Gravsports

Moved to willgadd.com

2011-11-24T06:33:00.001-08:00

Moved to willgadd.com as of November 25, 2011.

I'm putting this blog along with all my various old websites, blogs, etc. together on willgadd.com, come on over and check it out! New post up on a mixed climbing accident/video, interesting.

http://willgadd.com/?p=600

2011-11-02T03:30:00.001-07:00

Are Ice Tool Leashes As Archaic as Gaiters, Screamers and Third Tools?

The picture above is the last one I could find in my photo collection where I have a leash on a tool--Norway 2005.

This is another blog post inspired by a question from a reader. The question was roughly, "I was wondering your take on leashless climbing for beginners? I am a sorta old school ice climber that still uses leashes for those 4 days a year I manage to get out ice climbing. (father in washington state) I feel that I don't get enough time on ice to get strong enough to enjoy the benefits of leashless climbing.

I have heard many peoples opinion that beginners should start out leashless for several reasons. many guides start clients this way. I feel that the beginners need every advantage they can get to enjoy the day.

What is your take?"
Back in the day I thought leashes for ice tools were the only way to hang onto ice tools, and that gaiters were the only way to keep snow out of my boots. I now seldom to never use either leashes or gaiters. And I don't use Screamers/Force limiters much on ice screws, and I don't carry a third tool either. Amazing how what was once standard equipment is now history.

Leashes: To start with, very, very few people set their leashes up correctly to begin with. Most people grab their ice tool at 90 degrees to the shaft, set the leash length and call it good. But your hand tends to rotate when actually hanging on so the index finger isn't anywhere near 90; usually it points more "up" than parallell to the ground. This rotates the pinky up, putting it several centimetres higher than it should be. If your pinky isn't almost falling off the bottom of your tool the tool when hanging onto the tool it won't rotate correctly when swung. Different thicknesses of gloves will also effect where your hand is on the tool. So if you're going to use leashes at least set them up properly, and use a decent one for technical ice climbing like the Android.

That said, I can't remember the last time I used leashes, and don't think in most situations for most people they are worthwhile. Most people are strong enough rock climbers to hold onto the tools when (and not if, when) their feet blow. I have seen a mitten or glove still hanging through a wrist loop on a lonesome tool after the climber has fallen off; leashes help hold on, but not as much as is commonly assumed, and modern leashless tools are surprisingly easy to hold on to. It probably makes sense for people who don't rock climb at all during the sumer to use leashes; they may not have the hand strength to hang on if their feet blow. And in this situation an Android or equivalent really solid leash has to be used or the benefit is missed. I have sometimes used leashes for alpine climbing with hazard overhead, but more often I get too annoyed and just end up climbing leashless. However, I can see the theory even if I can't practice it.

I won't go into the benefits of leashless, other than to say the only thing a leashed tool still does better than a leashless tool is significant: Leashed tools swing better. I have yet to get a better swing out of a leashless tool than a well set-up leashed tool. The perfectly relaxed fast swing is the holy grail of leashless tools, and so far I haven't felt it, and I try every new tool I can. It's just that the other advantages of leashless tools outweight the disadvantages. Many climbers have only swung leashless tools; I've swung both thousands or maybe millions of times by now, and I have yet to swing a leashless tool that swings as fluidly as a leashed tool.

I was also very concerned about dropping leashless ice tools, but I've dropped more leashed tools than leashless tools over the years. I'm not sure why this is, but it's true for me. Occasionally I'll use the BD Spinner, mostly on alpine terrain. I used to think leashes were a good idea for novices so they didn't drop their tools, but they seem to mostly just leave them in the ice and hang on the rope. If they do fall I'm not sure having a leashed tool spinning around them is a great improvement in novice (close to the ground) environments... It might be better to just go pick it up. BD Spinners aren't rated for the sort of impacts a fall can generate and there are all kinds of skull and crossbones warnings on the packaging, but somehow they do occasionally hold slips. Best not to slip so far you need to rely on a piece of gear that's not at all designed for catching a slip...

There's a temptation to set your tools up to work with leashes as well as leashless "just in case." But a tool set up for leashless climbing has a different pommel/lower grip and swing than a leashed tool; the pommel/finger grip interferes so much with a leashed swing that it renders the tool near-useless. You can still swing a pair of leashless tools with the leashes clipped off to their own straps on your wrists if you set the "manacle" part up short, but not the other way around. If you're so pumped or weak that you want leashes then you should probably stop, clip into the bottom of the tool and rest on it anyhow, whether you've got leashes on or not. Climbing stupid pumped on ice is stupid, it removes any safety factor. Rest, retreat, whatever, just don't fall.

So, if you're a much better ice climber than you are a rock climber, and don't have the strength to hang on then your choices are either get stronger, which won't take all that much work, use leashes, or don't ice climb. Two of those solutions are reasonable.

And then there's gaiters. I use these slightly more than leashed tools (I just realized I don't even have a set of tools set up with leashes anymore so that's not saying a lot), but I like pants like the Arcteryx Gamma that have grommet holes and a grippy strip around the cuff. This offers a great seal without turning your boots into sweat baths like gaiters--a great deal of moisture goes out the top of your boots, gaiters just seal that in and soak everything. Most of my winter boots also have built-in gaiters, but these are more for warmth than to shed snow. Still, the combination of the pant with a lace hook/rubber strip/underfoot strap and a boot with a built in gaiter means no snow gets into my boots even when swimming in the deep stuff. If I'm wearing really light, low-cut boots like I'll use for sumer alpine adventures then I'll occasionally break out the lightest, most breathable gaiter I can find. But I don't like 'em, they are an inelegant solution to a problem.

Screamers: A good rope has relatively low impact force (single, I don't use half ropes much except for low-angle alpine scrabbling, their impact forces are often too high to be worthwhile except for gentle falls), so unless the gear is super sketchy I don't use Screamers anymore. I work hard to get good ice gear, and retreat if I can't. The nebulous line between "maybe good enough" and "GOOD" is too fine for me. I want my gear to be good, or I either solo or go home. Bad gear leads to bad decisions for me, others may have more self-restraint. Gear is not meant to be jewelry, it's meant to be solid. Playing games with shitty gear is seldom going to work out better than retreating if the movement isn't well within my skills. I used to believe "Some gear is better than none," but I'm moving more toward, "I like good gear, and will work hard to get it. If I can't get good gear then I go into solo mode, or retreat."

Third Tools: haven't carried one in 20 years since replaceable picks came out. I did drop a tool once and had to borrow Jack Tackle's third tool, that was embarrassing enough I haven't done it since then, but appreciated the loaner.

So, what are we going to lose next? Socks? Hammers on our tools? Oh right, we lost those too! The future is definitely less, not more when it comes to gear. In the future leashed tools, gaiters and 60/40 Anoraks will all be found in the same section, and only available in dull earth colours. Or maybe, like tie-die shirts and disco, everything old will be new again one day, we'll see.

Thanks for the question.

Ice Season Cometh: Q and A

2011-10-11T16:12:00.004-07:00

First off, sorry for the long delay in blogging. I've been stupid busy with everything from getting my first guiding exam done, family, writing, doing a couple of TV shows and of course climbing, mountain biking (broke some ribs, healing now), travel, and just life. Enough excuses, I'm back, thanks for the heckling/encouraging emails.

I'm going to do a new section of this blog where I answer questions from readers, starting with these:

1) There has be a lot of discussion on knots for tying ropes to rappel. While for that purpose only few people are still using the double fishermans (I use an EDK backed up with a second EDK), it seems to be the knot of choice for tying abalakow slings. Why? Couldn’t I use a doubled EDK here as well? That would seem much easier to tie with gloves on.

2) Now this might sound stupid: While I would never think this could work, I have read a few accounts of long, repeated abseils where it sounded as if the climbing rope itself had been fed directly through the V-thread, saving cord. Did I get that wrong? Can that work? I would assume under load the rope would freeze in place for sure. Maybe something was lost in translation…

-Greetings to the Rockies from Hamburg, Germany.

A #1: The EDK (simple overhand knot) is used for a couple of different reasons: It's relatively easy to untie, it's relatively low-profile on the pull so it's less likely to get hang up, and it's very simple. It does require relatively long tails in case it rolls; if a second EDK is used then that requires yet more rope. An EDK may not be the best choice for ropes of different diameters; I have never seen or heard of a problem with an EDK in the fieldand different diameter ropes, but there's likely a reason some people won't use the EDK with different diameter ropes. Even when weighted you can usually work an EDK out. Sounds like a pretty good knot for rappels with the same ropes.

A fisherman's in contrast, is hard to untie and takes relatively little additional cord for long tails. That sounds like a pretty good knot for a v-thread/Abalokov for me. A simple overhand/EDK might work OK for a V-thread, but would require more cord for tails, and more monitoring. There was fatality here a few years ago where the climbers came down, clipped into the thread, pulled their rope, and the thread "broke." What actually happened is that they had clipped into the long tails on the thread, which had re-frozen into the ice. Sad as hell. Always make sure you're clipped into the true thread and not the tails. Why use a knot that requires long tails for threads? I like to be able to rotate the thread to check the cord all the way around. And I always back threads up with a screw, or two if I don't know the solidity of the thread.

Here's where it starts to get rather pedantic, but there are more reasons I like the EDK (just one with relatively long tails for me in general, but two is a standard in some circles) for raps and a fisherman's for threads. A rappel is a relatively low-load scenario where only the climber's weight is on the rope really, and only half the climber's weight on any one strand (assuming the rope isn't a pullley through the v-thread, which would be bad as it would cut the material through the thread!). So a simple overhand is really, really unlikely to flip under the low load. But a V-thread may have a lot of weight on it due to two or more climbers clipping into it, and the likely scenario of a climber clipped a sling into the thread above it and then slamming down below the thread if they blow undoing their belay device or something... I'd want something really strong that wouldn't roll for my thread material, full stop. If I were using webbing I'd tie a water knot, cord I like a Fisherman's.

You could use a lot of different knots for a thread, and for a rappel pull, and you'd likely live, but I like a fishermans for V-thread cord, and a water knot for webbing, and an EDK for rappels. Do use at least 7mm cord for threads.

#2: Yes, and I've done it lots. BUT, if the rope re-freezes even a tiny bit in the hole, or there's a lot of rope drag from, say, twists, you can rapidly have a bad experience with a stuck rope. If you want to rap using a rope fed through the thread you'll be feeding the "fat" rope through the hole; if you climb on two 8mm ropes or a single 9.1 then no problem, but if you're rapping off with ropes of different diameters then you need, as normal, to pull "skinny," which means the fat rope goes through the hole. If the rope is a hairy beast of rope or frozen up at all then the sharp bend in the back of the thread, or if you didn't get the thread perfect (and I normally am off by 20 percent or so) then there's a natural "pinch point" in the back of the thread. I actually leave 7mm cord or one-inch webbing with old 'biners or quicklinks on the cord if getting the rope stuck would be any problem at all, and definitely don't feed it through. It's one of those ideas that works really well occasionally, but in general opens up a mess of problems.

So there is a really long answer to two short questions! And there are levels to all of this; for me recreationally I'm totally fine with one loop of good-quality 7mm cord for the thread, but that' far from "full strength."

Few solutions or concepts in climbing are absolute. I've been playing this game for more than 30 years, and each year I revise, tune, toss out and otherwise change my systems in light of new ideas or data. This summer I took the first guiding course and exam here in Canada; I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned was a different way of looking at climbing.The big thing is to have an understanding of what you're dealing with, or reduce the situation to parts that do make sense and will do the job at hand.

Finally, Mark Beverly has done a lot of good research, here is some he did on horizontal vs. vertical V-threads, as well as the differences materials make in the strength of threads. Fatter material is better. I'm not yet sold on the benefits of vertical vs. horizontal V-thread placements, but will play more with them this winter.

And there is ice in the Canadian Rockies, saw it today. Go get it!

Quick Review Notes on the Spot 2 and Spot Connect

2011-09-01T12:37:00.008-07:00

Summary: If you're pondering buying a Spot for tracking and emegencies I'd suggest NOT getting the Spot Connect. To do anything but send an SOS message doesn't work without a bluetooth phone, and the bluetooth pairing is sketchy even sitting at your desk at home. A spot 2 is better if you're actually outside of civilization, which is where I generally use a Spot. Bad product design. Spot needs a Spot Connect with Spot 2 physical buttons/menus.

Notes:

Spot beacons are a great idea. They send short satellite messages from anywhere, and there's a button for "SOS" services so if things go totally sideways the Spot may save your life. But the more day-to-day useful functions include tracking, which shows where you are every 20 minutes or so on a Google Map accessible to anyone on the internet. Your friends, family, etc. can see where you are (some screen grabs here), and Spot tracking pages are increasingly common for adventure races, expeditions, guiding, wherever people are out of cell range. The Spot 1 and 2 also have a button for an "OK" message, which sends that message to a set of friends/family/whatever emails. So far so good.

I recently bought the Spot Connect, which theoretically does all the same stuff as the Spot 1 and 2, but also allows you to send 40-character text messages, which seemed cool. You compose these messages on a Bluetooth "smart" phone (Iphone, Droid, whatever) App, and then send them to the Spot over Bluetooth. If you're paired properly and if your phone has battery juice then this system works. But my phone did not pair well with the Spot; or rather, the phone paired well with the Spot, but the Spott App wouldn't recognize that connection, and wouldn't allow me to send messages at least half the time.

This is only annoying at first, but after 24 hours your Spot Connect basically becomes a brick only capable of sending SOS messages unless you can connect to it with Bluetooth (and the App will work, not guaranteed). Put another way, to turn Tracking on or off, or send an OK message you need to have a Bluetooth phone connection, which is flaky at best. With the Spot 1 and Spot 2 models the physical buttons turn tracking on and off and send OK messages, so as long as you had Spot power you were good to go. With the Spot Connect there are no buttons beyond the SOS and power buttons, and after 24 hours you can't use the Tracking or "I'm OK" features. Those features must be turned on through the phone after 24 hours or they shut off and can't be turned back on physically, only through the phone... Oh, and if you turn the Spot Connect off (to replace or conserve batteries for example) during that 24 hours then when you turn it back on it's in "brick/SOS-only" mode again, and you'll need to pair it with your dead cellphone's bluetooth connection that doesn't work so well anyhow.

I think this is really poor product design. A product designed to be used outside of cell range should not be reliant on a cell phone for most of its functions. All it would take is a couple of buttons on the Spot Connect so it would do the same stuff as the Spot 2 at least. I didn't believe the Spot Connect would have such bad design when I bought it; generally new products do more than the old ones.

If you're using your spot primarily in the backcountry, as I imagine most of you reading this are, I'd also suggest adding a line in your Spot emergency contact information that you will most likely need helicopter rescue. Some friends of mine had an accident, hit the SOS button, only to eventually have an ambulance pull up at the trailhead 10K away... Make it clear in your pre-defined message that you're likely to be in a wilderness setting without road access.

So I'm taking my Spot Connect back and getting a Spot 2 until Spot makes something more functional. The added function of the 40-character messages on the Spot Connect is a nice idea, but for most people the ability to use the Tracking and "I'm OK" features is more important.

I didn't find any good reviews on the Spot Connect on the web, so I thought this info might be helpful to those pondering a Spot purchase.

Reflections

2011-08-25T20:53:00.002-07:00

I'm finding it hard to finish off the writing about my flying trip from Vernon home. The basic reason is simple: A week after that trip my friend Stewart crashed his glider on Lady Mac as I watched impotently from 1,000 feet over his head. He would not likely have been there if I hadn't stated that I was going to walk up, and walked with him when he wanted to go. Stewart's now recovering, but the starting point for that recovery is a broken neck with currently serious spinal cord issues. The battle back is going to be difficult, but Stewart is nothing if not resourceful mentally and physically, and he has a great family and friends to help. I also have to say a deep thanks to the professionals and hikers who helped Stewart out when he crashed; without them, well, they made all the difference.

So three of the absolute best flights of my life are juxtaposed with horror. My images of the Bugaboos, of landing and sleeping in the alpine meadows south of Revelstoke, of just the idea and joy of a flying adventure are mixed with images of a badly broken friend. I don't think his accident is my fault, but I do have to wonder about the mental game we all must play with risk sports in order to keep doing them. No one flight is worth what Stewart is going through, so the sum must be worth the risk or we wouldn't do it. Or are we pretending that the risks aren't real for us? I'm writing about this topic now and it feels good to write, but it's not ready for public consumption. My words are too full of contradiction, too full of nothing, too full of circular logic that would stand a pig on its head to fly into the sky. Yeah, my writing makes about as much sense as that image.

I'm also training hard for my assistant rock guide exam, which is a lot of fun thanks to the many people who are allowing me to run around the mountains with them. Climbing is a relatively static world; as I sit in the sun 1,000 feet up a cliff face belaying I feel the dynamic force of the wind, and connect it to the clouds over my head, and hear the whip of the thermals cracking by. I move my hands simply to belay, and hope my friend Stewart gets that experience again soon. The commonplace is only common when you can do it all the time. Today is not only another day, but a day with extreme freedom and ease compared to what so many people in the world are experiencing for no other reason than they were born were they were. Risk, freedom,, movement, life, death, it's all reflecting back at us every second of every day even if we don't see it. I intend to be looking at those reflections a lot more in the coming days, really looking at them and not just letting it all slip past.

Invermere to Canmore

2011-08-07T10:36:00.014-07:00

I'm back home after flying the final leg of the whole trip. Yesterday was a really intense flight--windy, powerful air, cool terrain, and a flight I've dreamed of doing for at least ten years. Boom, the end of an adventure. Today it's way too windy up high to fly; I had incredibly good luck that yesterday was just on the edge of flyable, just. The screen grab of the Spot tracking page shows the basic line, but it doesn't show the waiting in the air, analyzing, or the wind...

I'll post some thoughts, more pictures and a little video (I didn't shoot much, but some) here as I get time and settle back down, it's been the best week of flying I've ever had. So many good experiences! I know I've just had some tremendously good luck with the weather, life and flying. The buzz from this whole trip is going to take a long time to wear off. You don't get many experiences like this week in life, hell yeah!

The trip would not have been possible without a few key people, including Dough Nitchie in Vernon (thanks for the socks, weather and stoke), Becky Bristow in Revelstoke (it's good to have friends who will come and get you when you call up on the satellite phone and say, "Help!"), Al Polster and Lisa in Revelstoke (they got me back in the game when I was beaten down, and up the hill), and Frank Kernick and Tracye in Invermere, who again kept the psyche up through a combination of water skiing, a soft bed, and a great attitude. And of course my mom, who I had to call from a cut block to figure out how to get out on her computer's Google Earth...

Invermere from near Revelstoke via the Bugaboos

2011-08-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

In the last 48 hours I've top-landed in the alpine twice, camped high, had a ton of help from friends in Revelstoke and Invermere, and flown the coolest mountain flight I've ever had. And sunk out into a cut block, but escaped this time!

I have some wicked photos of flying right through the Bugaboos, a flight I've dreamed of for going on 15 years. Never have I flown so deep for so many hours, so stoked! From just south of Revelstoke to Brisco to landing on the beach in Inveremere, where a bunch of friends were having dinner. The Spot log should show the line, I'll post photos when I get home as all I have is my phone. Today's weather doesn't look as good but Swansea launch awaits, want to try and fly home... Fired up!

-sent from my rotten Apple.

Aerial hero to cut block zero?

2011-08-03T07:33:00.005-07:00

I'm out, ripped to shreds by the alder and cut block debris but stoked for the last two days... Not sure what the next move is but got a ride to revy and planning tactics. Making this up as I go for sure, great adventure so far. The freedom of going anywhere in the air is great, but I've learned some lessons.

edit--I just looked on the Spot tracking page, the satellite photo is NOTHING like reality on the ground! Nothing!! The photo must be from 20 years ago, most of the roads in that photo are no longer visible at all...

Not all cut blocks are launchable. In fact most are barely landable!! Logging roads grow over to the point where they are worse than the bush, even if they show on the gps. BC bush is really fierce. There's a fine line between vol bivouac and vol bushwhack, and I got well on the vegetation side of it.... I landed high in Plant creek about as deep as you can get in the Monashees, thought I had an ok cut block (logged area) that would be good to launch out of but wound up hanging 6 feet off the ground. Solved that, good thing i had a wrench for links on lines and can climb ok, nice night with morning bear, could not escape my block for hours in the morning. Priorities went from launching to finding a place to launch to just getting out of the valley I was in, epic bush. Totally impossible to move through that logged bush at more than a few hundred meters an hour. Finally called my mom on sat phone (you know it's bad when u call mom) who found a way out on google earth. Hiked about 10k of bush nasty grown over skidded trail and another 20 of road, got ride (thanks Becky!) to Revy. Happy to be here, developing new plan and solving tech issues with Spot etc

The flight was super fun, walking from the greyhound station in vernon to launch fun, fighting out of bc bush 80k later not so fun but not boring!! Flight conditions were not great, really happy to have flown what I did.

I'm not done yet. Forecast today not so good but I'm destroyed anyhow, see what I can come up with. Will solve Spot issues this morning...

A huge thanks to Doug N. for the help in Vernon!

-sent from my rotten Apple.

Aerial Exploring: Vernon East

2011-07-31T08:10:00.007-07:00

From here to There?

Tracking Page Here

After two weeks of frustrating delays due to bad weather I'm off at one tomorrow morning on a Greyhound bus to Vernon, BC, along with my glider. The basic idea is to ride the dog 350k west to Vernon and then try to fly and walk back home or to the eastern edge of the Rockies somewhere. I should be walking from the bus station toward the Vernon paragliding launch by about 8:00 in the morning. Beyond that I don't know much other than there's a lot of mountain terrain (all of the Columbia and Rocky Mountains) between Vernon and here. There aren't any "rules," but I want to do it all under my own walking power or by flying thermals, and do it self-supported meaning no chase crew.

The inspiration for this trip comes from a few places: The incredibly cool Red Bull X Alps that just concluded, and the uber-suffering Tour Divide/CTR bike races. I raced the Red Bull X Alps almost ten years ago, and loved covering terrain by foot and in the air, it's a magic combination. The Tour Divide bike race is a self-supported monster-length backcountry bike race from Banff, Alberta, to the Mexican border. The Colorado Trail Race is similar but more on trails and less on dirt roads, and crosses Colorado by mostly burly single track. My brother, Toby, starts that race tomorrow, so there will be some suffering Gadds by eleven or so tomorrow morning. What I like about both bike races is that racers bivouac wherever they can; in a hotel if they are near one, but mostly just by stopping beside the trail and sleeping. The rules in both races are "no non-commercial support," meaning hotels and gas station food is OK, but you can't have yer mom bring you a sandwich because that's not there for all racers.

All three events are races, and each is about taking a cool line across the terrain than just the fastest line. The Tour Divide follows the continental divide as closely as possible, the CTR takes the proud mountain biking line across Colorado, and the X Alps traverses most of the chain from the mountains to the sea. All of these events are races, but the on the X Alps each athlete has a "supporter" driving a van loaded with happy little presents like clean socks and food. This is good, as the vast majority of the walking in the X Alps is on paved roads. I hate walking on paved roads (every athlete in the X Alps is far tougher mentally than me, I would shoot myself in the foot before I'd walk like that again on paved roads), and in the Alps it's nearly impossible to be more than 10K from a paved road. I also like the self-reliance concept of the long bike races, that suits my individualistic style more. And I'm not going to race anyone; if I land high on evening I intend to enjoy the place.

One of my paragliding heroes, Pierre Boulliux of Sup'Air (one of the sport's originals, along with my friend Gin Seok Song, who runs Gin gliders) also did a lot of what he called "Vol Bivouac" flying in the alps. The point of this flying was to fly and stay high in the mountains, and what I want to do probably most closely follows this ideal. Some of the Pemberton monkeys are also on this program.

So my idea is to walk on paved roads as little as possible, ditch the "supporter" concept, and fly far while camping high. The forecast is pretty good, there's a lot of interesting terrain between Vernon and east side of the Rockies, let's see what happens! Ideally I'll fly during the peak hours of the day, then land high in the alpine, go for a bit of a walk around the landscape I love being in so much, and then take off in the morning from a happy little high alpine meadow (unfortunately our mountains lack the cows of the alps, so there are far fewer perfect little meadows, but there's the idea). If I land low in a valley I'll beat my way through the BC brush back up to the alpine or a logging cut block and take off again. If I can walk on a trail or even logging road I'll do that, but I flat-out refuse to walk on paved roads just to make distance.

Another huge chunk of inspiration is really the biggest source of motivation for me: Flying in remote areas. I've flown all over the world, but the mountains here in Canada are relatively unique because of their low population densities. I've done two or three forays into remote areas in the Rockies, but by approaching the Columbia and Rocky Mountains with a sleeping bag, tent, food, and expecting to land in remote areas I'll be totally mentally free to fly the coolest lines, not just the lines near roads. In paragliding we often talk about "Tiger Country," or places with no retrieve. I'm aiming for those places on purpose. I want to get high over Vernon, look east and take the best possible line even if there are no roads there to get retrieved on. I think that's going to be a tremendous feeling of freedom, of throwing off one of the most basic ideas of paragliding, to land somewhere where you can get back to where you took off...

