redriverclimbing.com

Jeff wrote:

love it

I climb good routes. If said routes have no bolts, then I bring gear.

Redpoint:
sport 12d
trad 11c

Onsight:
sport 12a
trad 10d

Blue Flexbar and bicep stretching worked for me. And of course, long slow warmups on things 2-3 full grades below what you are setting out to do.

A nice gradual warmup dramatically increases my success rate on harder routes (and dramatically reduces my injury rate). If I want to do a 12 that day, I typically warm up with 3 routes between 9+ and 11b. A 10a at a crag full of 12's might be worth having even if it is kind of shitty.

wear a helmet. That might help. The only serious danger apart from landing on a ledge or hitting the ground is flipping upside down and hitting your head. Wearing a helmet significantly reduces the risk of anything bad happening during a fall, and it might give you the extra confidence required to t...

Pretty sure the video caribe posted is the only known failure case for the SUM. And my guess is that even with the brake hand on you would fail in that mode because there is almost zero friction.

I would think most 5.13 climbers don't have any trouble with v6.

Training endurance is probably sufficient for the red though.

There are many ways to be a bad belayer, periodically looking down to rest your neck really isn't one of them. I suppose if you are deaf, or perhaps at a typical sport crag filled with barking dogs and blaring radios then you might have a case.

Sport climbers are pussies. Go do a long trad route sometime and you will realize that: it's common to not have sight of the climber for long periods of time, and you can't give a 'soft' catch when you're in a hanging belay. Should a belayer watch you when possible? When near the ground, certainly t...

I haven't been able to find any decent approach shoes with good support (for flat feet). I do find most La Sportiva shoes to be pretty awesome though.

I did once do the descent from the top of Taquitz in flip flops. I wouldn't really recommend it though.

Unless of course, a bolt fails.

Putting up new routes with no bolts is admirable from a leave no trace perspective. But once you start bolting, deliberately making the route dangerous is a perversion of ethics.

If you never weight the rope it's legit. Downclimbing and starting over is legit.

Seeing as how Rick does lots of search and rescue stuff it seems pretty likely that he actually knows somebody that does the same at the gunks and was on site after the incident which would explain why he seems to know what nobody else on the Internets does.