these damaged pulleys do their job. I have a hard time fathoming why climbers resist this idea.

If you’re looking for more information on this from a climbing perspective, I also recommend reading Training for Climbing by Eric Horst. He’s done a ton of research on this over the past thirty years and comes to similar conclusions.

The second recommendation from the doctor was to avoid using the finger as much as possible while getting back to climbing and training. Easier said than done, but he has a good point. Part of the process will be training myself to avoid grabbing holds that will strain that particular finger. As climbers we rely on it quite a bit, but this doctor stated that the ring finger has 15% smaller bones and about the same amount less overall strength compared to the middle and index fingers. Unfortunately, he also said that climbers have a tendency to use the ring finger in ways that bear too much stress that could probably be avoided in many cases.

Over time this injury will heal as long as it doesn’t tear again. But every time it starts to hurt (due to tearing), the clock starts again on the healing process.

So now I’m at that delicate decision point of when and how to start back climbing. My tentative plan is to securely tape the injured area and start climbing again slowly on very easy climbs. I’ll likely stop every session short just to make sure I’m not pushing into that danger zone of re-injury and just see how things go. I’m also experimenting with cold water treatment to see if that helps.

I’d love to hear what everyone else has done with these kinds of injuries? Are there any treatments I’m not aware of? How long should one rest after getting a partial rupture of the A2 pulley?

Gadd stands at the base of the 40-foot-high frozen waterfall and looks up. He kicks footholds with his crampons and swings his axes overhead, driving the points deep into the ice. He pulls with his arms and pushes with his legs, then kicks his feet and swings the axes again. Within minutes he’s 20 feet above the ground and headed higher, without ropes or other protection in case his toes slip or the ice crumbles.

I wasn’t sure what I’d get out of a weekend of ice climbing just with girls, because I’ve always climbed with boys. Of course I’d come away with sore shoulders, bigger calves and more mad girl-climbing skills, but what else would be on the table at a women’s weekend? After an insanely fun weekend in Ouray at the Chicks With Picks Betty Ice Ball, I compiled a list of five things you’ll get more of when you climb with Chicks:

More Potty Talk: A lot can go wrong when you have to pee with a funnel. (I won’t go into it here, but trust me — things can go really wrong.) Consequently, stories about pee funnels abound when you climb with women. After one of the dinners at the Ice Ball, a veteran Chick recounted a pee funnel story from her climb of Denali: The tube of her beloved Freshette landed in the “toilet” at a high camp, sending her into total panic. How would she do the deed in a rope team with men now? A friend sent her to see the only other woman on the mountain, who, though she boasted about only using a hardware-store funnel herself rather than those fancy pee funnels, had a spare Freshette. The woman turned out to be Dawn Glanc, who served as a guide for this year’s Betty Ball (and won the Ouray Ice Fest comp in Januray).

More Nudity: If you’re not afraid to bare your ass to the wind and other climbers in the Ice Park (assuming you’re not using the aforementioned Freshette), you’re probably not afraid to do it back at the Vic in the relative privacy of your room. Maybe my roommate and I were just exhibitionists, but when you’re queuing to get in the shower next so you don’t stink at dinner, you start peeling off baselayers. If other women came in the room to download the day of climbing while you’re toweling off, well, no time for modesty when you’re hungry enough to gnaw on your backpack. There’s nothing titillating about this, no grab-fanny going on here. That happens while we’re out climbing, fully dressed.

More Love: When you totally rock some climb, dude — and you will at Chicks, because you’ll have some of the best guides around, regardless of gender — expect high fives, fist bumps, puffy belay-jacket hugs and cheers. When a guide throws a contest into the clinic, like making it up in the fewest swings, expect stiff competition from your pals…and those puffy hugs in the end, because your competitors have grace. The love-fest won’t go unnoticed. Nearby climbers seem a little jealous (could just be that you’re climbing with Kitty Calhoun), and one commented with a smile that we were having way too much fun.

More Mascara: I’ve never climbed in makeup. Probably because I almost never wear makeup. But for some reason, I spotted a lot of Chicks wearing mascara while ice climbing. I didn’t look further into this trend, but I’m assuming it’s waterproof. How could it not be waterproof, right? Ice melts after it nicks your face. A few Chicks wore lip gloss, too, and I had to wonder how that doesn’t end up on your glove when you wipe your nose with the back of your hand. I don’t really get it, but it does look nice — much nicer than the layers of snot accumulating on my gloves. Perhaps I could learn something from the glam climbers.

More Climbing: The Chicks guides keep you moving. You start at 7:45 and climb until 4 p.m. You have 30 minutes to scarf lunch and move to your next clinic. When you get there, be prepared to work. Even when the guides don’t seem to be pushing you, they are. Sarah Hueniken, the guide for my mixed clinic, kept sending us further and further up routes by simply saying, “Do one more move.” This was the last clinic of the weekend, and I was wasted, but as soon as someone untied, she’d get me to keep going with a mere, “You’re up, Jenn,” and a smile. On the last climb, a tall M7, she summoned me to the rope and said, “Well someone needs to go get the quickdraws.” Indeed.