My good friend Othar and the Red Bull X Alps team is also planning to run a race somewhere in Western North America next year, which I've been helping a bit with. Othar and I talked about doing a long hike and walk trip in Canada (we also did one in that involved hiking completely across the Andes with our gliders but not flying once!), so maybe my trip will help out a bit with understanding the unique challenges of an X Alps style race in North America's much more rugged mountains. Years ago my friend Jim Grossman and I flew our motorized paragliders across the US too, so there's some history in this idea.

I figure it will take about a week; I wanted to do more, but I have another time commitment coming up, and with the delayed start due to weather I want to do something I think I can get done in a week. This is gonna be fun!

Gear:

Part of the fun of this was to do it with the gear I have lying around. So I have an old light harness, Gin GTO paraglider, BD First Light tent, ancient but still solid Feathered Friends sleeping bag, some food (no stove, weighs too much), bear spray, bug spray, vario, sat phone, and a Spot for safety and so friends and family can watch the game unfold. All told it weights about 20Kg, not too bad. I'll put the Spot tracking URL up later in case anyone wants to watch the silliness that will ensue. I hope to blog a bit from my phone if I can get cell service, which is increasingly likely from up high even in the mountains here...

Sport Climbing season done, paragliding, MORE is not safer

2011-07-15T10:28:00.004-07:00

Buy this book: A great new resource for local sport climbing, thanks to Derek for his work.

Yesterday I got out with my least-repressed friend, Mr. Tim Emmett, along with Mr. Slawinski and Mr. K.H., who does not want his name on the internet. We visited The Notch, another really good craig in Echo Canyon (and covered in Derek's Bow Valley Sport). The Notch looks across the wide canyon to the Lookout, where I've spent at least 10 days this spring. Both craigs are over an over an hour of walking from the car, but totally worth it. Echo Canyon has been my primary hang this spring, as I beat an old ice climber into a half-not-such-a-junk-show-sorta-OK-has-been sport climber again. I went from grovelling on the 5.11s to sending my project, Spicy Elephant, the best 13b I've ever done. It took three months go get back into half-decent (well, not compared to Ondra, we all SUCK, but it's been fun) shape. Tons of days, tons of climbing, tons of loose rock, it's a reminder of just how much pure sport climbing is!

Yesterday was a load of fun; good people, a good environment, and enough routes to stay busy. The Notch isn't as dialed in as the Lookout; broken holds, confused grades (My view is that the 12c with the rope ladder start is 11d with the rope ladder, the left 12a is 11d, the middle 12a is 12b, and the right one is 11c), but all-time fun climbing. The Notch feels sort of alpine; colder, crisper, windier, but it's a fun craig I'll go back to. I broke a hold on the 12d around the corner on the onsight effort, but that's a great route, and Mr. Tim killed it first go, well done! There is truly endless quantities of rock up Echo Canyon, thanks to Greg, Ian, Gerry, and the many, many other people who put the work into the area! These crags were all word of mouth sorta places until Derek's new guide recently came out; more traffic will really help these areas break in. We were all worried Derek was going to downrate everything to 5.9, but he protected our egos and kept consensus grades generally.

Now it's paragliding season, and not a moment too soon. I've been pushing injuries, shirking work, and generally going hard at the rock monkey program for the last three months. Now that will slow down as I hang in the chair in the sky for a month, fired up, stay tuned for some new projects there, as well as the Canadian Paragliding Nationals, starting this Sunday.

Serial Vs. "Open" or "Comp" gliders.

The paragliding world is still in an uproar about the recent banning of some paragliders from some competitions. The FAI (governing body of air sport) tried to make the World Championships safer by creating a certification process for competition gliders, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that this idea really didn't work out. Two deaths, many reserves parachute tosses, etc., all in the first two days... I think a lot of the problems were directly due to the FAI's efforts to make things safer. That story is too long to go into here, but I firmly believe in the law of unintended consequences in complex situations.

Now there's a huge debate about making all competitions "serial," or production gliders only that are certified to a reasonably high passive safety level. This is a bit like putting airbags and ABS brakes on race cars. I have been against this for many years, and broadly still am. I do not in general feel safer on a serial glider than competition gliders of previous years when competing on them. Pushing a serial glider to do a comp glider's job is like pushing a Corolla to do a Porsche's job. But I'm also less current (lousy weather means I only have maybe 10 hours in the air this spring, not the usual 50 or so by this point), and the class of competition gliders flying right now takes very different inputs to fly well. I am concerned that my "driving" patterns will not match those required from the new gliders, and I'm "rusty," so I'm competing on a glider that flies more like what I'm used to, and also has a higher level of passive safety.

Some people see my decision to fly a serial glider as an endorsement of the serial class only position. It's not. But I am making as honest a judgement as I can about my current (not what I have been, where I was, but where I AM) piloting ability with respect to the current comp gliders. If we fly a lot at Canadian Nationals then by the end of it I should be back on top of my game. I'm planning a little XC mission in the mountains of Canada in early August, and I might even fly a comp glider for that... But today I'm a very experienced pilot with rusty skills. That's a fact. I do have a serial glider I really, really like, the Gin GTO, so there's not a lot lost by flying it. In fact, it's going to be a lot of fun, and I will be seriously competing for the serial class national title so don't think I'm relaxing any! One thing I will say is that if the day looks epic I'm going to blow out of the comp and chase some records, grin...

I think that in the coming years all competitions are going to be held on "serial" or certified gliders with good passive safety. This may in fact ultimately be a good thing, I don't know, but I am sure that most of the reasons being put forward for serial gliders have far less to do with the gliders than the people behind the opinions. Ultimately paragliding is a dangerous sport; but if people blame the gliders for the accidents then it's possible to also say, "I don't fly one of those gliders, so I must be "safe." Never mind that the vast majority of accidents every year are on those "safe" gliders... By focusing on the equipment the delusion of safety can be maintained, when in reality not having an accident while paragliding is 99.99 percent about the pilot's decision ability. A comp pilot with a 200+ hour season under his competition wing is far safer in the air than a novice with a career 100 hours on a certified wing...

More Gear does not mean more Safety:

In every sport participants attempt to make the sport "safe" with equipment, and some decry those who participate with less equipment. Never mind that the vast majority of accidents in every sport I'm involved with (possibly with the exception of kayaking) tend to occur to those with MORE, not less, equipment. I think if we all take an honest look at our sports this trend holds true; it's the mind, not the gear or even the training, that effects the safety of the participant. Agree? Got examples of where the gear rules? Share...

Magnetron Carabiners

2011-07-13T09:32:00.003-07:00

OK, the name is kinda dorky but these are the coolest new carabiners I've ever seen:

Magnetron Technology: The reinvention of the auto-locking carabiner, coming July 2012 from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

The guy in the video, my friend Bill B., handed me one of these a few months ago to look at, but didn't tell me how they worked. I wracked my brain trying to figure it out as I effortlessly opened and closed the gate, and finally it was like, "MAGNETS!!!!!" I'm a gear geek, and this is a huge step forward. No more fumbling one-handed with tricky gates, ropes unscrewing screw gates, "auto-lockers" that are total pain in the ass, etc. Huge step forward for boring old carabiners, a subject I thought was pretty much done in terms of huge evolutionary steps.

I've been just dying to talk about these 'biners since I saw the rough protos, now I finally can. I can't think of one thing these do less well than the best lockers on my rack now. Must be something I'll still use a screwgate for, but these truly autolock without the hassle of an autolock. Wicked.

Paragliding World Championships Musings

2011-07-11T12:19:00.004-07:00

First off, paragliding can be a "reasonable" activity. I'd let my kids fly tandem with most any commercial operation in North America. But there are some problems lately with the competition scene, which is like comparing F1 to driving to the grocery store. The following commentary is opinion and ranting, but I'm thinking about it a lot so here goes:

The 2011 Paragliding World Championships were cancelled a few days ago. I don't think that's ever happened before. The FAI (uber-governing body of air sports globally) basically said the current "Competition" class gliders were too unstable to fly fast, and banned 'em. It's hard to argue with their reasoning; two pilots died and six or seven others threw their reserve parachutes, all in the first two days. There was no day three.

The big question in the paragliding world now is whether or not the 2011 comp gliders are more "dangerous" than usual. Some very good pilots I trust say they aren't, some others I also trust say they are. My sponsor, Gin, didn't have one of the new "2-line" gliders last year, so I didn't fly one. This year Gin does have one, reportedly a very fast one, but as I wasn't competing in the worlds this year (too much climbing of late) my order hasn't even shipped. I will be competing in the Canadian Nationals in a few days (defending my title, grin), but I didn't want to be charging on a new glider I hadn't flown at all so I cancelled my 2-liner order. I'll be flying a certified glider in a comp for the first time in almost ten years, it'll be fun! My decision also has something to do with the fact that these 2-line gliders also require very different flying control than what I'm used to. The accident and reserve rate in Spain certainly looks bad, and I don't want to add to it.

I think that maybe what's happened is that the new technology is relatively untried, and also demands new skills to fly. I doubt there were many pilots at the Worlds who had more than 50 hours on their new wings. Maybe it's a bit like going from a steering wheel to a joystick on a car while at the same time increasing the horsepower from 150 to 1,000 and dropping all speed limits; people are going to make errors, and those errors may be higher consequence. Maybe in a few years when everyone is used to driving fast with a joystick it'll all be good, but right now things are pretty crazy out there. But I don't have any time on 2011 2-liners to say really...

Or maybe the gliders had nothing to do with it, and it was all the low-skill pilots at the World Championships. This sounds somewhat unlikely to me, as any pilot who makes it to the worlds has some degree of decent skill. The two pilots who died were good pilots, and the one who died in the last world's was one of the best. But when accidents happen it's always tempting to say, "That can't happen to me because I'm (pick one) smarter, stronger, better, etc." The two pilots who died were, judging by their resumes and times flying, very good pilots and to believe I can do better in a competition on a new wing than they did is pretty much delusional to me. I'll learn how to fly these new gliders outside of competition, and then see about maybe competing on them after this year's Paragliding World Cup provides some answers. The pilots on the PWC are the best in the world, as opposed to the best in individual countries like the Worlds are.

If the PWC accident/incident rates remain relatively consistent then we'll have to look at something other than the gliders for clues to the problem, like pilot quality. If there are a lot more incidents than is historically normal at the PWC then we'll know that there is likely an issue with some of the 2011 gliders, even in the hands of the pilots who should be most capable of handling them. Until then we're all just guessing I think. The 2010 gliders certainly didn't look to be totally unstable, and some of them were 2-liners so things are weird out there.

I have been against mandatory serial gliders for competitions for many years, as I always felt safer on comp gliders. I almost threw my reserve twice on my Proton GT (serial glider from ten plus years ago, using it as an example) before I got back on the Boomerangs, on which I have relatively few close calls and none due to the glider. I am wondering if these new 2-liners share some of the problems of the GT.

The problem I had with the GT was that it felt rock solid, then it would just blow up incredibly violently and unexpectedly while I was flying on the speed bar. On the comp gliders I could feel the air very well, and adjust my speed or angle of attack to keep the glider open. The new comp gliders apparently feel very stable, but everyone admits that when they collapse they go big and may be totally unrecoverable. That sounds a lot like that old Proton GT of mine--everything going fine, then ka-boom, line twists and cascades. That glider for me was like a crazy relationship, all happy and then your stuff is cut up in pieces on the front lawn... By the way, I'm picking on the Proton GT from over ten years ago I think, I flew several other Ozone gliders back in the day that were simply awesome, and obviously they are a fine company today.

Until recently I did not feel that glider behaviour was in general a problem at competitions; most of the accidents I saw had far more to do with pilot error. But now I'm not so sure. I'm holding off on the latest "comp" glider technology for a season to see what's up. It helps that for once I have a serial wing I really like, the GTO. I have enough hours on it in strong conditions to feel good about flying it in Golden.

Over the years I've learned to recognize a sort of "smell" in the air when something isn't working right, and I smell that odour now around these gliders. Could be a passing bubble, could be the ball of shit from a wing that is non-recoverable from a stall (apparently how stalling was described in reference to recovering the current comp gliders), time will tell. Good luck to the PWC pilots, I really hope they don't need it!

Sponsorship and "Extreme!" Sports

2011-06-23T08:53:00.004-07:00

"How do I get sponsored?"

I get that question a lot. Usually there's a fresh-faced young person on the other end of the email, wanting to quit school and go climbing/kayaking/skateboarding/snowboarding/whatever for ever. And I fully support the idea of following your dreams, even if the dreams turn into nightmares. Sometimes it's a matter of crossing things off a life list until you find what you like. So even bad decisions can lead to good outcomes; it's like turning clay into a pot, sometimes you just have to turn "work" back into clay, but at least you know what didn't work out. If someone truly wants to try and do their sports full-time and get as good as he or she can be then I'm completely down with helping, and often do. But here's the truth: sponsorship isn't part of that process in general, at least not at first. There are no perpeetual"grants" to go and do the sports you love...

Here are a few fast thoughts about getting sponsored:

1. Get money to do stuff you truly want to do, not do stuff to get money.

This is a hugely important distinction. If you're getting $ to go do something you couldn't do without that money and will do anything short of selling yourself on the street (and maybe that) to get to that goal then your heart is true. If you're doing a stupid human trick (First person to ever drop into a half-pipe wearing a bed of nails strapped to your back) to get noticed and get $ then it's not clean, and it's Jackass time. Now, Jackass is totally funny, but it's entertainment, not achievment. I have a hard time explaining the difference between these two things, but it's clear to me when someone is doing something incredibly dangerous, stupid and even ridiculous because he or she honestly thinks it's just the best thing ever, and when someone is doing the same thing because he or she wants to get noticed. It's the difference between the guy who tied a whole whack of balloons to his lawn chair and flew above California and the guy who was going to put his kid into a weather balloon and get a science show out of the resulting publicity or whatever. One rings true, one doesn't.

2. You're the best at what you do, or on the way to being the best.

-Until this point don't bother asking for sponsor dollars. If you're the best 16-year old in North America then you can start asking, but if you just sent a 12c and won the East Podunk bouldering comp in your age division then train harder. It's not worth wasting the mental energy on sponsorship for the amount of dollars you'll get in return. Be the best or very close to it, then ask.

2.1 You have a plan that's not the same as everyone else's plan.

-If you want to win a snowboard comp or two and party your way into rehab (although by that point you probably won't be able to afford it) then join the line. But if you want to win the biggest comps and are training/riding seven days a week while doing the absolute minimal amount of non-riding possible, and you'd rather save the $6/day in beer for another day of riding then you've got some force in your life. And if you want to snowboard every single peak in Maine and have already done 4 then right on, you're different and have a dream. Dreams get people stoked. Especially cool dreams, dreamed by people who have the skills and drive to turn 'em into reality. But don't send in a proposal to be the first non-diabetic white guy under 37 but over 36 with two legs but a fake toe to climb Everest. If your proposal involves any, "With x ailment," "Oldest," "Youngest," "Dog," "White Guy," "Canadian," "Ohioian" or other qualifier then it's a personal achievement and that's great for you, congratulations!

3. Do what you like.

-If you're totally and completely obsessed with your sport and think and do nothing that doesn't involve it then great, your head is in the right place. You will live on chalk dust/wax scrapings just to be out there more. The best athletes I know didn't decide one day to become sponsored full-time athletes, they obsessed over their sports because they truly love them. At some point business entered that equation, and the goal became to work less at non-sport jobs through using sponsorship to spend more time doing the sports. But the love comes first, like the old guys still skiing 60 days a year. That's love. And you can only truly be great at something you love.

4. Understand work and play

-There's this idea that sponsors pay for you to win comps, look cool, and hang out with your friends. This is bullshit. Sponsors actually pay for their image on you in media, the right to use you in their advertising, and generally your ability to represent their brand in a positive way. When I go do a photo shoot for a sponsor that's work, and I try to work my ass off. When I'm climbing with my friends that's play for me, and why I work... These two worlds mix to some extent, but you've got to know the difference between them, and which hat you're wearing. Masters of this game make it look easy, but the sponsorship trail is littered with people who couldn't understand the difference between these two settings. For example, I can not think of one athlete on the Red Bull Canada team who doesn't work his or her ass off when it's time to do so, and play hard too. The world is full of talented people; but not that many actually work hard.

5. Let the action do the talking

-I often get emails with something like, "I'm gonna drop the biggest cliff ever, I'd like to get some sponsors first." OK, that's cool, but there's always a bigger cliff, and if you haven't dropped the first biggest cliff ever then you're just talking smack. And then if you actually do get sponsor $ you might feel a tad bit awkward when you get to the edge of that cliff and it's a really, really long way down--the difference between local hero and world-class is farther than it might at first appear when measured close to the edge of an sport... No amount of money is worth getting maimed or killed for, especially the amounts we see generally see in the "extreme" sports world. You'd better be at the top of the cliff 'cause you think it's the coolest thing ever, and all you really need to be there is your friends. And if you're maimed you'll note a little clause in your contract that says companies don't in general sponsor invalids anyhow. But if you're at the top of the world's biggest ever cliff 'cause there's no place you'd rather be then great, and when you walk into SuperXSport's office and say, "I've dropped the biggest cliff ever, super fun, here's my next project, could your company help a bit?" then your action matches your words.

7. Be true to yourself. Shakespeare had it right when he advised:

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

A few things...

2011-06-10T12:06:00.002-07:00

Right, it's finally spring here in Canmore! I'm almost afraid to say it too loudly, but I think it's really happening. I was actually too warm rock climbing yesterday, a season first. I even whined about it a bit just to make sure the sensation of warmth was real and not just a dream. Now all the snow around here has to melt--normally the valleys and even lower passes are good to go by this time of year for running and riding, but lots of snow out there still, as I just saw on a drive into the mountains. I was up helping out a bit with the Tour Divide, which is a race from Banff, Alberta to Mexico. My cousin is racing in it, go Dylan, knew a few other uber-lungs lined up at the start. I saw the leaders go by after about three hours, they were going faster than I normally ride when I'm out for an hour or two. Pretty cool to see.

Climbing Training

I'm on a day-on, day off program for climbing right now. It's about all my body can handle, and over the years I've found that I go harder on my training days when I know there's a rest day coming, and I enjoy resting more when I feel like I've earned it. But I've dug a little over-training hole for myself; yesterday I was worthless, but the day was worthy so it was nice to be out. I'm off on a week-long guiding course starting tomorrow so the tendon rest will be nice; I often go really hard on a cycle with the knowledge that I'll have a soft week or period following it, it seems to work well for me. With aerobic sports I can just cycle back the intensity and/or duration, but with climbing I have to beat myself up, recover, repeat, it's just a different beast than anything else I do. But it sure is fun to be getting a little bit of rock fitness back. Compared to the current state of the sport I completely suck (but then again pretty much everyone does now compared to Adam Ondra!) Ondra has set the bar so high, a total revolution in difficulty level, the Sharma of the high-school scene. That kid is mind-blowing, the future, awesome, inspirational. Anyhow, I'm psyched to climb easier routes and step it down for a week, then get after it until the flying turns on around here for the summer.

And I was reminded by this photo of how fun climbing is, no matter it is that we climb! My daughter busting out the H (for horn) 4 move on the steel Moose.

More soon--gear issue coming up again, new stuff that I love...

Response to Anon...

2011-05-30T09:07:00.002-07:00

Anon--, I don't think there's any argument at all that being lighter will improve performance in many sports. I have never argued that weight is irrelevant for performance. Of course it's relevant, and I'm annoyed at myself for somehow not making that clear in my posts. So here goes, I'll make it clearer:

Consuming unsustainable and downright puritanical diets will not ultimately lead to better long-term performance. For the vast, vast majority of athletes (and the general public) simply training/exercising hard regularly and eating more simple food and less processed junk is the solution, just as it always has been. Some times the truth is really boring.

Focusing excessively (and if you regularly need to carry tupperware because you "can't find anything to eat and are over three years old that's excessive) is counter-productive at best, and downright damaging at worst., The diet game has a million new suckers a minute.

Let's look at the older athletes who have won or performed at top level over years or decades in contrast to this week's "Get real skinny and win!" book.

In general successful athletes focus on performance/winning, and then look at the pathways necessary to get to that point. Many amateur athletes look at the pathways more than they do at the goal. Do you want to be five percent BF for two months and place third in a local age division before blowing up or do you want to start at 12 percent, eat decently for a change, drop to 11 percent, place fourth in a local race, get stoked, train for another year, place 22nd nationally, notice you're now down to 8 percent because you're training like a fiend even though you eat the occasional banana split, and then win nationals the next year because you trained right (and holy shit, you did it at 7 percent, who knew!)? Or sit there worrying about whether or not to eat a piece of bread?

I see far too many athletes trying to control their performance by controlling their diet. Diet is simple to control short-term. So a bad race means a bad diet... No it doesn't, it most likely means the athlete didn't train well, or had a cold, or is distracted by a psychotic relationship or any of the other millions of things that can go wrong... But with the diet-based trainers it's always about the food, because they can control that (short term--long term they're gonna lose unless they're eating sustainably). Based on more than 25 years of competing in various sports where weight matters the diet-obsessed are not going to be the people on the podium in the long run. Nor are the 300 pound coach potatoes. Simple.

Diet is important, but performance is everything. Don't confuse the two, they are not interchangeable terms for god's sake! Read, understand, think, apply, train, adapt, understand, think some more, but do not become a victim of the diet is everything cult, it's a losing headspace.

Enough of this topic, my views are hopefully clear enough. There will always be a salesman with a new plan for getting skinny etc., learn to ignore them and focus on getting out the door as it's now time for me to do. Let's go get active, yeah!

Seasonal Confusion Disorder, randomness

2011-05-20T10:55:00.004-07:00

I can't decide whether to climb, paraglide, mountain bike, run, kayak, or go speed flying. Hell, the skiing is still pretty good too! And there's a fence to paint, winter debris to pick up, plus some office work I haven't done, etc. Rather than actually doing any of the above I'm on the computer. This is what Seasonal Confusion Disorder, or SCD, can do to you. The weather isn't really perfect for any of the above, so it's easier to spin in circles than settle on any one activity. SCD is serious, ha ha!

I think I'll ride my bike to the post office the long way, send the books out to people that are overdue, continue on to the climbing gym (I need a savage bouldering style workout) and finish it all out with some mobility/WOD stuff. Happy spring, hell YEAH!

Here are a few things I find interesting lately:

Training types: I'm starting to think there are a few different types of people who "train." There's the "trainer" who is training purely to train, or perhaps to look better in a tight T-Shirt. There may be excuses made about training for other sports etc, but really "trainers" are just training to train. Bodybuilders, most big-box members and most people who even go into a gym of any kind are in this category. Even Crossfitters to a certain point; that's the point of a generalized training program. Then there are the Sport-Specific People, or SSPs. These are the actual athletes who want to be better at a sport, whether it's at an amateur or pro level, they are training to be better at a sport or activity. Then there's the Participation In General people, or PIGS. I'm mostly a PIG; I go kayaking, climbing, mountain biking, whatever, and that's 75 percent of my activity. About 25 percent is "training" for one activity or another, often a blend at the same time. Note that rehab etc. fits into SSP guidelines.

I break out these slightly tongue in cheek classes of people who train to maybe help people think about their own training. Are you a "Trainer," "SSP," or "PIG?" Because I see a whole lot of "Trainers" who think they are SSPs... If you don't do your sport more than you train for it then you're a Trainer. If there's not an end goal to whatever it is you're doing for training then either you're a Trainer or a PIG. And that's cool as long as you understand what's going on and are into it, but it's not cool when you're claiming to be training for sport X while doing something that is useless for doing sport X better, at least as measured on a time-invested basis. Training for a SSP must be measured in performance; does it help the person perform better? Otherwise it's just Training for the hell of it, and that is not worthwhile unless it's the goal... Just something to think about, I can fit into all of the categories above at various points of my life, but I do better when I understand the different stages of training and why I'm training for what, when. I also see a lot of what I would call confused people in the gym...

Nutrition: My last post was all about wasting energy by thinking about what to eat instead of how to train or actually training. Eating well is a good idea and may help performance to some extent, but eating and performance are not the same thing even if some people want them to be. Performance is what counts. Crossfit (which I support but have no formal relationship with) workouts are great, but they don't burn much energy compared to most of the exercise I do. If you sit on your ass 15 and a half hours a day and only workout for for 5 to 30 minutes then you are going to have to be a little more discerning about what you eat than someone who goes out and hikes around in the mountains all day, or trains like hell for two hours or whatever. Most of the really lean athletes are in aerobic sports, and they eat whatever the hell they want. But if you want to be ultra-lean and only work out 30 minutes a day then it's not going to work without strict dietary control, which where the whole neurotic Zone and other whacky diet action came from in the fitness scene. "Paleo" is a less restrictive and all-around better idea, but even one of the leading lights of Paleo (and a guy who knows more about nutrition than possibly anyone) says that if you're going to actually exercise hard for longer periods of time then you're going to need more carbs. Most of the athletes I hang with aren't just working out for 20 minutes four to six times a week; that's only two hours of activity, or one decent after-work mountain bike ride. So, if you're just doing short workouts and want to be really lean (for why I still haven't figured out, nor can anyone tell me why other than to look good nekkid) then by all means eat a convoluted diet that I guarantee will "fail" in a timespan of weeks, not years, but certainly within years. Or accept being somewhat higher in body fat, enjoy life, eat relatively simple foods, great. Or do higher-volume aerobic sports and eat whatever the hell you want, be reasonably lean, enjoy life. The only "losers" I see here are those who spend more time worrying about what they are going to eat than training and doing what they love in life.

Really Risky Jobs: this is cool.

Bad-ass people in the local gym: Yesterday I did a sort of "WTF + rehab" workout in the gym because I'm having some knee and back issues, it was raining and cold outside, so into the gym. My local gym (other than the garage, where Cultfit Coyote Way is back in action after the coach took a break for kidlet delivery) is Athletic Evolution. There are some good athletes who train in there for sure (Canmore Eagles, hockey team here), but there were two guys in there yesterday just giving it. One guy was doing deadlift sets of three with 325 pounds, maintaining absolutely beautiful form. Plus some other solid stuff. Another guy was throwing down some really clean heavy squats, bend the bar kinda shit. This amazes me because most of the "heavy" stuff I see in gyms all over the world is just piss-poor. I'm used to seeing no-name climbers do incredible stuff in the climbing gym, but in the weight room it's generally a gong show of technique (often including mine, no pretensions there). Really good form with heavy weight is an absolute rarity, I don't know who those guys were but it was cool to see. It's just odd how little really amazing ability I see in regular gyms compared to climbing gyms, on the river, mountain biking, whatever. I don't know what to make of this disparity; maybe the sport-specific athletes do their sports for longer and get better? Even without any formal coaching a kid can climb 5.14 and have amazing technique, but I rarely see anyone do a half-solid squat in a gym anywhere, even with "coaching." Something weird in all of this...

Happy Spring

Eat this

2011-04-27T09:39:00.002-07:00

I've received a few emails lately asking about "Sports Performance Diets." To sum up my philosophy on food for sports: You are what you eat, but the human body is amazing at processing just about anything. Here are some free-form thoughts:

-Unless you are truly "Elite," and by this I mean actually in the top one percent or so of a sport and not just claiming to be elite because you can do a workout that makes you gasp then what you eat is relevant only in that you have enough decent calories in your diet, but not way too many or you'll be too fat. Some body fat is OK; if you've been 12 percent your entire life then it's probably not worth the effort to drop to six percent, nor is it a realistic goal that will actually improve your performance as much as an extra few hours of training a week.

-The classic story about sports nutrition comes from my wife, Kim, who actually was an elite athlete--we know this because she got a scholarship to go to University as a nordic ski racer, along with some Americans and a few Norwegians. The Norwegians would win or place high in the ski race, eat a couple of boxes of Oreos for post-race recovery, have a beer, eat another huge dinner, and sleep 10 hours a night. The Americans would place mid-pack, recover with sports drinks, eat a "Pritikin" (very little fat) dinner, sleep poorly, and not improve. The Americans would also obsess about vitamins, body fat, etc. The Norwegians won races, the Americans worried about their diets... Chris Sharma does not eat Paleo/Zone/WTF. In fact, I can't think of one truly elite athlete that follows any incredibly strict diet. I would bet they are conscious of what they eat because they know their bodies, but not religious about it. Yet there are legions of people out there trying to improve their amateur sports performance through bizzare diets. I would call them idiots, but it's really a form of gullibility brought on by wishful thinking.

-Eat today as you will for the rest of your life. Radical exclusion diets of any kind eventually fail, every single one of them. There are no exceptions unless your diet kills you before you "fail" at it, which in a way anorexia or malnutrition can...

-The "Paleo/Pritikin/Atkins/Zone/Hollywood/Sports/WTF" diet are all doomed to eventual "failure;" I'd guess that optimistically maybe 1 in 10,000 people following them today will be following them in 20 years. That's the history of every diet ever, so why exactly does anyone think the latest "Best Ever For Sports Performance!!!" plans are any different? Diets and Ponzi schemes all end the same: the people who bought in either quit or are taken for a ride. It doesn't matter if it's real estate, investments or diets, it's never truly "different this time."

-Once you realize that the entire "diet" industry, even the "sports" version of it is somewhere between a scam and a religion (many religions have dietary prescriptions come to think of it) then you're on your way to decent nutrition, sports or otherwise.

-Generally eat food that's pretty close to the form it grew or lived in. Eat less when you don't need much energy (sitting at a desk). Eat more calorie-dense foods when you need calories (ski touring, etc.). If you're burning calories like mad ski touring then sugar is great. If you're sitting at a desk then it's not in general.

-Too much of anything for too long is a bad idea. One slice of cheesecake just doesn't matter. One hundred pieces do.

-Read up on insulin, the glycemic index, and listen to your body for what different foods make you feel like. Eat more vegetables for a week. What does that do? Drink less alcohol, drink more alcohol, take some notes, listen. Without the roar of the diet industry in your ears you might be surprised by what you find.

-Exercise hard, regularly. Exercise easily for long periods of time, like walking, regularly. Do sports that require serious effort at least once a week. Set aside one hour every single day to go out and breath hard, outside if at all possible, but at least breathing doing something fun.

-Spend way less time thinking about food than you do enjoying it. If you're spending more time thinking about what to eat than you are eating it then you have an eating disorder. I've seen a lot of athletes spend more time worrying about what they eat than actually training.

-There are no magic bullets, no metabolic master blasters, etc. etc. Sorry, the guy who trains 30 hours a week and eats at McDonalds will destroy the guy who trains five hours a week and eats a perfect Paleo diet. If Paleo boy steps his training up to 30 hours a week then he may be able to compete with McDonald's boy, but even then I'd bet that the skills, quality training time and attitude would still kick Paleo Boy's ass...

-Accept some fluctuation in your body. When you're training really hard and consistently you'll be leaner, stronger and generally "fitter." When you're only training two hours or less a week because of work, family, whatever, your body will change. This is OK, it's normal, either change life or accept it.

Yeah! Now I gotta go train, it's been a lousy two months due to all kinds of great stuff. I traded some fitness for some life stuff for a while, now the stoke is high again, time to get after it!

Doing it right.

2011-04-02T23:11:00.003-07:00

Here's a complicated route with difficult gear on bad rock, and the guys keep it together well enough to re-climb pitches multiple times etc. I'd call this "not sucking," and doing a solid job of it. You can see every stick in the ice is solid--Raph gives each one a good "jerk," and even on the video you can hear the hum of the tools sticking in. This is a dangerous climb, but it's dangerous because of the route, not the errors the climbers are making. And Raph and Jerome are up to the task obviously. The lack of ego is also nice; this route is about as hard as it gets in terms of trad-proteced routes on Rockies limestone, but there's not too much BS. The cat is of course weird. Nice work gentlemen.

Second go at The Peach from Wiktor Skupinski on Vimeo.

More info here. Nice one Raph, Grant, Pierre, Wiktor, Jerome and whoever else Raph snagglled into heading up Storm Creek.

How not to suck

2011-03-25T09:50:00.008-07:00

The discussion on "Ice climbing is NOT rock climbing" has generally been useful; I learned a few things for sure, and I appreciate Jeff (the videographer) and the guys in the video taking it all well. I've talked to Jeff and the climbers, they're good people. I write this blog pretty much like I talk to my friends over morning coffee, and went a little overboard in not editing my comments a little. My sincere apologies to the Fall team for that, and I look forward to getting out with them next year.

Now for some more harshness: I see the errors in Jeff's video pretty much every single time I go climbing at a popular area; that's why I used his video. Bad sticks, poor knowledge of ice, standing under falling ice, equipment errors, the list goes on and on of what not to do. But these guys aren't special; the average day in Haffner, G1 at Hyalite or any other popular ice crag sees every single one of the errors in the video except perhaps the fall. I'm not picking on these guys personally; but novice ice climbers everywhere. These guys aren't especially stupid, ignorant or wilfully dangerous; they're about average from what I see out there. Yeah, that's right, it's not personal with these guys, I think that broadly most novices I see pretty much suck, and are a menace to themselves. I'm also arrogant enough to think that writing about errors, discussing errors publicly with all of you and sharing those errors around among the ice climbing community will help reduce the quantity of bad decision making I see... So, here's how not to suck:

Protect yourself: Every time we go climbing stuff is going to fall down either from our group, from people above us, avalanches, etc. etc. An ice climbing area is an accident waiting to happen; protect yourself at all times. I do not have to think this way at most sport crags, although I try to keep it in my mind. Ice climbing is different.

Toprope. I keep writing this, but I do not think it's possible to have much understanding of ice until you have done at least 150 pitches of it. I didn't learn this way, and I shudder to think of how many times I came close to maiming myself. I only truly learned to climb ice when I ran hundreds of laps on TR while training for ice climbing competitions. Think about how many pitches of rock climbing it takes to have even basic technical skills, never mind the ability to judge gear in what is a really simple and stable environment compared to an ice climb. So, toprope, lots. I hear people whine that, "I can't toprope in my area, not enough ice." Please. Walk a couple of hours, I can't think of one major ice climbing area that doesn't have plenty of ice if the climbers will walk a bit and get away from the crowds. Use a roadcut, flow some ice off the side of your house, it doesn't take much vertical at all, just run laps, play, learn. A week of toproping in Ouray will do more than ten weekends of sketchy leading one or two pitches a day.

Climb with good people. A basic class is a good start, but most of us enter ice climbing from rock climbing and don't want to be novices. OK, If you can't find a friend to take you who is solid (and by that I mean over 150 pitches of ice) then hire one. The money spent for a good day of instruction is a hell of a lot cheaper than a broken leg, skull fracture or death. If you get a couple of people together or even a small group the cost for a competent guide is pretty low for a day really, we probably spend more than that in the bar or on coffee. Look for guides that have been ice climbing for more than five years, and climb more than 50 days a season. Less than that is not enough. If you're coming to Canmore email me and I'll help you out; I don't guide, but have a lot of friends who do a good job at it. I can and will do the same for a lot of areas around North America and parts of Europe. I do not get a referral fee or anything for that btw.

Watch: There is a tremendous amount of material on Youtube and elsewhere about how to and how not to ice climb....

Read: I wrote a book on how to ice climb. I'd change a few parts of it today, but overall it's still what I believe. But get all the ice climbing books, articles, web stuff, whatever, and read. There is always more to learn. I read a tremendous amount about ice climbing, it's an obsession as those of you who read this blog regularly may have noticed. I'm an ice nerd...

Obsess: No detail is too small to get right, or wrong. I guarantee that you will make errors while climbing, and only if you do enough things right will the errors not kill you. I know this because I've made a lot of errors over the last 30 years of active climbing. I'm going to post my top screwups next post...

Be Honest: Did you climb that route with every single stick a reasonable belay, no foot slips, good gear, and relaxed hands? If not then you weren't climbing it at a "proficient" level. Getting up an ice climb is not good enough if you want to keep doing the sport for many years. Do not judge yourself by getting to the anchors or not, but by honestly how solid every single move was.

Don't be this guy at 1:40: Horrible sticks again, guy pitches off... Later in the video there are shots of top-roping, and it looks like technique may be improving. Cool. Falling off not cool. But it does look like a super fun trip, and unless the video is edited out of sequence the sticks are better at the end than the beginning... Let's be nice in the comments section, thanks.

PS--and for anyone who thinks TRing is boring, check this stunt out. I guarantee they weren't bored, and likely learned a few things. But keep the rope tighter while toproping than this team is, a guy I knew managed to fracture his femur while on TR when his points caught... Tight rope good.

Mail Bag: Tied Off Screws

2011-03-24T07:39:00.004-07:00

First, sorry for the delay in posting. I've been on a speaking tour, an 80-hour first aid course and some other busy sports actopm. But all good!

I answer a fair number of questions about ice, rock and paragliding gear and tactics. I try to always reply to these emails, but it recently hit me that readers of this blog might enjoy the answers as well. I'll try to post some of them up here for grins, using sorta made-up names. Got a question? Send it in, I'll get on it, thanks.

Tied Off Ice Screws:

Hi Will,

I was wondering if you had information about the shear potential of an ice screw that's been tied off? Geoff seems to remember seeing a test that shows a fall, then subsequent sheering of the head of the screw. But I can't locate it.

Thanks for your great analysis of the ice climbing video!

Hi JX,

Tied-off screws are pretty close to worthless from all the data I've seen. For starters, the screw has to be placed with the "hanger high," so that the tie-off doesn't slip to the head of the screw immediately. That's not a very strong angle for a screw, the load levers the screw out of the ice very fast even with a full-depth screw. In practice the tie-off is loaded, screw starts to break out of the ice and the tie-off slides to the head of the screw, where either the screw totally breaks out of the ice due to the unsupported "lever action" on it, the screw bends (actually better), and the tie-off is cut by the hanger or stretches enough to slip over it. Not good.

It's far, far better to use a stubby than a tied-off screw in any situation I can think of. Plus a tied-off screw almost always hits the rock under the ice, which ruins the teeth... I carry mostly 13cm screws with one 19 for threads, maybe a few 16s for grins, and a some stubbies.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Additional Notes: Screws used to only come in long lengths, which meant that even in six-inch thick ice we had to tie 'em off. Now screws come in all kinds of useful lengths, and I haven't tied a screw off in years as a result. I would far rather have a "too short" screw than a "too long" screw. In good ice you can make even a very short screw very strong.

Ice Climbing is NOT rock climbing.

2011-03-22T10:34:00.006-07:00

Will Gadd note after the below was posted: Please keep the comments somewhat civil and constructive. There is a lot of good information (harness, gi gi) getting added, let's focus--as most people are--on what can be done differently rather than attacking either the climbers or the video effort. Just for reference, I've personally made a lot of the errors in the video, we all have, the idea is to learn and do better, thanks.

And the two screen capture pictures are of the BD Bod harness that's not doubled back (you can tell because you can see the two silver pieces, shouldn't be able to see 'em both!) and the Kong Gi Gi, which is getting used totally inappropriately. That the harness and the belay both held is pretty amazing to me, I would not have put money on either system holding even a short fall. Thanks to the comments section for noticing both, I didn't until it was pointed out, which kinda scares me...

Fall. from Jeffrey Butler on Vimeo.

One of the biggest problems I see in ice climbing starts with people approaching ice climbing like they do rock climbing. That mindset is totally inappropriate, and leads to really avoidable accidents. A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a video shot Dracula, a one-pitch classic WI 4+ in New Hampshire. The leader gets pumped, struggles to get a screw in, and falls. Skip to 3: 28 to see it go bad, but the whole thing starts to go bad way before that point. I'm going to pick a few key points out of this video that are really serious errors. These errors are unfortunately very common, and they shouldn't be.

Fortunately this video is on Vimeo, where you can load the whole video up then click and hold on the timeline bar below the video to move around the video easily. This video is not, as the narrator suggests, a film about "change." I see and hear very little about "change" in the film, what I see are common errors leading to a completely avoidable accident, and not much mental switch among the climbers in the follow-up footage.

The first and biggest error in the thinking of the climbers is expressed at the end of the film when the belayer says at 14:20, "Falling is very common, it should be expected." No, it isn't. In 30 years of ice climbing I've caught exactly one lead fall (Guy Lacelle of all people), and never fallen on lead. Most of the people I climb with are the same; a few fell off once or maybe twice early in their careers before figuring out it was a really bad idea... Very occasionally things just go bad, but I can count those type of accidents on one hand. I know three people with fused ankles or worse from taking very short falls on ice. Falling is not common and should not be "expected." A major mental reset is called for.

2:00 Apparently the belay is a in place subject to falling ice. The belayer decides the solution to this problem is to have enough slack in the system to move to avoid the falling ice because, "If I get knocked out by a piece of ice what good am I as a belayer?" I'm not making that quote up. A better solution would be to have the belayer not in the line of fire at all. Full stop. I can only remember two belays ever (ironically, one with Mark Twight) where I could not protect the belayer from falling ice, and in retrospect I put the belay in a shit place both times (sorry Mr. Dornian). Do shorter pitches, whatever it takes, but having your belayer in any position where he could be hit by falling ice is flat-out stupid or ignorant. Even the video guy is standing under falling ice at 3:20; Dracula is a one-pitch route for god's sake, move out of the way! If the first rule of ice climbing is don't fall off then surely the second is, "Don't stand where you can get hit with falling ice." This is rock-climbing thinking, where it's abnormal to have falling ice. It is a given that a lot of ice will or can be falling down an ice climb, plan for it.

Lots of shots of the climber swinging tools, etc. This is going to sound harsh, but there needs to be some reality interjected into this film: The climber had absolutely no business being on lead on ice. His sticks were shit (3:17 is a good example of a lousy stick, you can see his tool wobble as he pulls up), his footwork is terrible, and I'm amazed he didn't fall off earlier. I don't say that to be insulting, but because I suspect less-direct commentary would be ineffective given the rest of what is said and done in the film.

Quote, "Yeah, I have great faith in the equipment now, and it gives me even more reason to put pro in." This is just wrong on so many levels, but first of all it misses the entire point that ice climbing isn't about the pro, it's about first not falling off. Have enough pro so when something really surprising happens you don't die (and he did have enough pro in for that), but thinking that, "Hey, the pro works, great, I can fall off more now!" is just wrong. The thinking should be, "Damn, I fell off, and only through incredible luck did I not completely fuck myself up for the rest of my life, I need to re-think my approach to ice climbing."

I want to know what the climbers around 8:50 to 9:20 or so are saying under the voice-over. From my read of it they are saying, "Dude, get better fucking sticks into the ice, like this. And here's how to clip into the pommel or lower hole on your tool to so you don't fall off and nearly die again." These are basic skills the climber should have known, and obviously didn't.

The climber should have stopped way, way before he fell. In rock climbing it's often OK to climb deep into a pump, even to the point of falling. In fact, that's often the point in rock climbing. It is NOT ok to climb super-pumped on ice, the consequences of a fall are simply too high. This guy could have been paralyzed for life, broken both ankles, or died. If you're getting super pumped on ice do what the other climbers suggest at 9:00: CLIP INTO YOUR TOOL and put a screw in. Train doing this on a TR so you're comfortable with it. I have seen a half-dozen screws over the years placed a little into the ice, and then a tool beside the screw, but no climber... Falling off while placing a screw is a common way to fall, but totally needless. So, stop before you get super pumped, put in a good screw, reset, maybe back off if you can't climb the pitch without getting super pumped. Or, climb it in five-foot sections putting in a screw and hanging; I have FAR more respect for someone who doe that than gets pumped and falls off. If you're super pumped stop, reset. No "free" pitch is worth getting injured for.

So what should we do to avoid this accident?

-Climb on toprope more. Many, many laps. Practice putting in screws, climbing with and without crampons, hooking, making placements, etc. I'd bet this climber had done less than 30 pitches total of ice in his life. At least 150 30M laps is the bare minimum to have any sort of understanding of ice.

-Practice clipping into a tool and putting screws in. This normally takes two quickdraws on the harness, or a sling to the belay loop. Lots of ways to do it, practice.

The big problems I see in ice climbing are seldom to do with fitness. Almost always they start with the climber's approach to the sport.

And finally, and this is an intense situation so it's small criticism but something to think about, if I fall off like that please don't lower me head-first back toward the ground. The climber's legs kip over his head at about 9:50. Again, it's an intense situation, but I'd suspect a possible spinal injury with that much force and speed... But a small criticism in the whole picture, and the climber is very lucky to have an ER doc on hand--if the situation were worse that could have made the difference between living and dying.

OK, that about sums it up, lots of other issues, but those are the main ones to me. I'd be happy to offer a free day of instruction with these climbers and their video guy to improve their technique and approach to ice climbing; I don't mean this to be harsh to the individual climbers at all, with any luck I will have caused some thinking among a much wider readership as these errors are way too common, these guys just made a video...

Fall. from Jeffrey Butler on Vimeo.

Gallery of Norwegian Ice Shots

2011-03-17T09:54:00.003-07:00

Last year Andreas Spak and I climbed some big rigs in Norway, along with Christian Pondella and his camera. A few nice shots up here along with some captioning action.

And I'm off to Quebec for a few days for a different kind of ice experience... I have my skates packed, seriously, and while it's the finals so I can't compete as I didn't qualify I am fully stoked to just try out the ride, hell yeah!

2011-03-16T13:02:00.004-07:00

The Review Issue

Way back in the day (mid-nineties) I was the primary equipment reviewer for Rock&Ice magazine. I loved that job for three reasons: First, I could get whatever gear I was interested in sent to me. Second, I would get all of that category of gear sent to me; hundreds of climbing holds for example, or a massive pile of roughly 50L packs. Third, I could basically write whatever I wanted to about the gear, and did. Today I get paid by a few different companies to test products and develop ideas for new gear. But, for some reason, products I have nothing to do with still occasionally show up on my doorstop. Normally I just ignore 'em (lightweight jumper cables? Why?), but a few are interesting enough that my latent review instincts kick in, and soon my fingers are slamming the keyboard in rage or love. Here are three products I received last fall and finally go some time to review.

Icetrekkers "Diamond Grip" slip on street shoe crampons compared to others.

Here in Canmore, in the literal sun-eating shadow of the Canadian Rockies, the sidewalks are icy for months at a time. As are the trails. Every senior citizen has a pair of "clickies," or some sort of studded footwear to prevent broken hips. Runners also use 'em on icy trails, and, I might as well admit it, I own a pair for when walking around in normal crampons would be overkill. I sometimes bring them out for long hikes on icy trails where walking in crampons would suck. The local canyon-walkers all run some version of these strap-on spiky rigs as well. If you don't want to wear full-on crampons but it's still an icy mess then something with real traction is very useful.

Icetrekkers makes three different types of slip-on crampons, ranging from basically a set of six short golf spikes (called "Spikes) to the full-on "chains." I didn't know it, but my mom has been running the Spikes for years, they are popular among the dog-walking set. My package had some "Diamond Grip" rigs in 'em, which, "Provide aggressive traction for all winter walking conditions." My wife and I went for a few hikes on the icy sidewalks and trails; she used her "Stabilicers" traction cleats, I used the Diamonds. Overall both did well enough and were a lot better than sliding around on the trail in standard rubber. But the Diamond Grips have a fatal flaw; the little "diamonds" can roll on their axles, and when they do it's off to the races. It takes just the right type of walking downhill or uphill to cause this problem, but that's when you don't want it. Other than that they do the job.

The Spikes (and other "spike" style slip-ons) are the best for straight ice, but lack enough height or "grab" for walking in softer snow; it's like being on snow tires with too few studs. But they are the top rigs around Canmore with the dog-walking set because they work.

Switch Magnetic Sunglasses

I at first thought this was a joke; magnetic sunglasses for people with metal plates in their heads or something? But it's the lenses and frames that contain magnets, which makes for quick and secure lens changes. Or so goes the hype. Actually, the lenses do change really quickly and easily compared to any other system I've ever used; you don't have to clean the lenses after changing them because you don't have to grab the lens itself, just the edges, click, in and good to go. Both the frames and the lenses seem to be high quality, but all the frames are just slightly dorky, too much engineer and not enough Italian in the plastic mix. On my nose the top frame "bar" is too low, which means I continually have to lift my nose up when riding or skate skiing to see around it. But I liked 'em enough to wear them occasionally. They aren't cheap, but each set comes with a set of good lenses, and there are lots of lens options. So far so good. My only complaint is that they are a bit heavy on my large but sharp nose; not crazy heavy, but like wearing a set of glass-lens sunglasses. Many of my glasses have had different lens packages included, but usually I just put one set of lenses in and ignored the other options 'cause they were too annoying to change. These I actually changed a bunch based on what I was doing and what time of day it was, kinda cool, but ultimately I just expect my lenses to pretty much work in whatever conditions I'm in, or I'm too lazy to change them.

Heatmax Toasti Toes

When I was about 10 my parents bought me a handwarmer. Just one, we were poor, but it was a sort of sunglass-case like box into which you put a little black stick, and then lit the stick on fire, resulting in a smoldering fire hazard that would last a long time. This was not a good gift for a ten-year old, I almost burned the house down. Since then I've played with various "hand warmers," toe warmers, etc. Heatmax sent me a collection of different products, none of which burnt the house down.

If you've ever used the standard little hand warmers that you throw into your gloves and hope they'll keep your hands warm then you'll recognize the Heatmax stuff, but Heatmax has shaped the packages into very thin insoles and added a nicer covering and some adhesive so the things stay put under your toes instead of just hanging out under your arch or some other annoying place. That alone is a pretty cool idea, as anyone who has used the non-adhesive varieties will attest. But there's a basic problem when putting air-activated heaters into a tight-fitting ski or mountaineering boot: The reactive stuff in there seemingly can't get enough air, and soon gets cold, or at least it seemed like that's what was happening to me. It also seems that when the reactant is compressed and isn't moved around it gets cold; you have to shake it up out in the open air and immediately there's a lot more warm coming out of it. This tends to mess up the nicely sealed little insoles, which leak black stuff... Even with that problem I still enjoyed the heat on my feet when changing back and forth from my performance winter boots to my standing around boots, but probably not enough to buy more of these things. Maybe people with very cold feet will put up with the hassles of taking them out and shaking them up etc. I gave a few to a friend of mine with "cold feet," she really liked the extra heat but found some of the same activation problems. They would probably work better in loose-fitting boots.