Jenn Fields is a writer and editor from Longmont, Colorado. She has written for Bicycling, Mountain Bike, Backpacker, Climbing and the Boulder Daily Camera. Her personal web site is http://www.jennfields.com. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Chicks with Picks just celebrated its tenth anniversary of teaching women of all abilities how to ice climb and improve current skills. More info can be found at http://www.chickswithpicks.net/.

There is a little bit of controversy over pre-equalized anchors. Some feel that one leg of the anchor will get more force than another, which means that such an anchor could never be fully equalized. While there may be some truth to this concern, the impact on the anchor as a whole is minimal and professional climbing guides throughout the country are generally not concerned about it.

This may be basic stuff for many of you, but a quick refresher never hurts!

I attended the Mt. Washington Valley Ice Festival numerous times and had a blast. The ice climbing there was fantastic, with opportunities for superb multi-pitch routes, mixed climbs, and even top-roping.

When I moved to southwest Virginia to be closer to the New River Gorge, the one thing I missed was the availability of ice climbing in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Hampshire. It has now been years since I’ve climbed ice.

Now that I’m in Colorado I’m anxiously awaiting the upcoming ice season, though I think I’ll need to upgrade most of my gear (I hope my wife is not reading this!)

As a preview to the upcoming season, Splitter Choss has a post up on the status of some of the Colorado ice climbing areas including Crested Butte, Ouray, and Rocky Mountain National Park.

If you’re looking forward to ice climbing this year, there are several resources to update you on the winter climbing conditions. Mountain Project has conditions reports that can be tailored to areas you choose. NEice.com provides conditions via a user forum for most of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Eastern Canada. For both US and international climbing area conditions, the American Alpine Institute blog provides a weekly post on updated conditions. For Colorado specific conditions, you can check iceclimbingcolorado.com‘s current condition reports. Finally, Chauvin Guides provides a detailed look at conditions in New Hampshire with pictures and descriptions.

TreeHugger has an interesting interview with the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard.

The founder of Patagonia started out when he was little more than a teenager, selling his home-forged climbing hardware to ‘dirtbagger’ mountaineers like himself. Although all he really wanted to do was travel and climb, he had a knack for innovation and invention, and Chouinard Equipment Co. evolved into Patagonia, arguably the most successful outdoor clothing company in history. In his fifty-something years of experimentation, Yvon Chouinard has racked up a list of industry firsts that defies enumeration, yet he describes himself as a reluctant entrepreneur who really just loves to climb, surf, and kayak the wilds of the world, and hopefully save them along the way.

The interview is broken down into part 1 and part 2.

Along with tons of pictures of old gear, the article that accompanies the slideshow contains a history of nuts and other types of pro.

In 1961, a blacksmith from Sheffield, John Brailsford, then a teacher of engineering technology, created the ever first purpose designed nut, the Acorn. Three sizes (1 inch, ¾ inch and 5/8 inch) were turned on a lathe from extruded aluminium alloy. John Brailsford also tried Tufnol (a resin bonded fibre used by Rolls Royce or Hoover for making light weight, silent gears) and brass for their different properties of hardness. Since the Acorn had a machine nut sitting on its top and threaded on the same sling, this « nest of nuts » offered two options, the machine nut or the Acorn. They were probably the first nuts to be marketed in England, by the Roger Turner Mountain Shop in Nottingham.

A higher quality MOV video can also be found at National Geographic.

January 4 – 6, 2008
Kandersteg Ice Climbing Festival
The 8th annual Kandersteg Ice Climbing Festival will be held in the Bernese Oberland. Over 450 ice climbers are expected to attend this festival in Switzerland.

January 9 – 13, 2008
Ouray Ice Festival
The 13th annual Ouray Ice Festival will be held in the Ouray Ice Park in Colorado.

January 11 – 13, 2008
Adirondack International Mountainfest
The Mountaineer and Adirondack Rock and River have teamed up to host the 12th annual Adirondack International Mountainfest in Keene Valley, New York.

February 1 – 3, 2008
Michigan Ice Fest
This is the 25th year of the Michigan Ice Fest located on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

February 7 – 10, 2008
Mount Washington Valley Ice Festival
One of the premier climbing events in the country, the 2008 ice festival will be the 15th annual running of the event. This year they even have an Ice Fest 2008 blog. I’ve been to this one twice and it was great.

February 15 – 18, 2008
South Fork Waterfall Ice Festival
The 10th annual South Fork Waterfall Ice Festival bills itself as the “Friendliest Little Ice Festival in the Northern Rockies” and will be held in Cody, Wyoming.

February 16 – 17, 2008
Smuggler’s Notch Ice Bash
I’m not sure how long this festival has been running, but the Smuggler’s Notch Ice Bash will be centered out of the Sunrise Cafe in Jeffersonville, Vermont.

If there are any upcoming ice festivals I missed, please leave a comment below.

The key to pure crack climbing, as with every type of climbing, is the feet. I like to start from the basics, which with cracks, is the hand crack. Hand cracks are the nicest, easiest thing you can climb, so you can focus on body position and movement technique, rather than the more precise jamming. If you have never done a handjam, it will feel alien and bizarre at first, but just slide your hand straight into the crack, and flex it, especially the meaty area under your thumb. It will stick, and that’s a handjam. I always say, if I fall out of a handjam, I deserve it , so I tend to run it out if I’m in solid handjams.

Photo by Dru!