Right, this concludes the long-winded review issue. I have zero affiliation with any of these companies, just did this for entertainment. Yeah, I'm a gear geek.

Gloves: What to wear at -30

2011-03-15T23:32:00.003-07:00

Apparently I'm to blame for some recent frostbite. Here's the story, as relayed by a friend, about another friend who is a guide. The guide and client are climbing a popular route in K-Country, near Canmore. The guide hits the belay and brings the client up; client arrives at the belay wearing very thin fleece gloves. The temperature is -30.

Client: My hands are frozen!

Guide: Why are you wearing fleece gloves at -30?

Client: Because I ready Will Gadd's book, and he said that's what to wear.

Guide is speechless.

At -30 fleece gloves probably aren't going to be enough. In fact, both client and guide got various degrees of frozen fingers that day. The picture above isn't from the day of climbing, I just stole it off the net.

Moral of the story: Don't go ice climbing at -30? If you do wear something thicker than a pair of fleece gloves? Don't believe everything you read?

Twenty years ago used to climb in full mittens at -30; it was almost impossible to generate enough body heat to stay warm, at least dressed in standard climbing clothes of the day. Now we have better clothes and can stay warmer at lower temperatures (Happy Pants!), but it's hard to do technical stuff like climb at -30. I can ski OK (as long as the bindings don't break), ride a snow machine (did that at -40 in the arctic), but climbing is harder. Doable, but harder, especially if you don't spend a lot of time outside in the cold to get used to it. It's amazing how warm even -10 feels after the winter we've had; I can feel my body relaxing outdoors now that the temps are well above zero C, love it! I worked in a T-Shirt most of today, so nice. Anyhow, fleece gloves are likely not the preferred glove system at -30.

I sincerely hope the client's hands heal up quick, and I will add a "Below minus 20" section to my book for the next version in three or four years when I get around to updating it.

I'm just happy the ice on my driveway melted enough to chip it all out today, warmth!

Happy Spring to all.

PS--and here's the link to the Japanese Red Cross.

Japan

2011-03-14T13:12:00.005-07:00

A couple of years ago I had a great experience setting routes, climbing, soaking in hot springs and generally enjoying a great competition in Japan (Japan Cup). The trip was too short, but it left a hugely positive image of Japan and Japanese climbers in my head. I've been emailing and Facebooking with a few friends in Japan, my thoughts are really with them as the country reels.

I made a donation to the Red Cross in honour of my friends from the Japan Ice Cup, who showed me great hospitality and life. My best wishes to them, their families and friends in so difficult a time. I hope to see them in better times again!

Interesting reading

2011-03-08T09:37:00.005-08:00

I tend to geek out on gear pretty heavily, especially when there is some evidence to work with.

Reading and thinking on gear is, to me, important. I find fewer and fewer systems that work in all situations; understanding how things actually work and adjusting systems to the best of your ability is better than simply memorizing one tactic for all situations. But if you get it wrong and your improvised approach is wrong then of course yer gonna die... When I started climbing I wanted to know how strong the gear was, how much it could hold in a perfect crack, etc. etc. Now I'm more interested in the limitations of my gear; in what way does it fail? In what "unusual" situations will it simply not work (a cam won't generally work well in a crack that's even slightly icy, dry and aerated ice is bad for screws...)? The "worst-case" is more relevant than the "best case" for understanding potentially lethal situations. Put another way, understanding the limits of the gear defines the safe operating zone. A piece of gear may hold "4,000 pounds" on the store shelf, but not if the person using it places it wrong... Obvious maybe, but it's a mental approach that works for me.

A while back there was a big debate about equalizing anchors, and I wrote about that here and here.

The very short version of my take on equalizing anchor points is that, even in a perfect world with all forces as organized as possible, individual pieces don't end up very well equalized. One bomber piece and preferably two or more is critical. I just re-read an article on this from strikerescue.com,Multi_point pre_equalized anchors.pdf [396.21KB]

Lots of interesting reading on that page, including a PDF on "Dynamic Shock Load Evaluation of Ice Screws_Final.pdf "

My favorite quote from the ice screw article is this: "Short (“stubbie”) screws when placed in good ice provide a significant amount of protection that was quite unexpected and equivalent to that of rock gear when placed at ≥+10º but ≤+30º. By showing this, we have validated the concept of what angle ice screws should be placed in vertical waterfall ice as previously studied by Luebben and Harmston. While poor screw placement is always a possibility, poor ice screw placement is as weak as “rattly” rock gear. The analogy can be made that poor ice screw placement is similar to just throwing your rock climbing rack on top of the rock, clipping your rope to it and jumping off the cliff, only to hope that the gear somehow miraculously catches on something and holds your fall. Proper protection placement is crucial."

Happy reading.

A cold winter: Happy Pants and "Layering."

2011-03-03T20:18:00.004-08:00

February was a tough month to be an ice climber in Canmore, especially compared to 2010. In fact, the whole year has seemed colder and nastier than 2010 by a fair amount, especially February, when we normally expect things to warm up. In 2010 I remember walking into climbs and working out in the back yard wearing nothing on m upper body but a T-shirt regularly. That means the high temp for the day was often above freezing. Getting in and out of the Ghost wasn't too bad in general, but this year it's been routinely impassable without chains and multiple vehicles to yank the stuck one out. We rely on chinooks in Alberta to melt out the snow, and we haven't been getting them. The snowbank beside my driveway is head-high, which tells me it's been a really snowy, cold winter without any good chinooks. I've cancelled or just not even planned to go out on more days of ice climbing this year than I can ever remember; I'll climb down to about -20 or so, but below that it just stops being all that much fun. The highs have often been -20 this year; I shot a TV show in -35 to -25 temps, it was frigid silliness where the crux was just staying functional.

Now, usually when someone says, "It's a cold month!" the numbers show it to be pretty close to average. But I just spent an hour figuring out that it's been brutally cold this February, here's the story from Environment Canada's historical and climactic normal sites:

High Low Average

2010 +3.7 (!) -8.8 -2.55

2011 -5.2 -17.6 -11.38

Long-Term -0.4 -11.6 -6.0

So last February was really nice, and this year's was really cold. But the "funny" thing is that if you average 2011 and 2010 you get very close to the long-term average "normal."

Anyhow, if you, like me, have been doing some whining about the cold temperatures there is at least some empirical evidence to back that whining up. I suspect that if we did the same analysis for December and January they too would be cold; normally I don't pack my insulated "Happy Pants" with me automatically, but I have been this year regardless of what the forecast says. The Happy Pants are key items to climbing when the temperature goes below -15 or so. They really do just make life a lot happier. Put on a nice fat belay jacket and a pair of Happy Pants and it's like belaying in a sleeping bag, brilliant!

The cold weather has also made me re-evaluate my "layering" approach. I've been doing a lot more coaching, ice festivals and TV show work than usual, which means I'm standing around more. A month or so ago a friend of mine was visiting the house and warming up by my wood stove (love that wood stove!). I counted the layers she had worn for guiding that day; at least five. A lot of my guiding friends have been out in the cold weather guiding every day; it's what they do, and they work down to about -30. They also often don't have the luxury of moving fast. They can sprint a pitch to generate some heat, but the client moves at whatever speed the client moves at. A good guide around here moving at metabolic idle is still pretty damn fast compared to most visitors. So, five to seven layers to store every single bit of heat possible, and stay dry. Those layers don't come off until she's in a warm place for a long time.

I was also out at the beginning of the season with a friend of mine who works at Arc'teryx. I was mouthing off about "layers are idiotic" as usual, and he had a different viewpoint. He lives in a swamp (also known as the Vancouver/Squamish area), where the snow is wet and the rain of course more so. His view of layering was a base layer to wick the sweat off yer body, an insulation layer, and a protective layer. He routinely wore a jacket that I love (the Atom) for moving; I would die of heat stroke if I wore that jacket while moving for more than a few minutes. But he, like my guiding friend, tended to move in fits and starts, more like a downhill skier than a climber moving fast at a constant rate with relatively brief interruptions. He also expected his base layer to keep him dry; I don't, and regard sweat as a failure in dressing properly, or a good time to change shirts.

My whole view of "layering" is based on operating in two states: Movement, and not movement, and having those two states roughly balance each other. I normally wear a thin synthetic or (gasp!) even cotton shirt to the climb with nothing else or at most a soft shell over the top. Or maybe a light piece of insulation with no shell; we don't generally need "protection" here in the Rockies until we're actually climbing or skiing down. But you have to be moving fast enough to be really warm to dress like that. If you're moving fast with five layers on then you're going to waste water and energy cooling yourself. When I get to my climb or destination for the day I strip my shirt (there goes the cotton, leaves yer skin dry after you wipe it down, unlike a synthetic...), put on a nice fresh Ether base layer, then a thin piece of insulation, then some sort of shell usually. A belay jacket and happy pants top it all off for the "not moving" state. On/off, moving/not moving.

But when standing around at -25, well, you'll want a whole whack of layers, especially if you never get your engine firing on the approach or while climbing. Without that internal "burn" you'll have a hard time staying warm. But burn too hard in too much clothing and you'll be wet, and really, really cold when standing around.

All of this is causing me to learn a lesson I learn over and over again in life: There are systems and ideas that are absolutely right for some situations, but few systems are right or even good for all situations. We all get attached to our idea of what the perfect systems are, but they are the perfect systems for the world we operate in, not across all situations. V-thread or A-thread, cordellete or sliding X, clove hitches or knots, each has a "perfect" place. I will strive to be more open to different experiences from people who actually think and work in different places.

And it's been a damn cold winter. Today I was out skiing at -1, and it felt so luxurious, so truly tropical. I wore a light Ether shirt and a proto pull-over, no gloves, no hat, brilliant!!!! I really, really hope March is warmer than February for everyone. My Happy Pants are available for a low rental rate if not.

Helmet Fire

2011-02-21T09:35:00.003-08:00

A friend of mine calls any situation where the space between your ears stops working a "helmet fire." I love that expression; it's so descriptive of the times when we just stop thinking about the exterior world or "reality" and burn up in a mental paroxysm of self-fueled mental combustion. Every sport has it's "helmet fire" situations; pro athletes choke, skiers crash getting off the chairlift, novice climbers turn into jello and cling to the rock like terrified children, good leaders suddenly can't do a 5.8 move on a jug. Helmet fires, each and every one.

So how do you put out a helmet fire? The short path is to stick your head in a creek, but this is unfortunately hard to do in most situations. Here are a few suggestions:

-Look in the mirror after a helmet fire. Nobody wants to admit that they had a mental seizure, it takes real guts to admit that and then try to figure out what happened. Without self-analysis nothing will change. Change is uncomfortable; admitting a malfunction to yourself may mess with your perception of how good you are at something, and the mind is incredible at protecting the ego. Watch any kid throw a temper tantrum when they can't figure something out. Damn mirrors.

-Break down the components of the malfunction. What was really at stake? Death? Injury? Pride? Self-belief? Personal perception? Often there's not as much at stake as the person believes, or less on the outside and more on the inside. "I can't do X because..." Bullshit. If you're soloing really high then maybe you can use that excuse, but most of the time there's just not much there in terms of heavy consequences. And if there is then you shouldn't be there with a helmet fire, back it down.

-Search for the same helmet fire situation, and enter it willingly with full awareness (if it's not likely to be fatal). I used to be afraid of large holes while kayaking; my friend Jim G. decided he loved them. I'm still not a fan of getting pounded, but I try to stuff myself into as many nasty holes as I can like Jimmy does.. It has helped. Same with every sport I do; thin ice used to give me instant helmet fires, so I climbed a lot of it on TR. Now it just annoys me as it's slow but reasonably secure.

-Create operating room in your head. Hang on gear, pull into an eddy, glide into still air, do something to stop the mental load increasing, if only for a moment. This is a sort of "reset" button.

-Focus on the fact that right then, right there, you're "OK." Most of the time you are; I've watched fully grown men cower on scree slopes. I stop, sit down with them, and eventually they get bored of cowering and stand up to move. Often they have to sit down again, but each time they stand they get stronger mentally, and the helmet fire goes down. Small steps forward from a position of, "OK now."

-Enjoy your head. As I get older and see my friends age I can see the best athletes among us getting more comfortable with who they are and how their heads works, and often their performance gets better even as their bodies age. The head is always the most important thing in any meaningful environment, always. Might as well train it and enjoy it.

“There are no limits. There are plateaus, and you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you.”

-Bruce Lee

Aerobic Burn

2011-02-21T09:03:00.004-08:00

WG Note--I wrote this a while back, feel it again now, so it's going up:

The last week has been high-speed. Articles, coaching, home, life, kid, the backlog of travel-delayed work etc, there just wasn't a lot of time to get outside and huck a lung. The first few days of low activity were voluntary, I was just plain worn out after Helmcken and the Knucklebasher comp, and then life started conspiring against getting out for an aerobic burn. I tried once, but felt like my feet were lead... I'm old enough to know when I'm over-trained and just over-done; I needed to rest so I could focus and give energy to what was important, especially coaching and home life, but without an aerobic burn junk accumulates in my body and mind like creosote in a chimney when the fire isn't burning hot enough.

Yesterday I spent pretty much all day in Ikea with my kid; she loves it there, but I'm pretty sure that place is some sort of cynical Swedish mind-fuck program with researchers lurking in the ceiling to see what men will do when pushed too far in a frilly environment. Finally drove back to town, it was later than it should have been, and I was getting more ornery by the minute. As darkness loomed I threw my skis in the car, downed a little silver and blue can, and headed for the Canmore nordic centre.

iPod on, not something I normally do, but I wanted full zone-out. Old Sisters of Mercy, Kid Rock, Minor Threat, Rage, and rage I did. For 90 minutes I was unstoppable. When the playlist ended I realized my pulse rate was insanely high, but I'd held it that high for well over an hour without even thinking about. On some of the steep hills at the Nordic Centre my main goal is often to just keep moving; last night I stabbed the snow with the poles hard enough to hear the carbon flex, and as Henry Rollins sung, "Inhale power, exhale force," I exhaled plastic Ikea junk out of my pores and inhaled clean oxygen. Inhale another ten feet of hill, exhale frustration with people leaving carts in the middle of the goddamn aisle so they can look at Bjornphalluses. Inhale motion, exhale stagnation.

As twilight faded to black I skied with full abandon back down the turns to my car, on the edge of crashing but looking forward to the icy cold of the snow on my face if I did. It would have been prudent to slow down; I poled as hard as I could anytime that looked to be happening. A friend of mine talks about becoming an animal when he's outside. He's right.

I share this with you as a reminder that there is not much in life that can't be made better by going outside and breathing hard. Sometimes we all need a good chimney fire.

Helmcken Falls Wrap Up: WI3+ routes etc.

2011-02-14T08:33:00.003-08:00

On Saturday EJ and I returned from Helmcken Falls. Tim Emmett had to head out a day early due to slideshow obligations in the UK, but we all had at the climbing there for another few days. The stoke level is high!

Tim wrapped in from the lip of the falls to see if the "ice" on the headwall was climbable. This year it isn't, mostly snow, but I've seen photos from years where it is. EJ and I bolted sideways for another 30 feet on the headwall before the spray pattern changed, and we had to bail before turning into a long-term feature on the wall. Tim redpointed pitch 4 and said, "I spent $1000 and four days of my life to change my tickets for this trip. That pitch was totally worth it!," And, "This is how BASE jumping used to make me feel." EJ worked the first pitch and said, "This is the best climbing ever. Dude."

I can talk about how good the climbing is forever, but their comments sum it up for me. The ice climbing in the Helmcken Falls cave is just over the top brilliantly good. On the last day EJ and I opened two short "practice" routes on the spray, "Dora the Explorer" and "Sabre." One is a rampy 3+ sorta thing, the other a Haffner-sized WI4 fun ride that goes directly up to the same anchor. I only give grades to encourage those who don't climb M10 or harder to visit the cave; there is opportunity for everyone who can handle the high-risk environment. Both the "easy" routes would make any ice climber smile for the day.

I'm now firmly convinced that grades on ice in general and at the Helmcken cave specifically are irrelevant. If you want to climb WIxx it's there; but a few pillars might grow that would allow no-hands rests, and it would be WIx... Horizontal ice climbing is about like horizontal drytooling, but with more technical feet, movement, and of course it's ice so you either have to swing or use hooks in the ice like any other route. Placements rip, it takes all the skills of normal ice climbing and the power of hard drytooling. The biggest thing I learned on the last trip is that at the "difficulty" end of the ice climbing spectrum is a return to the novice days of ice climbing: it's about the experience, the place, the movement. I know our route is way, way harder than anything I've ever climbed on ice, but harder routes are of course possible, and next year Spray On could be littered with pillars that would make it easier, but no less fun. And a harder route that didn't follow cool features just wouldn't really be any cooler... Grades are useful for rock, but for ice climbing beyond about grade 4 they are somewhere between annoying and irrelevant. Take a look at the photo, climb it or don't. Like surfing, kayaking, skiing, or skateboarding, it's all about the moves, the scene, your friends, life, fun, stuff that grades just don't measure. So, I'm done rating any ice climb after grade 4 with numbers. Words, sure--thin, hard, steep, bad gear, good gear, you can do it, you should maybe do something less serious, but not numbers. Helmcken just blew the building up that contained all the ice grading ego BS; it's harder than all of us, ha ha!

On our route (Spray On) you climb the first pitch, pull the rope through, your belayer walks out across the floor of the cave, climb the second pitch's horizontal roof, your belayer walks out across the floor of the cave again, drop the rope, repeat. Each pitch ends in a place where you can get a solid no-hands rest; the 3d climbing and ice features require relatively short pitches for rope drag and safety. After four pitches the rope is 30+ horizontal meters out from where you started, but you're only 35 meters off the deck! It's madness. Some pitches could be linked. With three or four ropes, a whack of slings and some jiggery you could maybe do the whole thing in one massive pitch, but would it be more or less fun? Harder? Better just climb!

There are hundreds of routes to do down there. It was raining and plus 5 when we left so there's likely not ice much left for this year, but come next year we'll be there. Other people are going to visit the place too I hope, so I'd like to offer a short set of observations we've found useful:

-Don't leave quickdraws or any gear on the wall, or permanent fixed lines on the route or raps on the way in (leave 'em in there for your trip, just not when you leave). This stuff is invisible from the viewpoint or anywhere else, but a few people do walk in there in the summer. With added traffic low-visibility should be a focus. Downclimb pitches so there's nothing on the anchors, etc... This adds work, but is important I think. I would regard leaving gear in there for the summer as a serious failing on the part of any climber. What we're doing is the same as climbing anywhere in a park so no legal issues, just using the best visual style and lowest impact on other users. Although the main complaint so far has been that we're near-impossible to see from the rim where we're climbing, ha ha!

-The whole place is hazardous. You can get complacent about standing under many-ton icicles, but someone is going to get hurt or killed down there, and evacuation will be an adventure. I'm in full "alpine" mode down there; what's happening with the temperature, where is the spray forming new ice, can the cone break off (generally it breaks off to the OUTSIDE), and if so will the car-sized blocks get to us, etc. It takes a few days to start to understand the place at all. Even the five-minute walk to the back of cave (no lie--that's how long it takes to get there from the trees!) could be lethal if you slid down the ice and into a crevasse. This isn't Haffner, it's more like climbing big alpine faces in terms of environmental hazard.

-If the temperature in there goes much above freezing for even a few hours you need to walk out the long way or risk getting smushed. The ice doesn't have the same insulation characteristics as fat water ice and will fall off the roof sooner. Beware.

-Spray ice is weaker than full-water ice, and breaks in odd ways. It only takes a whack from a tool to rip a 40-foot dagger, and that dagger can start other daggers ripping. Rope management is critical; never have your rope running under a big ice feature, even one that seems solid. I've broken out desk-sized blocks I was sure were solid... Putting up new routes is a battle of epic, epic proportions due to not only the angle but also the ice cleaning etc. Some days in the horizontal roof we would only gain about 20 feet for a day's effort. It's worth it, just work.

-The Helmcken Falls Lodge runs a winter special for $120 that includes a room with two beds, two breakfasts, two good dinners, and lots of great hospitality. That's only $60/person for a warm, nice room only 15 minutes from the falls. The owners are good people too, and have really helped us out over the last two seasons, say hello and treat them well 'cause if you go there once you're going to be going back a fair amount I bet...

We're done for the season, but game on for next year. A metal detector will be required to find our old bolts (even some on the upper pitch were getting covered with a light frosting when we left). We'll put up some topos and tricks for finding the base of Spray On (Dora and Sabre should be easy to find every year, far side of the cave)

Back at it today

2011-02-09T19:41:00.001-08:00

Helmcken Rematch: Tim walked the 1.5 hours into the top, wrapped in to see if the white stuff was ice, it wasn't, back out with a monster pack, good effort Tim! EJ and I re-rigged the first five pitches, which have not gotten any easier but still have good ice to climb. Tomorrow we add to the route, likely another amazing pitch or two before the turns to frost. Do not want to drytool higher, plus there's the small matter of actually climbing all the pitches! Might start another line or two if we have time, this place is just awesome!

It's a hell of a lot of effort to just get back to our high point. Normally I'd take a rest day tomorrow, but game on! When the ice is good you gotta go at it.

Helmcken Falls Workout

2011-02-08T10:20:00.002-08:00

If you have a Plice that you can tilt the following workout is pretty darn fun. All laps start with the heads of your tools 48 inches off the ground or less, butt, one pullup with a lock at the top. This is roughly the same amount of effort required to climb the five pitches we've done so far at Helmcken. And we're heading back today to try and get higher...

Helmcken Falls Workout

Approach: 50 squats with a 1/4 bodyweight PACK, 50 push press w/ 1/4 bodyweight, deadlift 1/2 bodyweight 50 times. Now yer warm, loose and have a slight pump in your forearms.

Chop wood for five minutes, wheelbarrow and stack. (substitute row 500M if you don't have wood to chop. No rower, ground to rack clean the deadlift bar 20 times).

Pitch One:

-6x 30 degree Plice, full solid lockoffs every reach for first three laps.

-20 Knees to Elbows.

Chop Wood for five minutes.

Pitch Two:

-2x 45 Plice, two figure 4s per side per up lap.

-10 KE

Chop wood for five minutes

Pitch Three (continuous)

-1 x45 Plice all campus

-1x45 Plice all Figure Fours

-1x45 Plice.

-20 Front levers to best of ability, done straight through.

Chop wood Ten minutes

Pitch 4

6x30 plice, campus first lap.

20 KE

Chop wood ten minutes.

Pitch 5

4X30 Plice with a 20 Lb Pack.

20 negative Front Levers.

Hike Out:

Finish chopping wood for 15 minutes.

That'll be all.

Mental Tricks

2011-01-30T10:28:00.002-08:00

Ice climbing is far more mental than rock climbing, and I mean that both in the sense of, "It's mental mate!" and that ice climbing puts more of a load on the brain. This does not mean ice climbers are smarter than rock climbers obviously... Here are a few brief tricks I've found useful for leading ice.

Be a better climber on toprope than you'll ever have to be on lead.

If you can hike any piece of vertical water ice on the planet on a toprope then you're not going to be losing it too much leading a 70-degree pillar. Put another way, be better in training than you'll have to be in combat, 'cause I can guarantee you that you will NOT perform better under pressure than you will in training, at least in any sport that requires fine coordination like climbing. Running or other aerobic sports maybe, but if you haven't trained to an appropriate level then you won't perform well in competition. And your training had better look like a performance day; lifting in in the gym will not make you a better athlete unless you can use that strength...

Stop.

In rock climbing the solution to most pumpy, difficult situations is to simply try harder and keep moving. I watch rock climbers on ice do this all the time; most ice climbs just aren't all that steep, even the "grade 6!" hype. Stop. Put both tools in. Get some good feet. Shake out. Stem a bit. As the pump drains your mind will open up. Put in a screw. If you're really messed up clip a quickdraw into your belay loop and put the biner on the BOTTOM of the handle, either through the hole or over the pommel. Rest. Once you're mentally back in control start climbing again. It's actually the swinging that is the pumpiest thing about fresh steep ice climbing, if you just slow down and focus on finding either a natural rest or one on your tools then life will be far better.

Climb down two feet.

I've watched leaders turn into mental gerbils while wrestling with a tough bit of climbing when all they had to do was climb down two feet to a rest and look at the situation from a slightly different viewpoint.

Don't start until you can see it.

Look at the climb. Figure out where you'll start swinging, where you'll get a screw, how you'll pull the bulge, where you'll belay, what the tough bit is likely to be and how you'll deal with it, how many screws/slings you'll need, how you'll climb, etc. Then close your eyes and run the climb in your head. If you can see yourself doing it all then you will. If you can't figure it out. Have a couple of plans about how you're going to deal with the ice; "If that's bad I'm going right, but if it's good I'm going right over the top."

Climb Lots.

No matter what sport you do the person doing more of that sport will likely be better at it than the person who does less of it... Ice climbing is hard to do a lot of unless you live near the ice, but there's no other way to get comfortable than to climb a lot of it. A two-week trip will likely make you a far better ice climber than 10 days spread out over two seasons...

And some other stuff, but I gotta go now. Give 'er!

Spray Ice Quick Report

2011-01-26T14:09:00.009-08:00

This is going out from the Tim Hortons in Salmon Arm, BC, sorry for the junk show layout and bad grammar but the word was out, and I wanted to post Pondella's photos of Tim Emmett and me and some words. Yeah!

I am sure of little in life, but of this I am sure: The Helmcken Falls spray ice cave is absolutely the wildest, best, most insane ice climbing area I've ever seen. It is going to be a destination for some, but it's a journey, sort of like chasing waves off-shore or climbing in the Himalaya. It won't be for everyone, but it sure is good!

From January 16 to 25th this year, Tim Emmett and I worked hard on continuing our route from last year, Spray On. The couple who run the Helmcken Falls Lodge, Andrew and Lynn, were sending me photos of the 400-foot cave behind the waterfall starting in December; as soon as we saw a reasonable amount of white in the photos Tim and I cancelled all plans, blew off the O.R. trade show, work, and anything that was tying us down to head for the falls.

We found a vastly different scene than last year; more ice, a glacier the size of a couple of city blocks complete with crevasses we had to rope up for (and then fix lines across, a first for me), and a whole lotta spray ice! Somehow in my memory I had convinced myself that the first couple of hundred feet of climbing weren't too overhanging, but I was really wrong about that--the first 60 feet are only overhanging at about 30 to 45 degrees (the floor of the ice cave is about 30 feet higher than last year so the first pitch was shorter), but then the climbing goes horizontal in this weird 3D upside down icicle forest for a 150 plus feet. And it all went free, on ice, with only two drytool moves! It is just so good.

We broke the climbing up into five relatively short pitches due to the crazy upside down nature of the climbing, and also for safety--huge chunks of ice on the roof can rip, and you just don't want them landing on your rope or you, you'd be a human squeegee, not good. Almost all the protection is bolts; the ice will sort of hold a Spectre but it's just too soft for screws, and it's compact lava flow rock so not much if any opportunity for natural gear even if you could find a crack. I brought snow pickets to try them out, but the results were not encouraging.

In the end we made it through about 250 feet of climbing, and called it good when the temperatures warmed up dramatically and the warm temps started a several local icicle carpet bombing campaign. We ran.

We were able to find all of our bolts from last year; the spray ice tends to form in roughly the same places, and we had bolted where there was little ice. But, and I'm still laughing about this, I had bought a metal detector at Canadian Tire ("What are you mainly interested in? Finding old jewelry or something?" asked the sales guy. "Something like that," I answered, "Under ice."). The metal detector was an integral part of the rack, and will be for future ascents. The ice will be different every season, but it will share common features and lines; solving the problem of how to find bolts every year was a good step forward. And there are a lot of lines to do. A lot.

A lot of the trip was taken up with cleaning icicles and bolting on lead. This was torturous work; if someone asked me to do that sort of work for money I probably wouldn't do it. But for this amazing climbing? Yeah, we were up for it.

At the start of the mixed explosion 15 years ago Jeff Lowe and I did a route in Glenwood Canyon, Deep Throat, that was like a throat filled with icicle teeth.... At the time we dreamed of a massive cave filled with the teeth that went on for hundreds of feet. The dream is real. Tim and I made it out of the cave and onto the much easier headwall, and to the top of the best-looking ice. If it gets cold again and the ice reforms we're going back next week to push on with our route, but it's also fine as it is, and ends at a logical place. It might be possible to combine some of the pitches and that would be cool. We team-freed the route, with both of us doing pitches 1 and 2, Tim pitch 3, and I enjoying 4 and 5. Better style is possible; both of us going bottom to top would be better for starters, but it was a team effort and we're happy with that for now.

The grade? We keep getting emails asking that, and here's the only answer we're going to give: Take a look at the pictures. Read this and Tim's story. What do you think? Ice climbing is like waves to me, an aesthetic and beautiful experience more than a grade. The holds on a rock climb stay the same more or less, but an ice climb is always different. Take a look at the pictures, listen to the stories, enjoy the show, go climbing there, do both, do neither, but there's something for everyone in that cave, even if it's just looking at it from the viewpoint. Helmcken Falls is awesome.

The Reel Rock crew came along and took some video (nice work on dodging the icicles boys!), and my friend Christian Pondella shot these stills, thanks to them and Tim, yeah!!

WG, on the drive back to Canmore after a great week, and now amped on a Honey Cruller and a double double.

January 27th note: And here's a photo from Tim of the metal detector tech we used, it worked!

Helmcken Falls Spray Ice Continues

2011-01-22T14:51:00.004-08:00

The last two weeks have been higher speed than usual. Travel, prep, closed roads, full chaos, but Tim Emmett and I have now been at the Helmcken Falls Lodge for five days, and climbing every day. So far the climbing has consisted of super technical radically overhanging ice action to just get a line of gear out the cave. Yeah, CAVE!

We're bolting ground-up 'cause it's too steep to rap, and there would just be no way to find the line from above. It's just nuts, insert expletives here. And we haven't even climbed anything new, just worked and worked. Each time one of us comes down after a bolting session we're just done mentally and physically, battered and bruised and stomped upon by falling icicles

The icicles in Christian Pondella's photo above are anywhere from ten to 50 feet in length. The snow cone is at least 100 feet high. We had to rope up to cross the crevasses, that's how big it all is in there, the scale is just mind-bending. If it gets too warm we're done without climbing anything, but the temperatures are holding, we found last year's bolts under the ice, and it's all ON! We start really climbing tomorrow, but realistically have another two days of prep to get to the top of the ice. Yesterday we sent down tons and tons of icicles, and yet you can't even see where we've climbed unless you're looking at just the right angle.

Seldom have I ever been involved with a route that feels so far out there. Icicles, rock, angles, crevasses? But one thing is for sure: We're exactly where we want to be, have received far more than we dreamed of, and are totally stoked to be doing our best. You don't get too many times like that in life really, yeah! Upward.

New Year's Tips for Ice, ability gains.

2011-01-01T09:48:00.006-08:00

Ice Tips:

-Carry more "short" ice screws. The standard rack here in the Rockies used to be a batch of 21cm or longer screws. Now the vast majority of my screws are 13cm, with a few stubbies if needed and one 21cm screw for V or A threads (I don't think it matters much which one you use really). Clear the surface ice to get to good ice and a 13cm BD is as strong as a longer screw or close enough it doesn't matter. Longer screws tend to hit rock and are then ever the same again; it's far better to use a "too short" screw than one that's too long. If I could only have one screw size it would be the 13cm.

-Dig hard to get to good ice for screws. A few days ago I set up a belay in a spot where a lot of other people had done the same; in my opinion almost every screw at that belay station was junk, I broke an "onion" skin off that was 15 cm thick and riddled with holes. In my view many if not most ice climbers don't do enough clearing to get good screws, especially at belays. This is likely what led to a recent situation where three of the four ice screws in the system blew. Clear yer ice, get something undeniably solid or don't bother with the screw.

-Push on the ice with both your hand on your lower tool and by taking your hand off the tool and pushing on the ice to balance, just like rock. I do this a lot, it's intuitive now, but as I teach and coach I remember it's not obvious until it's learned. The long head of my triceps always gets sore from pushing when climbing ice, along with the lats... If you think about rock climbing you'll probably remember all the pushing you do to move up, not just the pulling. Ice is the same, if one hand is pulling the other is pushing on the lower tool or ice...

-Good rock climbers can learn to climb ice a lot faster than good ice climbers can learn to climb rock. I attribute this to the fact that rock climbers already have the fitness, and just require motion training, while most ice climbers are relatively weak. But, while a rock climber can learn to get up about any ice climb in a season or two, just getting up a climb does not mean doing it well. I have seen reasonably competent rock climbers move with glacial speed on what for a good ice climber is 5.5 terrain. I think the real artistry and style of ice climbing is not in just getting up a pitch, but doing so quickly and securely. It's like running--anyone can run a mile, but it's another thing to do it in under five minutes... I would rather see someone climbing well below their max but in total control than someone pushing it on ice, not worth it.

-I'm seeing more and more people top-roping and working on their skills in Haffner and other places. This is great!

-If you don't have a good placement don't pull up on it. The situation will not improve. Make good placements, which are pretty much always possible. I see so many climbers get shallow placement and then pull up on it anyhow, which leads them to place the second tool at the same level as the poor placement.

-Don't yell "ICE!" unless things are getting really western and someone is clearly in danger. This isn't sport climbing, ice is going to fall off all the time, and the shout of "ice" loses its effectiveness rapidly if everyone is yelling ice for every little bit of falling water.

-Finally, watch out for free hangers. I wrote a little about this here.

Performance Gains:

I've been out whacking icicles, dirt and rocks a lot the last few weeks, finally seeing some decent performance gains. My real fitness level likely hasn't changed more than a few percent in the last couple of weeks after the training base I laid down (I managed to train on the broken finger, but that delayed its healing some) over the last few months, but I'm climbing a ton better. Why?

Because most of the initial rapid gains that occur in the gym or in the real world aren't due to strength development but to better movement patterns, better muscle recruitment and more confidence. If you're an athlete who has taken a break for whatever reason and come back to the sport, even years later, you can get back to your top ability relatively quickly if you haven't gained 50 pounds and/or turned into a complete slob. This is more true for technique sports (climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, skiing, anything fun) than more pure endurance sports (road biking and road running, anything involving Lycra and toxic levels of repetitive suffering), but for all these sports the road back to performing well is a lot faster than pure physiological improvement would indicate.

Even on a "pure strength" movement like the bench press the athlete who has bench pressed at least his or her own bodyweight will get back to that level a lot quicker from the same relative fitness level than the novice who has never benched. Old-time coaches used to call this "muscle memory," and while muscles don't remember anything it's still a decent term compared to the fancy sounding "neurological recruitment." So my gains are less due to an improving fitness level than to having done a lot of work in the past, and now reactivating that mothballed programming.

This relates to New Year's in the following manner: If you were once any good at something and make a resolution to get better at it again then you can, and faster than you thought possible. Those years of training and conditioning are still in there; gains will be speedy! Of course you'll plateau eventually, but the barrier to getting truly good again at something you once loved is lower than many think. The pain level, on the other hand, is just as high as ever.

And Happy New Year!

New Year

2011-01-01T09:48:00.001-08:00

Ice, Range of Motion, Intervals

2010-12-27T07:57:00.005-08:00

Photo to left is of a cool "Plice" (is it a plice if it has ice?) from my bud Tom Comet. And someone needs to tell me how to put photos where I want 'em...

The Christmas tree is already showing signs of pine needle exfoliation, the sun doesn't come up until 8:30, there are beer bottles in the streets every morning and my liquor cabinet is stripped almost bare. It must be the week between Christmas and New Year, which is often a great week for ice here in the Canadian Rockies if it isn't -30. Temps are actually great, lots of friends rattling around, Happy Ice Season to everyone!

Some things to think about relating to training:

Range of Motion: You get what you train.

A few weeks ago I was in Bozeman, Montana and hit a local gym because I had no ice tools, no clothes beyond what I was wearing (thanks United!), and it was too late to scrounge. I note why I was in a gym because going to the gym in Bozeman is silly in the middle of ice season, go climbing already! But in the gym was a guy doing "pullups" by jumping up onto the bar and flexing his shoulders back and forth for ten "reps" at a go. I counted. I couldn't help myself, I asked him if he wanted to do some pullups, next thing he knew I had his feet and he was busting out legit pullups with a bit of a push from his feet. I'm a complete freak for grabbing his feet, but damn, a pullup starts with the arms straight and finishes with your clavicle nearly hitting the bar, elbows behind your front ribs. And full range of motion is not just getting your chin above the bar or bouncing your chest off the bar like a spastic, it's getting your Adam's apple (or equivalent) above the horizontal plane of the bar and at least breaking the vertical plane of the bar with your entire chin, not the dimple on the front of it. If you're a climber I think it's important to lock that top position for a brief moment, especially if you're an ice climber.

One of the best things I've learned through Crossfit is how to scale pretty much any exercise to get full or as close to full range of motion as possible. Doing one full "ROM" rep of any exercise is far, far superior to ten "fakie" reps. A good strong set of full ROM reps done with assistance are 1,000 times more useful than one "fakie" rep done without help. Use bands, use a friend, use the fancy anti-gravity machine, but for God's sake do a real full ROM pullup! Being mentally lazy in the gym will lead to mental laziness in life. STFU and do the full ROM or you'll get no respect from me or yourself, and you know it.

A quick note on "kipping" pullups: Crossfit popularized these, and they kick ass in general. I've seen many people who couldn't do one pullup learn how to do tons of 'em using this technique. But many kipping pullupers fall far short of full ROM, and the full kipping motion may be less useful to climbers if there isn't a brief pause or at least control over the bar. I did a lot of kipping pullups last year and found my lockoff strength collapsed compared to doing "normal" pullups. I now use momentum as I fully buy that theory, but try to get and maintain control over the bar, and keep active, engaged shoulders at the bottom of the pullup. Edit--the main site WODs have had a fair amount of weighted and "chest to bar" pullups in the last while, I think that would address the weak lock off issue that can come with kipping pullups. I just noted that today's workout has L-sit pullups, you can't kip those, that's a nasty workout!

Workouts:

We tilted the plice back to between 30 and 45 degrees overhanging. This is stellar training for both mixed climbing, and radically overhanging ice climbing, which is the current obsession that I'm training for. I can handle day on, day off on the plice, it's more than enough! Here are a few "fun" workouts we've been playing with, useful for working in groups or just keeping the motivation high:

Do a plice lap every minute for as many minutes as you can keep it up. Mentally as well as physically painful. If your plice is vertical either tilt it back a bit or add a pack with 1/4 your bodyweight in it, that'll make it hard enough that a lap every minute will be an adventure.

If you're working out with more people add more exercises. We've been doing a plice lap, then ring dips, then air squats, then back into the plice. Or thrusters, or deadlifts, whatever. Resting is useful for pure power training, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that resting is a waste of time in general when training for sport... Lots in that idea, but rest for power, go the rest of the time. Except when doing the long slow distance sessions. One of the reasons I think specificity counts in training is that "training" is a massively broad idea. Like writing, or engineering, you need to know what you're trying to do, but somehow people think one form of "training" is going to do it for them. "I do TRX." "I do Crossfit." "I do XXXX" Cool, but the definition of what you do is not in the training but in the action, not in the gym but in the real world.

Tabata Training on ice tools:

Get one of those Tabata apps for your phone (one with sound so you don't have to look at it), hang your ice tool over a tree branch, whatever, hang one-handed for 20 seconds, rest ten, repeat on the same hand eight times. This is so much fun... If you can't hang on one hand use two. I ripped this idea off Crossfit too, tons of fun protocols on there for your own training. I don't follow the mainsite WODs at all this time of year, but my training is heavily influenced by the ideas there, plus info from many other sources. Use what works, leave the dogma in the sweat pool.

Right, time to go climbing!

Bits and pieces

2010-12-15T12:13:00.006-08:00

Bits and pieces

An interview I did with Gregor over at Some Good Adventure, ranting and raving. Which I seem to be specializing in lately after doing a half-dozen shows from Tofino to London, England in the last four weeks--I'm finally back home and de-spinning from the travel, no place like home! Unlimited good coffee, good food, as much as I love traveling, meeting new people and generally going for it on tour it's always a pleasure to get back home to the Canadian Rockies and my family.

And this is funny, not exactly correct but never absolute correctness get in the way of good writing! Overall I'd agree with the ideas.

Ice Tips for the week:

I taught a few clinics while down at the Bozeman Ice Festival. The Bozeman Festival is one of the longer running, well-attended and all-around fun ice festivals going. Joe Joesephson ran it, did a great job, I'll definitely head back there! But, as always, I learned a few things about teaching ice climbing by teaching it.

Swing your tools, swing your feet. I've always taught a kick done with your toes high so the frontpoints contact the ice, not the toe of your boot. We all learn to kick a ball with our toes low, and as that's the only point of reference that's how people tend to kick on ice. But you swing a tool, and in reality a kick should be done with momentum and is more of a "swing." Bring your foot back, bending at the knee and not at the hip, and swing it toward the ice with your toes high. Swing HARD, most people peck with both their tools and their feet. Ideally there is a ledge to put your foot on, but if there isn't then you need to basically make one for your points. That's not possible without some meaningful violence. Do not be shy.

Unweight the foot you want to move first. I see a lot of people "hopping" their feet on ice. In rock climbing this can sometimes work OK even if it's awkward, but it just won't work on ice as have to kick your crampon points or at least place them extremely precisely in order to get good security. So, move your hips over to unweight the foot, then move it, repeat. Same motion of feet over to the side and then up with the upper arm straight, not a big step up.

Pretty much all steepish climbing is basically versions of the same move: Have a hold in your hand or hands, position your feet to push/pull, and push/pull up with your feet using as little arm strength as required. If you watch someone good drytooling, rock climbing or ice climbing that's what they do... Check this out, and watch from 2:22 to 2:32. He might as well have been ice climbing: hold, feet up, push, grab, straight arm, repeat... Rock climbing has more limited holds and is a lot steep than ice climbing so the movements are different, but I think anyone can see the common ground in the movement pattern. Sharma is one strong mofo, but check out how much time he spends on a straight arm as he sets his feet. The holds in rock climbing don't always allow this obviously, but the trend is clear, cool to watch! The more I climb the more I realize it's all the same stuff under the hood.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Homage to the masters of the pose. In my show I talked about climbing being what I love, and the posing being the work. Blue Steel!

Short clip on squat, stand, swing

2010-12-08T14:26:00.003-08:00

I recently wrote an article for Climbing about what I feel is the basic sequence for steep ice climbing: Squat, stand, swing. I'm on a roll today with the video, I just pulled a clip from the Ice Mines video that illustrates this pretty well. When this clip was shot I wasn't even thinking about how I was climbing, it's just how I climb. Kinda cool to see it. Anyhow, here it is:

Grip, swing

2010-12-08T13:53:00.006-08:00

A few people emailed to say that my text explanation for how to grip and swing an ice tool wasn't super clear. Here's a fast video shot in my back yard about 30 minutes ago that might help explain the two different grips used to swing and then hang onto an ice tool.

A few additional notes on hanging on and swinging:

-My hand rotates from the "Swing" to the "Grip" position every single time I get a placement and then hang off the tool. Easier than it sounds.

-The tool rotates around my pinky finger pretty much, the middle and index fingers are relaxed.

-The same rules as ever still apply for an overall good swing--elbow at or above the shoulder,fingers, wrist, lower arm, humerus all aligned, look before you swing.

-I underestimated the amount of rotation around the ice tool that my fingers go through. It's not 20 degrees, it's closer to 45 degrees from the "grip" to the "swing" position and then back. I got that wrong in the video.

I shot this right after a training session involving the "splice," or steep plice plus ring dips and deadlifts, and I'm a bit hammered. Thanks to Keith for the help.

Edit a little later--and the reason for the leash on my left hand is that my left middle finger is broken, a leash makes it easier for me to hang on during the training sessions.

How to hold an ice tool, "small stuff."

2010-12-05T08:45:00.007-08:00

I've done a whack of ice climbing and coaching the same in the last two weeks, and it's made me think of a few "small things" that make a huge difference for climbing ice. Most of this stuff is in my book or other writing somewhere, but I have to relearn it myself every season.

The basic technique of steep ice climbing is pretty well diagrammed now (Put in a high tool, straight arm, walk feet over and then up keeping arm straight, stand, not pull, up, place high tool, repeat to top) but there are endless refinements. So here's a list of "small stuff" for ice climbing that makes a big difference.

-Look where you're going to swing next and swing there. Probably 90 percent of the people I see ice climbing don't do this. Same with your feet, LOOK before kicking.

-Most people don't swing leashless tools very well, mainly because they wrap their hands too far around the shafts of the tools and the human wrist just won't swing well in that position. This "wrapped" position feels solid and is how you hang onto leashless tools, but it sucks for swinging. If you're climbing leashless, and most people are, rotate your hand around the grip about 15 degrees to the outside or the side or away from your chest while swinging, and rotate it back again to "grip" while hanging on the tool. If you hold your hand in karate-chop or thumbs up thin hand crack position and keep all the fingers straight then move your thumb so it's making a sort of half-oval at the same horizontal level as your index finger your ice tool will fit exactly into that groove. The knuckle on your thumb will naturally be in the middle of your ice tool's shaft. Now close your pinkie and ring finger around the ice tool. The groove between your thumb and index finger guides the swing, the index and ring finger hang on... That's the "swing" position. After planting the tool (and I plant mine, not peck), close all your fingers and rotate your hand slightly so it's easy to hold the tool. That's the grip position. This system works whether you're on Cobras or any other tool I've seen out there. I'm sick of seeing bumbling swings with leashless tools even by otherwise decent ice climbers, no reason for it, we can do better.

-Fluffy pants. Like belaying in a sleeping bag, absolutely dreamy when it's cold out. Love 'em. I have these.

-I just figured out how to describe the last tip in this list, and I'm really stoked about my geeky discovery. Here it is: If your right rear deltoid is feels tight or feels "strung" while climbing I'll bet a dollar that your crampons (edit, ADD strikes) off to the left side of your tool. That "barn door" feeling usually happens when both feet are too far to the inside of the tool, and one foot is lower than the other. So, if you feel "tight" and slightly out of balance while your rear delt (and probably also most of your rotator cuff...) is freaking out move your feet under the tool. Cool, I've been trying to describe this for years but just figured it out. For some the "rear delt" visualization works well.

I could write pages on this stuff (and have!), I just love thinking about ice and working with people on how to climb better--it's an endless challenge to find the right way to explain something to somebody, whether they will be leading grade six this year or have just started ice climbing. And ice climbing changes as our gear and understanding evolves, cool.

In about a week I'm going to do a couple of "Review" and "Gear" issues of this blog. For some reason people I don't even know have been sending me stuff, ranging from foot warmers to little crampons for your street shoes. I have sponsors obviously, and any "review" of their gear would be compromised by that relationship in the justifiably scornful eye of the public, but I'm going to go through what I'm using for this season and why, hopefully that isn't too materialistic. I put links to my sponsors on this page, but there are no ads from them or anyone on here, I try to keep it as honest as I can on these pages.

Looking forward to a show tomorrow night in Seattle at the Mountaineers, and then off to Bozeman for the Arcteryx ice festival there, I imagine I'll see a bunch of you out there!

PS--If you are a telemarker reading this blog, welcome! I sure stirred some people up with the last couple of posts on skiing, it's all good fun, let's SKI!!! The funny thing to me is that I still likely ski better with my heels loose; I only got back into AT skiing a few years ago, and do most of it on my ice boots. 25 years of telewhacking doesn't just disappear overnight.

Still skiing.

2010-12-01T08:18:00.009-08:00

This photo is from a ski tour I did with my dad in about 1977 in the Canadian Rockies (maybe Dolomite Pass?). I'm ten years old. The gear I'm on is far less supportive than modern BC NNN gear, the skis have minimal sidecut, and yet the fun level is for sure at least as high as it ever has been, was, or will be. Yesterday I was out with my daughter; I was on high-end XC classic gear, she was on plastic waxless rigs. We both had fun. Skiing rocks, it's not fundamentally about the gear but getting outside and skiing. I want to be clear on that, it seems some people are missing the point that gear is a means to an end, not an end.

That said, function and style are related. Personally, I like using functional gear, meaning gear that fits the use, no matter what the sport. If my goal is to do tricks in a kayak I'll paddle my play boat. Creeks, you want a fat creek boat. Paddling a play run in a creek boat is relatively boring. Skiing flats on AT gear with skins on sucks compared to the same terrain on well-waxed race XC gear. I can not find one place where telemark gear is, for me, more fun, more functional or better fits the "spirit" of what I want to do, at least today. That could change; I did a lot of tele skiing in resorts for a while because it was more fun than alpine skiing there for me and a real challenge, but I burned out on that eventually. That was still a good period in my ski life, no regrets, but not where I'm at now. Function and style are not all exterior, a lot of what forms the definition of "fun and functional" is in the skier's head. Some people want to run sick creeks in low-volume play boats. Cool, I'll watch. I'll skate up skis resorts in the early morning and fly on the velvet on the way down, that's fun too...

Just to clear up where I'm coming from, if I could only have one set of skis/boots I'd run a set of NNN backcountry gear with metal edges. I can ski just about any resort run in North America on that setup (not rip it, but get down OK), ski set tracks, ski the back country, do just about anything. That's the most versatile gear for a solid all-around skier who wants to ski anywhere. Not the best for skiing into ice climbs obviously (have to change boots), but it would work. The learning curve for this gear is brutal compared to AT gear, the best prep is XC race skiing. A lot of people are more into the yo-yo style skiing, or hucking their meat, great! I've got skis for that too, let's play!

Some of the comments on the Teletalk site (ten pages and going strong) seem really defensive to me, like how the insecure and religious act when their God is questioned. Those secure in their faith are fun to talk with; those who scream, "Blasphemy" get old fast. Telemark skiing doesn't need "defending" if it's working for you and you're secure in your belief that dropping a knee gets you closer to god. I just think telemark skiing has gone off in a weird direction, and so far it's not coming back.

I did some telemark racing back in the day, but gave it up when an alpine-racing friend of mine (Jim Grossman, surely one of the more talented skiers I've ever seen) tried on some tele skis and proceeded to shred the course on his first run. He did a "pretend" tele turn, but really just rode the outside ski hard and relied on his years of alpine racing experience. His comment was, "Why not just parallel?" If you have to pose to compete then it's getting closer to figure skating, and that's weak sauce. On hard, consistent snow with big gear tele turns make little sense other than to pose. Trim yer goatee.

But the telemark turn is just as functional, useful and all-around fun to do as ever even if the gear named after it now has little real relation to the turn itself. I use the tele turn more on my lightweight "nordic" gear than I ever did in the last years of my "tele" career; on heavy tele gear I generally just do some version of the parallel turn . The telemark turn is great for dealing with softer conditions on lighter gear. In consistent conditions the parallel turn rules no matter what gear you're on. Telemark skiing to me now means doing tele turns on light BC NNN gear during a big tour; works great.

I was cleaning out my garage yesterday evening (I've got a serious Cultfitter infestation going on, had to make some more room!) and found an old pair of Voile Mountain Surf skis, with cable bindings on 'em. They are my wife's, and she won't get rid of them because, "Old skis are like horses, you can't just shoot 'em!" My old "tele" skis are gone, but I can see her point, even as the dust gathers on the old boards.

And, never forget, I'm a damned ice climber, not a skier, ha ha! The super-steep plice is destroying us!

The Evolution of Skiing: Tele is a zombie.

2010-11-29T09:23:00.005-08:00

I just realized that I've been skiing now for 40 years, a hell of a long time. I sorta even remember my first few sliding steps as a kid, it was fun, and even after 40 years I still just love going skiing. I've had some side trips into snowboarding (best sliding tool ever for crusty or weird conditions!), but overall it's always been about skiing of some kind for me. I started out in little leather boots with cable bindings, then mountain touring on three-pin bindings, then a few years of resort skiing on alpine gear, then some XC racing, bunch of telemark skiing (a couple of pretty serious decades in there), then AT gear with ice climbing boots to get to ice routes in Canada. Skiing is a tool, recreation and just fun. But I'm done with modern "tele" skiing.

About six or seven years ago I did a long ski into an ice route in the Adirondacks with my friend Will Mayo. He was on AT gear, I was using some decent tele gear that I'd borrowed. Mayo is a good athlete who truly knows how to ski (he raced XC at one point also), but I got incredibly pissed off that I was having a hard time keeping up with him on my tele gear. We were on wax as it was cold, not skins, and I just couldn't get a good kick because the damn "bill" on the tele gear prevented the boot from flexing properly. Will, on his AT gear with ice boots, could get a great kick and use far better technique as he could also ride the ski with his leg vertical over it instead of having his lower leg canted forward in the stance most tele boots induce . I about hucked a lung chasing him, and cursed the tele gear for what it had become: a great thing for riding chairlifts and skiing down, but useless for actually traveling in the mountains. This struck me as somewhat ridiculous; how did equipment that had, in my childhood, been a great way to travel in winter become so useless for anything but going down?

Then I had a day where I skied out from an ice climb in my ice boots. There was a nasty breakable crust, some heavy whipped snow, and other junk. With my heels locked down I could get through it reasonably well; it would have been a pain in the ass with any but the heaviest tele gear. The light went on, and I sold all my tele gear that year.

Modern light AT gear is now more efficient, lighter, and allows more confident and functional skiing in any situation I can think of when compared to tele gear. If a day involves more up and down than flat terrain I'll use my Scarpa F1 boots, light Dynafit bindings and Black Diamond Guru skis. Somebody is going to argue that modern tele gear is better, but the bindings and boots are still heavier for an equivalent amount of function. The BD O3 and other bindings at least have hinges to allow for a more efficient stride on the flat, but locking your heel down just results in more skiing control and function for less weight than any tele combination going. End of story, tele is dead unless you have a goatee and ride a "Fixed" gear bike (which, by the way, always reminds me of neutering a dog--what's up with that name?). Tele is now about style, not function. Snowboarding is a pain in the ass in the backcountry but at least has some useful function in junk snow, tele skis don't even have that benefit.

So what to use?

I've done a few of these "ski mountaineering" races, and they are a lot of fun. These races are mainly up and down, so light AT gear makes sense. Some AT courses could probably be won by a good Nordic racer on nordic gear, but there are gear limitations in the rules, and most of the courses have serious enough terrain that AT gear is for sure faster. If your object is to "yo yo" up and down then I'd say light AT gear is the way to go. If you want to huck your meat in the back country then heavier AT gear rules. Some people are into the "it's all about the down" idea, but I'm still enough of a geek to enjoy trying to ski on light AT gear.

At some point skiing becomes more about skill than supportive equipment. Little kids can't stand on their skates well until they learn to balance, and I see many skiers who can't ride a flat ski without a lot of support. Many of the best heli-ski guides I know don't even buckle their AT boots; they just ride the board well, and ski smoothly. That seems logical to me. I am not a great technical skier by any stretch, but years of XC skiing and skiing around in the mountains on ice boots have given me some decent survival skiing skills. I still remember a Swiss guy named Michele absolutely shredding steep gullies on ancient, narrow Fischer XC skis and some 3-pin bindings 30 years ago. I don't know many people who could ski terrain like that half as well today. At some point skill at actually skiing trumps the gear. My friend Pat Morrow is a die-hard tele monster, and although not a young pup anymore he can hang with pretty much anyone in any steepish terrain. The point is that anything will work, but what's the most functional for the weight?

The logical setup for big glacier tours without really difficult terrain is, in my opinion as always, the NNN gear. Every couple of years a few friends and I go down the full Wapta traverse in a day. We've tried several different setups, but the NNN gear is by far the best for this type of skiing. People often ask me, "But don't you need big boots and AT gear in the mountains?" I first skied the Wapta when I was 12 on light leather boots with little cable bindings that allowed for a decent kick; the whole setup probably provided far less support than modern NNN gear. Heavy AT gear is overkill in almost any situation I can think of except lift-served or heli skiing terrain.

What made me think of all of this is that I just got home from London, where the trees still had leaves, and found a foot of snow on the ground here in Canmore. It's time to SKI, and I'm still as stoked about that ideas as ever. Skiing is fun. Even if you're a bark-eating, meadow skipping face-planting tele skier. See you out there, let's get the turns ON! And it's ice season too, options again!

PS--Roger Strong is an exception to all of this.

More Plice

2010-11-15T14:53:00.004-08:00

I'm really psyched to keep receiving photos of the Plywood Ice "Plice" that people are building around the world, really cool! I recently wrote an article for Climbing (out soon I think) about training for steep ice climbing; the gist of it the article is that climbing a lot of ice would be the best training, followed by some sort of wall (plice), followed by replicating the movements (which we can all do on the playground or with any brick wall out there) followed by weight room training. Periodization (focusing on when to peak, rest, refresh, build and so on), like any sport, is important to prevent burnout and injury, but most performance gains for ice climbing come from skill and muscle recruitment, not pure strength.

Anyhow, here are two more pictures, psyched for everyone getting it on! The season has started here in Alberta; I haven't been out 'cause I broke my finger, but I have been training on my own plice with a wrist loop, all good!

Photo Credits: Hagen and Taylor

Plice, Core, Travel

2010-10-30T21:34:00.006-07:00

First off, specific training rules for performance results as measured by time expended and real-world results. I received the photos of a Pennsylvania "plice" (plywood ice, like the one in my back yard) today, so cool! Nice one JW! Total cost: $82. No excuse not to have one.

Next, I don't think I did a very good job of differentiating between "core" strength, body tension and "abs" in my last post. So I'll try again to clear it up in my own head.

People wouldn't have to work their "core" if they just did exercises that build a strong core instead of isolating muscles with exercises that exclude the "core." Basically, almost every exercise done sitting down (even on a ball, maybe especially while balancing on a ball) is getting rid of the body's natural "core" function, and will therefore result in a weak "core."

Do squats, deadlifts, front levers, your core will be plenty strong. Do hamstring curls, exercise ball ab curls, exercise ball flys, etc and get a weak core and strong extremities, which leads to problems that may require "core sessions" to fix.

Put another way, if someone does leg presses, hamstring curls and leg extensions they are doing exercises without using the "core" and will have to work on that on a ball. Isolation breeds imbalanced weirdness in a body. Do squats, deadlifts, knees to elbows and your "core" will get strong at the same rate as the extremities. If your "core" is weak while doing any basic movement it will be the limiting factor in the exercise, and will get stronger. Cool.

Body tension is the ability to put your feet on the wall from a hanging position in a roof or steep terrain, and then to keep 'em there. Front levers and deadlifts are good for this. Even better is to climb steep terrain.

"Ab strength" is only part of the puzzle in body tension or "core" strength. Body tension must be trained as a whole; training abs to do crunches is worthless without also training the shoulders to hold the load. Doing L-sits is better than doing crunches because it also engages the leg flexors, but again misses the shoulder/lat component, and then again the hamstring lower back engagement (although it has more of that than twitching around on a ball with one side of the body supported).

I used to think isolating muscle groups was good. It is, for a body builder. For an athlete it's all about training muscles t0 work together to produce useful power.

I'm happier with those definitions and ideas.

Otter, Westjet

I flew to and back from an athlete meeting in Tofino on Westjet, with a leg on Harbor Air. It was pretty pleasant overall, especially the Harbor Air leg on a old Otter on floats. I was in the seat right behind the cockpit, and got to watch all the dials. Because I'm close to my private pilot license I was able to understand a lot of what was going on; flaps, fuel, prop, etc., all pretty much the same. I kept searching for the RPM dial, which is really important on a piston plane, and finally figured out the Otter was a turbine... No huge RPM dial, ha ha!

The Westjet legs were good. I've got no status on Westjet, but as usual there were flight issues etc., what would have cost me $lots on Air Canada only cost me $50 on Westjet. Thanks for that.

Exercise balls are stupid, "Core Strength"

2010-10-21T10:15:00.005-07:00

My ideal training environment has the following in it:

Some sort of ice climbing simulator thing (Plice).

A place to run around outside.

Rings, both Rock Rings and gymnastic rings, place to hang 'em.

Some weight and a bar. A stylie set of Olympic bumper plate weights would be nice, but I've got a bunch of weights we got at garage sales for pennies. They work fine.

Anything after this is gravy. Really. Exercise balls, machines, etc. etc. are somewhere between comfortable accessories and shiny garbage. It's nice to have a squat rack and stands and so on, but it's not necessary. I go work out with my friends down at Athletic Evolution when I want the comfortable gear or a controlled environment (or for fun, good people), but you don't really need anything more than a jungle gym at a kid's playground and a rock. Or a tire.... There are a ton of wicked workouts here that don't require any gear at all.

I figure that about 90 percent of the machinery in the average health club is wasted space. Movements should be done as you do them in real life. A squat is not composed of a quad extension and a hamstring machine, it's a movement that involves just about every single muscle in your body working together. I generally reject Crossfit T-shirt slogans (you shouldn't wear T shirts with bad-ass statements on them unless you're a bad ass) in general, but "machines are the enemy" is a good one.

Anyhow, I had a long discussion with a guy on a flight the other day about all the junk in gyms (he was convinced a lat machine was better than a pullup), and it bothered me so you get to read about it. The most ubiqitous POS in the gyms I visit while traveling (and I do visit 'em even if I can barely see the micro free weight area over the sea of machines) is the exercise ball. Exercise balls should only be used for rolling target practice at 200 yards. Want to involve some more muscles in a situp? Do a front lever or a knees to elbows or a windshield wiper or whatever. If you can't do that then sit on the floor and try to balance on your own butt while picking your feet up. Anything can be scaled. Rolling around on a ball is only extremely useful for sports that require rolling around on a ball. Are you working out to get stronger in a useful way or working out to get better at rolling around on a ball?

But rolling around on a ball is better than rolling around on a couch for sure, so right on if you find it fun to get your ball on...

Now on to "core strength" as it relates to climbing and balls. I often get into discussions with people who think their "core" is weak for climbing. They usually can't get or keep their feet on an overhanging wall. Most "trainers" will prescribe rolling around on a ball like a spastic to increase "core strength." The ability to get your feet on a wall while climbing is NOT determined by your abs or anything having to do with that ball anymore than your ability to do a squat is determined by hamstring curls. To put your feet on the wall you need to be able to do just that motion--hang on two holds, swing up and place your feet and hold them there. You need more shoulder strength and front-lever style training than anything else. You could have the abs of a ball exerciser and not be able to do shit about getting your feet on the wall because, like the hamstring curler, the whole system has to work together. The shoulders, not the abs, are almost always the weak link. If I see one more "core" exercise for climbing that does nothing for actually climbing I'm going to burn the magazine I see it in on the spot. At least I'll be able to work out in my jail cell.

I had coffee with a good bud of mine, Greg from Crossfit Canmore, yesterday, and he made an interesting point that deadlifts improve his "body tension." I had to think about this for a minute, but he's right. If you've ever done a lot of steep-wall training for climbing or deadlifting you'll notice that your hamstrings and lower back muscles (not joints or ligaments, muscle) will be sore the next day. Front lever training gets your feet on the wall, but holding them there takes a combination of dead-lift hamstring/back contraction (and every other muscle involved in that motion) and shoulder tension. If you had bomber footholds you wouldn't even need any shoulder strength once your feet were on the wall, it's all back and legs. Many good rock climbers I've trained with are disproportionately strong on their deadlifts; I think this is because they have strong body tension and REAL "core" strength.

My measures of "strong" core strength would be this:

-Can do 15 knees to elbows in row (and not swinging spastic knees to elbows, controlled leg lifts), or hold a half-front lever for 10 seconds.

-Can deadlift 1.5 times bodyweight.

Anyone who can do that is not in general going to have any problem with "core strength" or body tension in life or while climbing. Very steep routes or tougher forms of life may require more than that.

So, if you're a climber that has a hard time holding your feet on the wall practice by hanging onto two good holds in a roof and swinging your feet up and "catching" holds with them, repeat with holds to the side, etc. The good news is that this strength does come relatively quickly compared to pullups or something. Some deadlifts may also help, as will knees to elbows etc.

Send your used exercise balls to me, I'll take good care of them.

Travel, Social Media, Learning to Fly

2010-10-12T20:32:00.004-07:00

I haven't been

writing lately because I've been traveling a ton, trying to finish my private pilot's license (maybe by December at this rate!), training a bit despite a really gimpy foot, etc. Plus writing about four articles for various publications, prepping for shows, climbing (went drytooling yesterday!), planning for 2011 and some other stuff like being a dad and finishing house projects. Life is great really, but sometimes there's a lot of it to wrestle all at once. I feel incredibly lucky every damn day to be alive.

Social Media:

I've been on Facebook for a year, and it's a fun combination of voyeurism, communication, posing and public heckling. I've also got this Twitter feed thing, Linkedin, and some other stuff I can't figure out what the hell to do with. But at some point I have to ask this: Is all of this communication making my or your life better? More fulfilling? I'm still working through that one, and while I do there's this cool vid on Facebook I've got to watch... Attention Deficit Disorder and the internet just had to be made for each other, it's brilliant. What were we talking about?

Paragliding:

Over the years I've had a lot of people ask, "How do I learn to fly paragliders?" I wrote the following over the years to answer that question, here's what I generally send back.

What I tell everyone who wants to fly is this:

-Flying is "time expensive," especially when you're learning. It's going to eat about a minimum of 100 hours of your time to get going, plus dicking about driving to and from the hill etc. Once you've got basic skills it's about the same entry cost as skiing without the lift ticket prices.

-Flying is the only sport I've ever done where you absolutely must complete a good instruction course or you will die. You may die even with good instruction. The risk is comparable to riding a motorcycle, but as the air is invisible the dangers just aren't apparent without some good schooling. You'll likely survive learning how to climb, kayak, cave, even maybe ride a motorcycle, but good instruction is critical to staying on the right side of the odds bet in the air.

-It's very addictive. You may quit your other sports, spend money on tickets to warm places with thermals, and generally squander all kinds of time and money. In fact, you'll need to do this for a couple of years to get a solid base level of skill.

-Don't buy equipment until you have your basic ratings. Even then use the school's stuff for as long as possible, and then either buy used from the school if you've got Moroccan bargaining skills, or have an experienced friend help you buy stuff off the web. You can get a solid used setup that will get you through your first two years of flying for about $2-3,000, and which will actually be worth something when you sell it 'cause you will want to upgrade, maybe $1500. If you have a fat wallet then by all means drop the $6K on new gear, your school will love you as they often make more money on gear than on instruction, good to understand this.

-If it's sumer and the weather is reliable in your local area learn there. If the weather is not super reliable in your local area then go someplace where it is more reliable for two weeks and fly your brains out, get the basic ratings done, then continue your training locally. I like Point of the Mountain, Utah, and Santa Barbara, California in general. Lots of other good schools out there too and this is not meant to slight anyone, just that these two places have a selection of schools so you can find one that fits your personality, and the weather is generally reliable in both places. A good relationship with your local operator is important; even if you get your ratings somewhere else you'll still want to get onside with your local school/shop/guru. Paragliding likely has the most retarded politics of any sport I've ever been involved with at the school level, it's insane, but there it is, better to just recognize it and do your best to work with it.

-Your learning is really just starting when you get your basic ratings; if you can find a good local crew of pilots to fly with you will progress faster, have more fun, and be safer. I owe a huge debt to the all the "crows on the fence" at the two places I really learned to fly, everyone does. Do NOT be the guy who knows it all, you suck and will for some time. On the other hand some very good pilots are also idiots, you'll likely figure out who is helpful and who isn't pretty quick. Buy the guys who are helpful beer, they will become more helpful. If someone yells at you in the air figure out why, and remember that in the US a significant percentage of the pilots are armed. In Canada they're just fierce and don't need guns.

-I do not regret one hour of time I've ever spent in the air. It's great, have fun, stay open, learn, yeah!

Right, I'm back on the blogging train, yeah! I hope your fall is going well, it's finally Indian Summer here in Canmore, which is gorgeous after a truly horrendous August and September. If we hadn't had the last two weeks of good weather I'd be booking tickets to Vegas or something, it was truly a dire late summer here in the Canadian Rockies. But now it's perfect, stoke!

2010-09-28T09:46:00.001-07:00

Some words on shoes...

Pain, Comfort, Satisfaction

2010-09-08T09:47:00.006-07:00

There are a lot of different kinds of pain, and any sane person tries to avoid most of them. It's human nature to want to be "comfortable." Some kinds of pain should be avoided: torn muscles, snapped tendons, relationship drama (all super damaging to training effectively and therefore to performance), but I make my best training gains when I push into areas of pain, especially mental pain, and all pain is mental.... I think embracing pain and becoming comfortable or even desiring it in training and in performance is essential to getting better as an athlete. The amount of pain someone will tolerate is directly related to the desire the person has for something on the other side of that pain. If an athlete really wants to get better then he or she will tolerate and even seek out pain.

If an athlete pushes hard in training then he or she will push hard when it's time to do so while performing. One of the biggest benefits of lifting weights is not in the actual strength training but learning that you CAN lift the weight one more time when your head says, "No." Yes. Twice more. I think this sort of experience teaches both mental toughness and deeper muscle recruitment, both essential to performance.

Years ago I watched one of the best rock climbers in the world climb one of his hardest routes ever at that time. He fought, bled, screamed, and left NOTHING in his attempt. He succeeded and clipped the anchor, then unclipped it and started down climbing for the training. I try to emulate his attitude when appropriate in my own training; to dig deeper, to suffer, to look through the mist at the goal, and upon getting there to shut up and keep going farther

I see some athletes (and I'll use climbers as an example) get a little beaten down and then just give up and say, "take" or stop running back up the field or whatever. They then wonder why they're not progressing, why they're "training" and yet the same old level of exertion still feels hard. The reason it feels hard is that they are letting it feel hard. I've watched numerous athletes say, "I'm too pumped to climb," but if their friends scream at them they'll keep climbing, often for dozens more moves. Watch a guy on the bench lift the weight to "failure," then see what happens when his friends start yelling at him. More reps, guaranteed. Soon the pain becomes irrelevant, it's only upward motion that counts. That is a state of grace.

This post-pain functional state must be entered into in training to be achieved in actual performance. The mind must be conditioned to dominate discomfort, and can be. But it's really uncomfortable in a way we don't often have to deal with as the monkeys on top of the economic ladder...

The corollary to this is satisfaction, of thinking, "Good enough." That's the same as saying, "I'm comfortable with that." If you're comfortable then you're not trying. The best athletes in any sport I've ever been involved with may win, but they're only satisfied for a short time. In training they judge their sessions not by the number of pounds lifted, but by how much attention, focus, grit and even meaning was extracted from the training session. If they are having a strong day they aren't happy with a "personal best," they're only happy when they dig deeper and give it their true best. On a rough day they don't cry and pout when way off their best, they do the best they can with no drama or theatrics. They reach the anchor or their goal, and then start climbing down or pushing another rep because they can, and don't let some arbitrary level of satisfaction dictate the result. The very best athletes don't need a crowd to perform, they could be in a dead-silent cavernous gym and they're still going to do their best.

Training like this is scary. In life we don't generally lay it all on the line, and rarely publicly. It's almost like making love in public or something, it's a bare naked, all-out, intimate, no reserves display of true character if done well. The thing about doing your best is that there aren't any excuses left to hide behind, the clothes are all gone. Many people never see what's there, much less show it to others. The neat thing is that when you do your best it's always fucking cool, no matter what it looks like. We're all gonna cheer for the fat bastard struggling across the finish line 'cause we all know he's leaving nothing behind him. Respect.

The more I train and work with other athletes the more I see a simple truth appear: It's not how many reps that count, but how many were done after the "goal" was reached. I think one of the reasons Crossfit is effective for many people is that most workouts are done for time. There is never a "good enough" in hard training, there is only the point where the weight won't move or you're in the air if you're a climber. That's your best.

Now, a problem with all of the above is that getting injured, over-trained, and generally destroyed too often is a sure path to athletic failure. Once an athlete figures out that trying really hard in training gets performance results they often over-train and end up regressing. "Gee, I'm stronger now after training three days a week. Imagine what I could do on five days a week!" Get over trained and injured is the imminent answer. Training must be periodized to some extent or the result will always be a burned out or injured athlete. I know, I've done that lots, and watched numerous other athletes do the same without even knowing what was happening. There are a lot of climbers from the 90s who had to battle chronic fatigue, adrenal problems, etc. etc., let's not repeat that experiment (I think there's likely a correlation to continuous "met con" or power endurance or whatever anyone wants to call it programming and adrenal issues here, but I don't know enough about how this works to figure it out, just see the results among too many people for it to be coincidence).

Failure is an easy marker to hit, but it's often not the most effective thing to do.... A cyclist may not need to redline repeatedly on a five-hour ride, in fact doing so would be counter-productive. Balancing all these variable is what keeps sports and training interesting for me.

One more rep, one more move, break the comfort shell into a thousand sweaty pieces, do your best with no excuses.

There are a million problems with the above, but I hope it makes sense to someone other than me. My own training is never perfect; scattered, incomplete, not as much, too much, what am I training for, but I do know when I've done my best. Give 'er.

Rolling, Fitness and Kayaking

2010-09-06T08:58:00.008-07:00

I've had a ton of fun with a personal kayaking resurgence in the past three years, thanks to a good crew of people here in Canmore and elsewhere, it's been great, yeah! New boats, new rivers, new tactics, loving it, it sure is a great sport. But I'm seeing two issues: Paddlers with lousy rolls, and unfit paddlers. I'll deal with the rolling issue first as it's simpler.

If a person can't roll effectively on both sides of a kayak with or without a paddle he or she has no business being on a serious whitewater river with any sort of serious hazards. A poor roll is a hazard to the paddler, the people rescuing the paddler, and the Visa card when new paddles and boats have to be purchased. Go to the pool or a warm lake, put on a mask, and learn. It will only take a few sessions, and these may keep you from being beat up, losing your paddle, boat or life. When I learned to paddle 30 years ago rolling was still sort of optional; "good" paddlers could roll anywhere, the rest of us hoped to one day roll regularly. After a particularly bad swim in the glacial Athabasca river while wearing a rain jacket I went to a lake with a swim mask a few times and spent maybe eight hours learning to roll up from any possible position I could think of. It's been more than 20 years since I did this, and I've never swam in that period because I couldn't roll up. I'm not special, I just put a modest amount of work into learning a basic skill. There is just no excuse for not being able to roll well other than sheer laziness. My friend Doug Ammons wrote a great essay about rolling up in a class V drop with broken ribs and a bunch of other injuries. He felt that if he had swam he would have died because he couldn't swim with his injuries... I don't know if I could do that, but his point is that a roll should be instinctual and easy enough that the paddler can do it anytime, anywhere. There are likely some paddlers reading this who want to make excuses. Tell 'em to yourself while you're underwater. I've taught kayaking for decades, everybody can have an absolutely bomber roll, full stop.

Now that I've got my rant level up to speed I'll address kayakers and fitness:

Being unfit in a kayak on a difficult river is dangerous. If you're on a play run chilling out then it's no big thing, but here in the Rockies and west people tend to run difficult creeks a lot. Creeking automatically involves carrying your boat in rough terrain, getting beat down in the river occasionally, and having to fully redline your body when things go a little wrong . In the last 30 years I've seen multiple incidents on the river that were, in my opinion, primarily due to lack of strength and stamina, not lack of "skill." Although harder to get than a solid roll, fitness is also important.

High intensity training (going all-out for up to 20 minutes straight) relates directly to being able to put out a lot of physical energy on the river, and then recover quickly from that exertion. If you can blast out a classic "metabolic conditioning" workout then it's going to help when you have to rodeo out of a hole and then keep paddling a long rapid, or have to carry your boat alongside a river in rough terrain, or rescue me. All of these situations are also heavily skill dependent, but I'm seeing paddlers with good skills get worked for a few minutes and then have no energy left to continue dealing and swim or fall down because they're tired. Now, if you can't breathe then no amount of conditioning is going to help with that problem really, but that's actually kinda rare when kayaking--if you have a decent roll!

In climbing if you don't have the skill or fitness you usually can just stop and rest. Same with mountain biking and a lot of other sports. But in paddling it's possible to have the skill to flow with the river until all of a sudden you need the fitness backup and it's not there...

The first place I really noticed a direct improvement from doing Crossfit (which has a lot of HIT training in it) was on a real bitch of a river trip in BC. We were on the first descent of the upper Atnarko river, which would be an all-time classic run if weren't clogged with logs for most of its length. The banks were unstable, vegetated and steep. Due to video and camping gear and some other stuff my boat weighed at least 75 pounds. A 75-pound pack sucks, a boat is way worse. But, due to exercises like thrusters I felt reasonably strong doing battle; the connection was clear in a way it seldom is while climbing or just moving in the mountains. One of the other people on the trip was also reasonably fit, and strangely the two of us were generally having more fun than the other three... Not dissing them, we got down it as a team, but I think our relative fitness really helped the two of us.

Now, skill almost always trumps fitness in sports after a certain base level (Gladwell's "threshold" point where you're tall enough, smart enough, strong enough, whatever to be in the game). A highly skilled but unfit kayaker will be a lot safer than a highly fit but unskilled kayaker on a class V run. But skill and fitness aren't mutually exclusive; go kayaking a LOT for months, like four days a week for three months, and you'll likely develop the strength and skill necessary for that. But most of us don't paddle four or more days a week all year, or even if we do paddle regularly it's often not at a high enough intensity level enough of the time to develop the "flat-out gear" an emergency situation demands. Technical rock climbers routinely go as hard as they possibly can in their sports; redpointing or onsighting a hard route means going all-out. But kayakers don't, so when that output level is required while getting worked it's often not there.

Being aerobically fit isn't enough either; the ability to run slowly for an hour isn't effective when you're trying to muscle out of a situation on the river, totally different pathways and requirements. Done perfectly, kayaking demands mostly mental skill and good movement patterns, and not a lot of strength. But most of us aren't perfect; I need to be able to sort stuff out when I'm getting beat down, and then have the strength to continue dealing immediately. I think the ability to continue putting out power at a high level is more important than absolute power; for example, a small woman will do better than a strong man if she has the skill and fitness to rodeo out of a hole and then still keep functioning at 80 percent of her max for the next 30 seconds. The man could exert more one-move power maybe, but if he's finished after that and his heart-rate is at 90 percent of max and not coming down for a minute it's game over, he's swimming or slow as hell on the bank.

It's easy to fix this problem: do some form of strength and high-intensity training three days a week for an hour or so total (including the warmup). That'll make a huge improvement, plus it's fun. Many outdoor adventure types have an aversion to training; cool, but personally I have an aversion to getting beat down hard in the river. I'll train to help avoid that situation, plus high intensity training is just that: intense, like paddling can be, and I like it.

I generally like Crossfit and think it's a form of training that's appropriate for paddlers. It's also open-source, meaning that it's free (unless you want to join a Crossfit gym). The hype and posing among some Crossfitters is somewhere between comical and a complete turn-off to many individualistic outdoor types, but the workouts and ideas are unarguably effective, you don't have to buy the T-shirt to do the workouts.

Anyhow, time to go train, I've had a couple of days getting soft.... Might have to work on my roll a bit too.

PS--There's some stuff on the Crossfit site about Brad Ludden, a damn good paddler, but it's subscription only. This article is interesting.

PPS--I received a couple of emails on what roll is most effective. The short answer is the one that gets you back to the surface the most consistently in the least time. The longer answer is that I'm a firm believe in the full sweep, front tuck to coming up on the back deck roll. I've seen and taught many different rolls, but over the last 20 years the front sweep to almost lying on the back deck roll seems to be the most effective for the most people. It's basically a back-deck handroll when broken down into components, so add a paddle blade for leverage and it's the most powerful roll on the river. Some people will argue that it's dangerous because the paddler is laid out on the back deck, but the paddler is usually above the surface of the water by about 120 degrees from the initiation. The most dangerous roll is the one that doesn't work the first time.

Mountain Heptahlon

2010-08-27T13:16:00.003-07:00

The Heptathlon is an eight-sport track and field event. A friend and I were out for some heavy breathing (that sounds more exciting than it was) the other day and got into what sports would define a "mountain heptathlon." The scoring on a Heptathlon is interesting because it's based on an athlete's performance against a list of standard times (which look pretty tough to reach). This "scored against a standard" system is interesting because it allows comparison across a wide range of venues and athletes. That comparison would be harder to do with mountain sports, but it's interesting if you're interested in that sort of thing...

-Rock climbing. 5.13a onsight.

-Mountain running. No idea for longer courses, but check these times and courses out from the world championships.

-Mountain biking. Standard? Hard to define.

-Backcountry skiing/off-piste skiing with some serious down. Ski mountaineer races seem good?

-Whitewater kayaking (downriver race).

-Nordic skiing of some kind (going fast on little skis).

-Ice climbing/mountaineering/winter climbing stuff.

-Paragliding (includes hiking to launch).

Marginal "mountain" sports, or sports we couldn't agree on:

-Road biking

-Horseback riding

-"Freestyle" snowboarding, skiing, anything that is judged can't be a mountain sport.

-Canoeing

-Rafting

-BASE jumping

-Swimming (lakes etc).

-River surfing.

-Snowshoeing

It would be pretty much impossible to do all of these events in one place, but how about a season of events that would tie all of the above together into one event? Hmmm....

Fitness: A Unified Theory, and intervals

2010-08-20T12:27:00.004-07:00

It's been a lot of fun working through ideas on fitness by experimenting, thinking, reading, talking and emailing with different folks in the last couple of years. I think I've finally figured something useful out: I care most about performance. That's the top of my priority list in terms of athletics. "Fitness" is one component of performance, yet it's often not even close to the most important component of athletic performance. But fitness is the easiest to measure, and the easiest to improve at (at a relative novice level). This idea was driven home to me recently when my wife quoted her old Norweigan XC ski coach (say this with a thick Norwegian accent): "You North Americans are all better than us on the treadmill and eat so well, how come the Norwegian skiers kick your ass then?" Performance first.

This philosophy is at the heart of how I look at sport, and how I coach myself and other athletes (only a few). What I coach for and care about is performance. Clients pay half up front, and half when they reach a specific performance goal. If they don't reach it they don't pay. It's all about performance, all about real-world results, full stop. "Fitness" is relevant to that goal, but the vast majority of the people I work with need nothing more than dedicated and semi-organized sorts-specific training to develop the fitness required to perform. If they need a base level of human function then I'll pull from other areas to get that, or send the individual to someone else first.

The real reason I train using non sports-specific protocols (Crossfit, Yoga, Gymnastics, old-time strength stuff, etc) is that I like being a functional human. Deadlifts help my back feel better. Squats help my knees not hurt. I like the way I feel if I hit the WOD regularly. I like to be able to sprint (although I would be mocked at any serious track in the world). It's good. And within that "human" training performance still counts. Better form. Better range of motion. More. Faster. But deadlifting will not help me redpoint my project as much as spending the same amount of time climbing will. So I'l cycle general training and skill training. One for sport performance, one for life performance, both important to me from a performance standpoint at different times in my year.

So there, it's resolved enough for me. Do sports-specific stuff to perform better at sports, especially the mountain sports I do and know well. But also enjoy having a functional body, and find a protocol that works for that. Have performance goals, and be honest about what they are. Be savage like a chain saw in examining the successes or failures of reaching those goals. Learn, think, evolve, try not to be a dogmatic ass, grow as an athlete and human. Train, perform, give 'er, but listen to that old Norwegian coach in the back of your head. There's honesty in saying, "I train 'cause I like the way I feel, yeah!" I can tell when my wife has done her 7:00 a.m. WOD 'cause she's happier. And that's worthwhile.

Give 'er!!!!

Intervals

Intervals rock. I just want to say that. They hurt, they're annoying, but man do they get results. More on this later, just something I'm excited about right now. Intervals...

Odds and Ends

2010-08-11T09:38:00.003-07:00

A month or so ago we did a Mountain Movement course here in Canmore, which was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. One of the participants wrote up a really funny report on the experience, love it! "Gravel Boarding," ha ha! Can't wait to build the "Playground" up again, I have some new ideas for torture...

I'm playing with some new ideas in climbing training. I've spent 25+ years climbing, so my movement patterns are half decent I think. Unfortunately, due to a few injuries, other sports, etc., my climbing fitness is pretty weak right now. Normally I start with a very high volume base cycle, but I have limited time right now as well as some decent base fitness from other sports, time for a plan B. I've been doing relatively short but higher intensity sessions in the climbing gym, trying to pack larger volumes of movement into shorter periods. The classic version of this type of exercise is the 4x4, but my goals involve longer days on terrain up to 5.12, I don't think I need more power endurance than I have right now, just more endurance and the ability to absolutely blast pitches. What I really is another gear, another way to put out more watts faster in a shorter time period.

My experiences with both Crossfit and training "long-interval" style for the dZi Foundation 24-hour climb have led me toward trying to do bigger sets of fast intervals and then adding a "big gear" load on the end of each total interval. I really felt this gave me one hell of a base for the 24-hour climb, and that's sort of (no more 24-hour stuff though!) where my head is at. So 4x4s with heavy kettlebell swings as the fifth station to totally fry my system, or a long traverse with thrusters at the end to mess me up. One thing I've noticed with doing intervals is that the ability to handle that kind of "Now we're going to gasp for three minutes!!!" load responds much better to training than I used to think, and unlike many forms of training the response isn't sports specific. Putting out at an anaerobic level is a skill, whether it's racing up a pitch or doing thrusters. Anyhow, it's an idea, we'll see how it goes...

I'm also not happy with my definition of fitness from the last post. I think I missed a few things, namely that there is a sort of "base" fitness level where the participant is fully functional, meaning not grossly overweight, can move up stairs quickly without gasping, etc. My definition is more based around athletic expression, which is a narrower definition. I'll keep working on my definition, but it's not as good as it should be yet.

Time to go get after it!

Fitness, Calves

2010-08-09T10:24:00.005-07:00

If you could only pick one muscle or area on the human body that would tell you how fit someone is what would that area be? Pecs? Quads? You might say that it would matter what the definition of fitness is, and that would be fair, so I'll deal with that first. At length.

Lots of people put up arguments for what "fit" means on the comments part of my last fitness post. What I see in all those well thought-out comments is that fitness is highly situational, and very difficult to measure without skill at the fitness activity being tested playing a large role. There is no way to test for "fitness" without the testing method or apparatus playing a large role. The most empirical and non-apparatus "fitness" test would be blood tests; that might give a hint of how "well" someone is, but blood tests will tell the tester very little that's useful for predicting how an athlete will perform. "Gee, this blood work looks fantastic, I bet whoever gave the sample can run a 400M really fast!" That's obviously funny to me. Running a 400M fast is legitimately cool. Everything after a blood test involves skill, not just power or watts put out. And if the test is based even partially on skill then how "general" can any fitness truly be?

Even the most "general" fitness that I know of and practice, Crossfit, is still highly apparatus and skill-specific even as it develops a reasonably broad level of general fitness. For example, an athlete may have the base power to do overhead squats, but until the athlete has the shoulder flexibility and movement patterns an overhead squat will be very difficult (I use this example because I truly suck at overhead squats). An overhead squat may help with athletic performance in other sports, but by itself the skill will, until learned, likely trump the "fit" component of the movement. Every activity in the Crossfit games had a major skill component (even the wheelbarrow event, I could sure tell who had run a wheelbarrow before!); what the Games are testing is the ability to do a lot of different skills at a reasonable--not elite--level, cool.

Comparing athletes in different sports is fun and interesting, but comparing their performance or fitness levels is pretty hard to do unless the football player puts on skates, or the basketball player straps on a set of slalom skis. I think everybody would see that would be kind of ridiculous, and that's why claims of being "The fittest athlete in the world" are the same. Fitness without a specific expression of fitness doesn't exist. Put another way, fitness is inextricably based on the skills required to demonstrate that fitness. Fitness without performing a skill is impossible to define as fitness; inevitably the skill shapes the performance.

Most of the improvements in the opening weeks of any training program come not from increases in strength but in increases in skill. Even after years of sports-specific training skill will still often trump pure power in athletic events. Pick any sport out there; the ability to squat 800lbs is less important than the ability to read the action, see the game, and execute the movement, whether the sport is climbing, skiing or NHL football.

However, having a functional body that is strong is obviously a hell of an asset for any sport or life, and I do think Crossfit does a great job on functional movements. That's why I do it; not to be "fit," but to be functional. Big difference there. And before anyone involved with CF gets bent, I think Crossfit athletes are incredibly fit, even though I can only measure their performance at Crossfit.

My definition of "fitness" is this: An athlete's ability to successfully perform at whatever activity or task he has trained to engage in. For a person who wants to run the Grand Canyon rim to rim in a day then doing that successfully means they were fit enough. For an ice climber on a difficult first ascent that means doing it without injury. For a military group on a patrol in the mountains that means getting the job done and being able to patrol again without excessive recovery time. For a Crossfitter it might mean eventually doing Fran in under three minutes while also deadlifting over 500 pounds. For my friends in chairs it might mean being able to bust it out down a flight of stairs and remain solidly in control. All cool expressions of true fitness, but obviously impossible to compare meaningfully. The Crossfitter would die on the ice climb, the ice climber will suffer on the Grand Canyon run in the heat, and all of 'em could die on the patrol... Fitness is just impossible to separate from the situation it's performed in. A fit individual will be able to perform and successfully function in a given situation, or he isn't fit. Being able to do a select set of exercises (Crossfit Games) reasonably well means that someone has trained for just that, and may be the fittest in the world at that combination of those motions. Cool again, but I'm still not buying that the top Crossfit Games athlete is the fittest in the world at anything but Crossfit. Of course, it's fun to argue the question as I'm doing here.

Now, having defined fitness as successful specific task performance, here's a very general question: What one muscle or one area in the body immediately displays someone's fitness level, or at least the broadest prediction of reasonable fitness? If you had to line a bunch of people up and use a screen that would only allow a small glimpse of each person's body to predict their fitness level what part of the body would you focus the screen on?

In my world that one area is the calf and muscles on it. I was sitting with my wife in a cafe the other day that had a huge volume of people walking by and through it, mostly in shorts as it was a hot day. The busloads of tourists basically didn't have calves; it was like a surgeon had cut the muscle bodies out. The cyclists who rode their bikes in did. The climbers on their way to the crag did. One old guy and his wife sported calves cut into granite blocks from decades of walking in the mountains. A "display model only" body builder in a white wife-beater had no calves, and I'm pretty sure he could only define his fitness level with a bicep curl contest, which he would win (pro bodybuilders have rad calves).

Developed, cut calves tell me that the athlete spends a lot of time moving on his feet, whether it's playing basketball or running. Almost every good real-life athlete (as opposed to a gym poseur) from the military patrol in Afghanistan to a mountaineer, will have solid calves. If I had to predict an athlete's performance in the mountains without knowing anything at all about him or her I'd look at the calves for a rough answer; mountain athletes always have strong lower legs.

And that's just it. I'm a mountain athlete; that's where I do my sports in general. If I were looking for the "Fittest Athlete Alive" I'd have a radical kayak race, a deep water soloing competition, a distance paragliding competition, a mountain bike race, a hike and huck paragliding event, etc., and I'd call whoever won that the fittest athlete ever, ha ha! And I guarantee that the winner would have some solid lower legs. No Crossfitter could touch my definition of "fitness," just as I would be mincemeat in the CF Games, or on a pro basketball court. Now I'm going to do the WOD just 'cause I like it, which when I think about is a hell of a huge plus in any "fitness" regime. If you don't like doing it then eventually you won't, and that's the biggest problem with most "fitness" bikes etc., they are deadly boring long-term.

Canadian Paragliding Nationals, etc.

2010-08-02T20:07:00.005-07:00

Eric Oddy Photo, a whole lot more at the same address.

I just finished competing in the Canadian Paragliding Nationals. Some of you who know my history with paragliding competitions might be laughing, as I've said repeatedly that I'm retired from that scene. But the Canadian Nationals are different; mellower, more fun, and less gaggle flying. I went to the meet with a relaxed attitude and a commitment to leave the comp and chase distance records if the day presented itself, but ended up doing the whole comp and learning a few things. Here a few observations from the week relating to both paragliding and life:

1. We often need less stuff than we think we do. I'm used to flying with a fairly high-end Flytec flight computer that does all kinds of stuff, but I launched on the first day and the vario and altitude functions totally failed. That means I had no "Beep beep" to tell me when I was in lift and when I wasn't. Initially I kinda freaked out and pounded on the instrument etc., but it still wouldn't beep, and I was sinking lower and lower as I worried about not having the reassuring "beep beep" to indicate lift. I sunk well below launch and almost to the ground before thinking, "OK, no electronics, what can you do without electronics?" I fly occasionally without a vario, but not in a national-level competition, in my mind that was like not having chalk or something in a climbing comp. But, as I sunk lower and lower in a sort of mental paralysis, I remember a story about my bud Chris Muller flying huge tasks in a paragliding world cup without a vario. That made me smile; Chris is always in my thoughts when I'm in Golden, and the image inspired me to focus not on what I was missing but what I still had: a decent glider, a lot of experience in the air, and a fun-looking day if I could figure out how to stay in the air and fly it!

I had to fight my way back into the air by listening to the glider, feeling the forces in the light lift, and tuning into what my body does naturally without listening for the beep beep. I would honestly never have thought it possible for me to fly an entire comp task without a vario, much less do OK. But, 110K later, I landed at the goal field in a good position. I'd rate that flight as one of the cooler experiences I've ever had, both for the silent 3 hours in the air, and because I was able to shut down the negative talk and just fly with what I had. I was ready to fly out and land at the start when I was sinking out, the transition to landing at goal three hours later was something I'm actually way more proud of than winning the title of Canadian Champion five days later (not dissing that, I'm always happy to do well, but that flight on day one was really cool for me).

I've sometimes forgotten "critical" gear on trips before, and yet we often still ended up succeeding somehow. Good gear is beautiful and I lust after it, but day one of the Canadian Paragliding Nationals was a good lesson for me in not letting what I don't have define my experience. What else in my life do I think is essential that really isn't? And I've ordered another Flytec vario, ha ha!

2. Trying to beat other people generally doesn't work out so well in any competition. This is hard to explain, but in every comp I've ever won I didn't think about the other people in the comp much if at all. I just did my thing as best I could, and the results showed some version of how we all did relative to each other. As soon as I start trying to beat other people in any comp I usually lose. In this comp there was a very good German (and hopefully soon Canadian!) pilot, Robert Hauser, on an Ozone R10.2 glider. This glider kicks ass, and because I wasn't really even planning to compete in the Nationals until just before going I was on an older glider that was a couple of generations behind the R10. Anyhow, the first few days I was able to hang with Robert, then I started pushing to beat him by flying low and fast. His skill and superior glider made that tactic just fail, as it always does, and I would repeatedly get stuck soaring some bump down low while Robert's glider flew over my head. He won the overall meet in the end and I was second, fair enough. I think, even with an inferior glider, I might have been able to pull a better result if I had of focused more on my own flying and less on getting in front of other pilots in the last two tasks. Focus on your own stuff first... And well done Robert, it was a pleasure!

3. Situational awareness is everything. I'm currently learning to fly airplanes while getting my private pilot license. This has been a dream of mine for a long time, and I'm lucky to have some time to get it done. Learning how to fly a plane has not been easy for me; a paraglider has three controls, you just fly it like you paddle a kayak. A plane as simple as the trainer 172s I'm learning to fly in have a huge quantity of dials and buttons, and eventually you have to know how to use them all. Each lesson a new control or maneuver is added, but only after you can show enough situational awareness to handle it. At first just pointing the plane in the right direction took everything I had, now I can use most of the controls and do most of the maneuvers required to fly (they let me go alone now, ha ha!). My situational awareness is growing every flight. In the Canadian Nationals I noticed my situational awareness shrink and expand depending on blood sugar, comfort level, emotional state, sleep level, etc. etc. As I think back over all the competitions and big efforts I've battled with the one common denominator in the "success" bracket is how aware I was in the situation I was battling in. If I had a high level of situational awareness I generally did well. Low level, poor result.

I often make an internal game of watching other people's level of situational awareness in different situations. A mother may be incredibly tuned into her kid, but totally unaware of what's happening around her as she drives. I do the same. In a paragliding competition I can watch pilots make the oddest decisions because they aren't thinking about the big picture around them. I do that too. If I had a switch that allowed me to get rid of extraneous thoughts and just work on my situational awareness I'd be a lot more successful in life I think. I haven't yet figured out to how to mentally train my mind to see the big picture or the appropriate picture in different situations, but I'm working on it in my usual ten steps forward 9.9 back. Mental training is way harder than physical training.

4. It's fun to do stuff with friends. I had a great time seeing many old friends at the Nationals, yeah!

I'll try to post some followup thoughts to all the excellent posts on Women and Fitness, thanks to everyone for those.

WG out.

Fitness, Women and Muscles.

2010-07-22T10:07:00.009-07:00

A week ago the Crossfit Games ran in California. The parts I watched were hugely inspirational, and had more "real" athletic or non-scripted events than I've seen in previous games. Overall super cool, but I gotta go off on a couple of things.

First, Crossfit pumps the games as finding the "fittest athlete on earth;" I have a little problem with that slogan as I don't believe in the idea of "fittest on earth." I care about performance in sports; I respect every top Crossfit athlete anywhere for their performances at Crossfit, but I also respect top climbers, power lifters, or anyone who practices his or her sport and performs at a high level (except the dope-sucking cyclists). "Fittest" is a meaningless term without context; fittest at what? The people who won the Crossfit Games are the fittest at Crossfit, and specifically those events in the combination presented at the Crossfit Games. Those of us who train Crossfit get good at Crossfit, with some degree of carryover into other ares of our lives. An average high-school runner would destroy the top finishers at the Crossfit Games in a run, same for every individual event in the games.

This searching for the "Fittest Athlete on Earth" is a sign of insecurity to me. The top marathon runner in the world doesn't try to call himself the fittest person alive, they are just the best marathon runner, cool. The men and women who even made it to California are rad in my book of radness, lay off the hype, it takes away from their accomplishments.

This leads into my next bitch fest (bad coffee will do that to me), the topic of which is Women and Muscles. During the Crossfit Games I heard the announcers repeatedly say something along the lines of, "those women down there sure are pretty, and doing some amazing stuff!" I didn't hear him say, "Those men sure are handsome mofos, and doing some amazing stuff!" It would have been ridiculous. But he could get away with it with the women because there's somehow this idea that women competing should be pretty, or that women with muscles can't to be pretty too, or that how hot a woman looks doing a muscle up has some bearing on the worth of the muscleup, or some conflicted mish-mash of all these ideas. What the announcer was really saying at the CF games was, "Well, those women are attractive despite being able to do muscle ups." Or maybe, "Amazing, there's a chick down there doing muscleups who isn't ugly!" Or something along those lines, comments like that are a savage mess just under their surface and lead to stuff like this.

I don't want to hear comments about "pretty" or "handsome" during an athletic event, I want to watch people do their absolute damn best. I'm fully capable of judging whether I think a chick looks hot, or a guy is handsome. If a female announcer were saying something like, "Boy, Iginla sure looked sweaty and handsome when he took that shot on goal" I'd want to penalize her for irrelevant drivel. Same with the CF announcers. And no person, male or female, can ever be ugly doing something she has trained hard for and is doing at her limit and with all her might, as the men and women in the CF games were. That level of effort literally brings tears to my eyes. How"pretty" someone looks doing their sport is irrelevant to performance anyhow, and therefore doesn't belong in the commentary of any competitive event but a beauty pageant.

Let's drop the "we can lift weights and look pretty too, amazing!" nonsense. Same with the women who worry about getting "too bulky" doing Crossfit. Most women I hear say that don't have a hope in hell of ever getting "bulky," same as most men. Fit-looking maybe, but not "huge." Our bodies adapt to what we do; lift heavy weights fast and you'll put on some muscle, but likely not much unless you've got the genes. Look at the top male and female competitors in Crossfit; they are "built," but not huge. I heard the "I don't want to get bulky" comment from a rather skinny (not fit, skinny, no toned muscle at all) woman the other day, and it sounded a lot like she was cutting on muscles as somehow being unfeminine, possibly because she was unlikely to ever grow muscles due primarily sitting on her undeveloped glutes... It was one of those sideways backwards compliment/stab comments that some people are very good at and I seldom understand.

Anyhow, there is obviously some sort of conflict around the idea of athletic women. All I've got to say to that is that every human has within him or her the seeds of an amazing athlete, or they wouldn't be here today. Everyone alive today is the end result of a tremendous, epic selection process that involved athletic suffering not as sport but as survival, and our ancestors all passed those tests somehow. Every woman who has or will give birth is up against a workout that makes a mockery of almost any athletic event I've ever seen, and most women do just great at it if left to go at it on their own terms (in north America a lot of women end up with C-sections, not so in the rest of the world). As a man you're here because of athletic women who could carry your sorry newborn ancestors for miles and not drop 'em on their heads. Athletic women rock. When women are being athletes publicly I want the public commentary to be about their athletics. Leave the commentary on how hot they are off the air, women and men can make their own decisions.

Finally, beauty and and athleticism (bodies that get used to celebrate motion) are inherently linked in my eyes, after some thought that's why the comments at the games and the confused "I don't want bulky muscles" comments irritate me. It's the equivalent of saying, "Gee, look, that car has tires" or something, only slightly pejorative in a confused way.

Edit later in the day: On the whole I thought the commentators at the 2010 CF games did a good job--much, much easier to identify athletes, hear some stories, overall really good. The problem with doing anything well is that the problems then stand out. If it's all a junk show then it's not even worth commenting on.

Mountain Skill Training

2010-07-20T12:59:00.002-07:00

I just finished running a four-day course on mountain movement. I'm pecking away at a book on the same subject, and I wanted to test some ideas I had on how to help people move better in the mountains. I had a good response to the course outline that I put up, and selected eight brave victimsto take the course, thanks! The overall goal of the course was to increase the participants ability to move well in non-technical mountain terrain. I have a lot of theories and years of experience teaching mountain skills to people, but often we focus just on climbing or kayaking or whatever, not the equally if not more important ability to move well in the mountains. I was especially looking for people who were less than totally confident in the mountains; if my theories were solid then they would benefit the most, and provide a real acid test for the ideas in my book.

After four days of intense abuse ranging from falling at the Canmore gymnastics centre to hiking with my dad to scrambling up and over Mt. Yamnuska with Mr. Blanchard I felt that we had all learned a lot. I was repeatedly surprised by how well people would learn a skill in a relatively safe environment (the "Playground" I built in my back yard) and then apply it in a real situation. This "train and then do" idea was definitely effective, although I need to refine parts of it. On the final day everyone absolutely rocked over Mt. Yamnuska; I don't think anyone fell down anywhere on mountain, although I fell down once on the trail. My own movement was a lot better, every time I really focus on understanding how to teach something I learn a tremendous amount from the process.

One of the many small things I learned is how important good lugs on your soles are for gripping on steep slabby terrain with loose bits on it. This type of terrain is a real PITA for many people, including me, and we were able to test various shoes on the sliding board (rocks and gravel on steep plywood) I built. Movement was important, but footwear was much more important than I had thought it would be. What is excellent for, say, Grand Teton style rock hopping (sticky dot-style rubber) is truly horrible in other conditions. Because most of us don't test our footwear carefully in controlled environments we don't get to see the pluses and minuses. Anyhow, I learned a tremendous amount on many topics, thanks!

Now it's back to work on the book, and thanks to everyone who took part. I'll put some photos up later today I hope!

Lama, Red Bull, Cerro Torre

2010-07-13T08:07:00.006-07:00

The following is my best understanding of what actually happened on the Lama trip, and then some analysis. Anyone who wants the story so far can read this or lots of other commentary out there. Most of this writing is wrong to some degree, including my initial post.

I've spent hours emailing and on the phone with everyone involved that I could contact: David Lama, Red Bull, the guides on the trip, the film makers, Rolo, and many others. I have yet to reach anyone who was on the cleanup crew despite repeated efforts in public and private. I would still like that perspective.

Even with all this research I'm sure some of this writing is still wrong, but it's as accurate as I can make it at this point.

For those who don't want to read this endless post my quick and personal summary is this: Big film crews and difficult alpine environments don't mix, and will always end up doing more damage to a place. In terms of damage, ethics and style we're all hypocrites. I will continue to examine my own efforts to not screw places up that I visit.

Get a coffee or a Red Bull for the next 3,000 words if you wanna tangle with 'em, here goes:

Some physical facts:

Reported: 60 plus bolts on the route.

Reality: Twelve bolts above the shoulder where the route and every topo of the route starts. None of the bolts are directly on the route. Another 14 or so bolts on a new rap line down from the shoulder that's not part of the route at all.

Reported: Large quantities of fixed ropes, garbage, camps, etc. permanently left on the mountain.

Reality: There's only been one haul bag on the mountain for months. The film team did hire some climbers to remove fixed line and gear that was abandoned, and take out some other gear that was left. Today's there's very little up there, despite what's being reported.

That's the direct physical impact. Now it gets more complicated.

David Lama had an idea: Free the Compressor route on Cerro Torre. I think that's a cool idea, and I suspect most climbers would too. He then contacted Red Bull about funding the trip. Lama's athlete manager at Red Bull Austria is a solid rock climber (I spoke with him as he came back from a climbing trip--he climbs more than most). Red Bull was excited about the project, and wanted to make a good film about the project. So far so good.

But Red Bull likes to do things with "high production values," especially when it's challenging to do so. This often means a larger film crew, and guides if the project is in the mountains. It is very possible to make a good film where the climbers on the trip shoot along with one capable climbing cameraman (this is how most of the filming on my trips is done, and how an excellent film maker like Leo Dickinson made his film on Cerro Torre.). It's also possible to shoot with a larger crew in benign environments (sport climbing, bouldering, deep water soloing, that sort of thing) relatively easily, but if you want to have higher production values (think Touching the Void, the excellent production of the Eiger North Face, a lot of modern rock climbing films) then you've got to have a larger crew.

Cerro Torre has some of the worst weather in the world. Huge and violent storms move in with relatively little warning, and climbers always try to push the normally short weather windows. Ice often forms on the mountain, and then falls off when it warms up, posing a risk to anyone below. Moving a film crew, even a solid mountain crew, around in an environment like that is going to be a real bitch to do even remotely safely. To have what he felt was a safe line of retreat on the route the lead guide on the trip, who I'll call Austrian Guide (AG) as his candid conversation with me was private, placed a total of 10 bolts off to the side of the climbing route, two or so near the route, and an additional 16 to 18 on the rappel line from the shoulder down. There are good natural cracks in the area, but the standard for live loads in industrial rigging calls for higher margins. AG felt the only way to safely move people and equipment around was to bolt a new and relatively safe retreat out of the way of the falling ice from the shoulder down, and bolt bomber stations to the side of the actual route. I'm not personally commenting on this decision, just outlining my understanding of the safety plan.

AG said he put these stations off to the side of the climbing route so he could rig fixed lines that would interfere as minimally as possible with other climbers on the route. AG added two or maybe three directional bolts that could be considered remotely on the line of the route. So the total of added bolts by the guides on the climb was less than a dozen, not 60 as reported, and none those are on the actual route according to the reports I received. AG's bolts are unique so they should be identifiable, and I've worked with him on several projects, so I trust his number (and I have his topo--nobody else asked him for that).

AG over-drilled all of his bolts so that he could pound the bolts in. This leaves a surface hole, and AG had a system for filling that hole. From personal experience I know that it's extremely hard to find these holes if you don't know where they are. But they are there, and a hole is a hole.

There was a division between the film crew and Lama. Lama and his partner carried all their own gear into base camp, carted it out, etc. The film crew had help. Lama did not add any bolts to the route.

The team climbed only about 11 pitches up from the shoulder that marks the start of the "real" climbing. Bad weather (which should not really have been a surprise) then prevented the team from getting the fixed ropes off, and some of their gear out. The film team later paid for their gear and ropes to be retrieved, along with some additional fixed junk.

The only gear currently on Cerro Torre from the expedition is one haul bag and less than 30 bolts. The rest has been retrieved.

OK, so there are the facts as I understand them, and despite my best efforts to get accurate info some of them are probably wrong, that's how it works in life. Now comes some personal analysis. These are my own viewpoints, not "cleared" with Red Bull or reviewed by anyone. Writing all of this may cause problems for my relationship with Red Bull, but it's gotta be said if I'm going to wear a branded helmet. If Red Bull is the company I think it is then they'll get it. These opinions are also likely to anger some climbers I regard as my friends. I trust they're also big enough to get it.

If I try to look at this from a global perspective then there are broadly two categories of "damage:" The first is the physical damage to the earth in terms of bolts, left ropes, etc. Knowing what actually happened, I can't get too angry about the damage this trip did from an "earth" basis. From a straight environmental perspective the flights from Europe to Patagonia were a hell of a lot more damaging to the world. The second form of damage is to what the priests of alpine climbing consider "good style." I'm going to mostly leave that alone.

The AG was adamant on the phone that if he were in charge of safety for the crew when and if they returned next season he would take the same tactics, or he would not return with the crew. He did not feel it possible to rig safely off natural gear for the type of load and traffic the rigging would receive. David Lama had not thought about whether or not the bolts were necessary, and that question opened his mind up a lot. He thinks it would be possible to do the rigging without bolts, but he also wasn't responsible for the lives of the people hanging on the gear. However, "safety" is not justification for adding even minimal bolts to a route for a film effort; the whole idea is not to further mess a place up.

Bolting a new rap line down from the shoulder isn't a huge deal to me personally. Metal left behind is metal left behind, if it's a good descent route then I really don't care much about what the anchors are. Apparently the rap lines in this area are full of tat and random gear, a nice clean rap line might not be a bad thing. It might even reduce the quantity of junk left on the mountain by each retreating party. Others feel very differently about this, and I respect them personally even if we disagree on this. If the locals want the bolts on the rap route pounded in as the AG planned to do then I think the crew should do that as planned. Let me know and I'll pass that on.

Several climbers wrote that bolting wouldn't be tolerated on a film project on a classic line in the Alps or another better-known range. Filming with "high production values" in the Alps or anywhere on a major alpine route is very, ah, industrial compared to what went on in Patagonia. I don't think it's right anywhere.

As soon as the crew size expands the level of infrastructure goes up dramatically, and the odds of success go down dramatically. That's was Lama's real error in my opinion; I don't think it's possible to free the Compressor route with this level of infrastructure holding a climber down. In my view you simply can't shoot for "high production values" without establishing more belays, bolts, fixed lines, etc. than is reasonable in a difficult high alpine environment, and trying to do that will lead to failure in many ways.

All the other "physical" problems (new bolts close to or on the Compressor Route, gear left behind, etc) stem from the original problem of crew size in such a difficult environment.

Now we come to the ethics or "style" equation. Red Bull as a company did not understand the anger the bolts (even with the numbers vastly over-stated) provoked among climbers, and their response has been corporate because it ultimately came from a corporate level. Lama didn't understand the anger as he didn't put any of the bolts in. He is sincerely unhappy with the bolting after questioning whether it could have been done without bolting... Climbing "ethics" often make little sense to me even as I fight for my version of them, and are going to be completely incomprehensible to a non-climber. That doesn't release Red Bull as a company or those on the trip from responsibility, but when a climber of theirs (Lama) and guides on the trip aren't seeing a problems then I think it's a bit difficult for RB as a company to see deeper into it all.

Red Bull, and by extension Lama, broke another and perhaps more serious law of alpine climbing: "Thou shalt not spray before the fact." Red Bull put up a rather over-the-top marketing article on their web site before Lama got anywhere near the mountain, and another after he returned. As I read through all the commentary on the attempted climb the writers kept harping on the marketing, and the hubris of it more than the actual bolts. I tend to laugh at stuff like that, but others obviously fail to see the humor.

What now?

The next Patagonia season approaches. What's the right thing for Lama and RB to do? Here's my personal take for what it's worth.

1. RB should stand up and say, "We're sorry about the bolts, we'll do everything we can to make that right." Pound the bolts above the shoulder into their holes, seal them up before any additional climbing is done. Do the same with the stations off to the side of the route. Wait and see what the general response is on the rap line, if it's negative then pound that in too.

2. If Lama and RB do go back then do so with a small crew based around one highly competent climbing cameraman. Take care of the additional bolts before rolling one frame of video. I don't believe a multi-person crew will work on the Torre without adding more bolts, ropes, etc, the environment is just too savage for a large crew to work without relatively heavy infrastructure.

3. Lama, his partner and a super mobile cameraman send the route from the top of Pitch 11 free, with no additional bolts added on the line. One climber very familiar with the route thinks additional bolts will be necessary to free the variations required, and doesn't have a problem with that. Personally, a bolt is a bolt, it would be cooler to do it without any new bolts at all. The 350+ are more than enough already.

4. The production quality comes from what is shot so far, and by being creative on the route. Go "modern" with HD headcams, sound, all the stuff a capable and resourceful climbing cameraman will understand. Immediacy can be more compelling than pure production quality, especially if that production quality can be done on the ground, with what is shot so far, and in post. Hell, this controversy can be part of the story...

5. As a climber I'm increasingly looking at my "ethics" not as just what I do while climbing but what my travel to go climbing and my other sports does to the atmosphere and the wilderness places I visit. This is a much bigger problem than whether I use a pin or a bolt, and to pretend otherwise is selective ignorance.

6. RB is going to keep trying to do genuinely cool stuff in different sports, it's what they do, and one reason I like working with them. RB does sponsor traditional sport, but it's a company built on doing genuinely wild stuff with their marketing money. In doing difficult and "crazy" projects and events they are going to make errors. Those errors should be addressed as openly and as quickly as the successes, or at least addressed with some humility.

Finally, in the end it's all about actually going climbing. It's our responsibility to be aware of the stone and our impacts on it. As a sponsored and public climber I have an additional responsibility to try and do what's right, and do what's right with the companies I work with.

All the spittle on keyboards, reasoned response, and pulpit slamming fundamentalism means nothing when your hands grab the stone. My fingers are getting soft from all this writing, it's now time to shut the fuck up and go climb. I'm outta here on this topic, thanks for reading through this journey.

100 points of health, GPP, New Zealand

2010-07-10T13:29:00.009-07:00

GPP, or General Purpose Training, and the 100 point system.

Note--for those of you waiting for the Lama post, I've written that and am just doing a little checking on it, up soon. Mal Haskins photo to left.

A friend of mine sent a link to this video, which I thought was interesting. I'm not completely convinced that doing pushups on a ball is a hell of a lot better than doing them on the ground, but doing pushups on a ball likely does more closely simulate grappling with someone while playing rugby, which is what this video comes from. Our discussion prompted a few thoughts on general fitness training.

The main idea I'm working with right now is that there is no "General Physical Prep" training in an absolute sense. We are all training for what we're training with, or, put another way, we get good at what we train. Crossfit is meant to be GPP, and it is more general than just power lifting or something, but ultimately Crossfitters become best at doing Crossfit. This point was driven home to me while watching the CF regionals in Canada, where only a few of the people in the event could run up a low-angled wet hillside--that was too specific of a skill. In my world that's a basic skill, but nothing can prepare someone for everything (and this is not to rag on CF, I think it's an effective "generalist" program for sure). There will be crossover in sports, but in general the most effective sport training will be that which most closely resembles the sport.

Some sports, like soccer, are easy to train a lot of--go run, do agility drills with the ball, etc. Other sports, like football, rugby, ice climbing in summer, alpinism, etc, are more difficult to train specifically for, and require "simulations" either with weights or specific apparatus.

I was thinking about all of this while in New Zealand last week for the New Zealand mountain film festival. It was a fantastic trip, thanks to everyone who showed me around! I ended up doing about six different sports and activities in my week there; it would simply be impossible for me to be at my top level for all of them, and even training for all of them would take more time than I have in a day. My legs were blowing out skiing, my grip was failing while climbing, and my head wasn't as strong as it could have been for speed flying.... I would have been far better at any one sport if I had just been training that sport, but my life isn't like that (no complaints at all!). I rely on my sports background and general fitness to get through this kind of week...

Right now I'm mainly doing only four main non-sport exercises in any given week: Squats, deadlifts, muscleups and handstand pushups, combined with front levers and a few other things tossed into the mix before, after or during my sport-specific workouts (climbing and kayaking most often, bit of mountain biking etc. tossed in there). These four "gym" exercises are the first to get dropped when my "health" load (see below) gets too high. These four exercises helped with everything I did in NZ, but it was my background skill level that got me through each sport. I also think these exercises help with my life; I like to be able to pick up a bag of peat moss, put it on my shoulder, and walk to the car. Not necessary, but nice. However, having that skill takes away to some extent from my other sports, that's just how it works.

All of this is leading me to look at my training in a new, for me, way. Let's say that at any given time I have 100 units of "health" available for training, work, practicing, etc. in a week. I know from repeatedly destroying myself that I can only realistically handle 100 units of "life" a week. Getting piss-drunk on friday will take away 30 units, or effectively ruin a day and a half of training. Flying to New Zealand will take away about 20 units... Doing Crossfit burns about 15 units a session give or take. A hard climbing workout the same. A big day in the mountains might 80 or more. Not doing anything physical at all will knock me back about 30 units of function a week, I need to do something. It's possible to push to 150 units for a week or maybe a month, but in any given year I'll end up getting really sick, injured, or burnt out mentally if I push past that 100/week average too much in any given period. Everybody has a different level of health load they can handle, but I've found it very useful to look at my life with this idea in mind. I keep a detailed training log, and I can go through it and see what happens negatively when I load up too much, and also what happens negatively when I don't load up enough in terms of performance at a specific sport. The positive comes when the load is appropriate and directed to produce the best performance.

Right now I'm about 50 units a week climbing and about 50 a week kayaking in terms of sports. Doing a lot of CF isn't going to work, nor is doing too much deadlifting/squats/whatever. If I accept my 100 idea I can organize my athletic and life priorities realistically, and not feel bummed 'caused I'm not doing "enough" of whatever. Or if I'm not hitting my goals then changing something. One of the people I coach had a lousy week where life destroyed her training schedule; her problem wasn't what to train, but just to scale back the damage to her 100 points to the point where there was room to train for even 50 points a week.

There is no absolute on this point scale, just as there are no absolutes with training or nutrition (really). The first step to understanding training is to do something, anything, and then to record that information and start to understand it. Then you'll know what produces performance results, and what 100 points feels like. It's been working for me.

Edit July 12:

I just added a photo of my training log from last week, a few people have asked for this. This is a typical "on the road" week, a big variety of stuff. Note that my "strength" workouts are relatively low volume, I know from years of experience that I can not handle highly destructive workouts after doing something like flying to New Zealand, doing a major presentation, etc. Or, I could do monster workouts, but if I push too hard while there's a bunch of other stuff going in life I invariably get sick immediately or injured long-term. This is why I keep a training log, so I can see what happens after I train, and what I was doing that worked or didn't, year after year. I used to keep a very detailed log, but this is what it's boiled down to over the years. Easy to track rough load (and tracking anything physical except weight lifted or time doing something is pretty rough). The single most important number in this training log is the total of all the days I spend climbing, kayaking and paragliding every year. Seriously, that's how I judge the absolute success of my year.

Edit July 13th: Some more good thoughts here on "Bedrock and Paradox." I like the longer cycle stuff and use that too. I do think the total quantity of work in a given sport can definitely increase with fitness, but not the total "strain." So, for example, if you're fit and climbing a lot of 5.13 then you can do five of 'em in a day and be OK. But if you're just breaking into 5.13 then that will destroy you for a week. A guy named OPT believes that if you are fitter you can also destroy yourself on a deeper level during a workout because you both do more work and get much better recruitment than a novice. The novice will be sore, but the trained athlete may take longer to recover from the damage inflicted. Interesting ideas.

Quick one

2010-06-28T05:46:00.003-07:00

I love this time of year: Climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, running, paragliding even skiing are all right out the door, and here in Canmore we have at least 16 hours of daylight to get after it! So good. I'm finally feeling totally healthy again after having my knee drained (bursitis left over from the winter), so it's been a recreation festival around here in the sumer solstice sun, yeah!

It's also been a time of a lot of work, including trying to understand the Lama/Patagonia trip. I've now spoken or emailed with pretty much everyone involved, and will write something up on that either in the next two days or while on the plane to New Zealand on Wednesday (stoked for that too, ice climbing in summer!). I think I have an inkling of what went wrong, and also some questions about the human psyche as always.

Finally, here's some humor for you. Kim competed in the Crossfit Sectionals/Regionals, they made a little vid out of that. Her coach too.

Have a great long day out in the sun!

PS--photo credit to my dad, he was in charge of logistics when we did a cool river link up day on the front range here (Sheep, Elbow, Cataract) in day, super fun!

William Naismith's rule

2010-06-14T10:45:00.002-07:00

Naismith's rule. A basic planner for figuring out how much distance a reasonably fit person on reasonably friendly terrain can cover. Then a guy named Tranter added a bunch of corrections for age, etc. This all came up in a conversation with Kevin McLane, surely one of Canada's most prolific climbers, writers, and general "give 'er" kind of individuals.

I have a few rules like this as well. General rules (with tons of exceptions).

Ten pitches of climbing fresh ice will pretty much take all day.

I can generally run about ten minute miles on almost any trail out there if averaged over the course of a few hours. Except when I can't.

Ten pitches of gear climbing at my trad standard will pretty much take all day.

Any approach not involving trails will generally take a "practice" approach to find the way in.

Eat every hour at the minimum or suffer.

Take twice the food and half the water in winter as you do in summer.

If your winter pack is bigger than 45L you're backpacking, not climbing fast.

A pack smaller than ten liters is a purse.

The farther you are from home the more you'll get done in the wrong conditions.

Put another way, visiting climbers are often stronger than the locals...

Camping is vastly over-rated. Most local trips can be done without camping.

As you get older your potential for injury while doing new sports increases and is inverse to your ability to heal from an injury...

And so on, this sort of stuff is fun for me to geek out on.

Sponsors, Knee, Blacking Out

2010-06-10T10:39:00.008-07:00

June 11th note--I just had a long call with David, learned a lot, and will fit those pieces together once I also talk with a few other people involved. There is both more and less to this story.

I'm chipping (wait, bad word!) away at the Lama/Patagonia cluster and slowly learning some new information. Lama and I will hopefully Skype tomorrow, bits and pieces of other info coming in but not enough to have a real understanding of what's going on. The comments on the last post have been lively, thanks for those. One misconception I'd like to clear up is that Red Bull (or any sponsor) somehow tells Lama, me or any of their athletes what to do in our sports. One person posed a question in the comments about I would do if Red Bull told me to bolt a crack. The idea is, to me, just wrong. None of my sponsors would think of telling me how to do a climb (they might justifiably crucify me if I were to add a bunch of bolts to an existing route. Bill B. at Black Diamond would likely hunt me down and kill me...). Seriously, I can't imagine that scenario. Some likely won't believe that comment, but that's honestly how it is.

How it works with athletes and sponsors most of the time is that an athlete gets a cool idea, works to find the money if required, and then goes and tries it. Most of these ideas are so out there that the sponsor could never think it up ("Hey, Will, go climb ice in abandoned mines, yeah, that'll be great! Ha ha...") I have never, in going on 20 years of relationships with sponsors, had a sponsor tell me how to climb (I have been sent to obscure places to drink heavily with locals and show pictures, been asked to do TV shows, some comps and clinics and other fun stuff, etc, but in terms of how or where to climb something, not once.). I'll be extremely surprised (but won't totally rule it out, weird stuff happens) if whatever happened in Patagonia had anything to do with a sponsor telling the guides or Lama how to do their jobs; that's directly on their heads alone, but as Red Bull paid for the trip the actions of those on the trip justifiably reflect onto the sponsor. Even if a sponsor somehow did ask an athlete to bolt a crack the athlete should say, "No," and explain why that would be a really bad move. No thinking sponsor wants their athletes to do stupid stuff that will reflect poorly on the company ("Say, Tiger, would you mind going out and having a bunch of affairs with strippers?"), it just doesn't make sense. This is partly why the situation in Patagonia is so puzzling to me; I know RB wouldn't say, "bolt!," so who was on the ground and what in the hell were they thinking? I'm really looking forward to the conversation with Lama. I really want to know how a cool idea could turn into such a cluster, and if there's a way to get a less-bad result out of it (and I agree that doing something positive for the Patagonia environment sounds like a good idea, but I'd want to hear more from locals who actually know the place, it's theirs).

Planes: I had a cool opportunity last weekend to go and watch the Red Bull Air Races in the scenic (well, not wildly scenic) town of Windsor, Ontario (Interestingly, Michael Kennedy, well-known alpinist and publisher, somehow grew up there, that's like a golfer from Antarctica or something, need to get that story one day). Windsor sits directly across the water from Detroit; you can see the GM logo on their building on the detroit side clearly. Both towns are getting hammered by the recession. But the flying was insanely cool to watch, pilots ripping along at over 300K only a few meters above the water (one pilot hit the water and flew out, crazy! 1:00 minute in the clip). Anyhow, I had an amazing opportunity to go for a ride in a two-place aerobatic plane with one of the best pilots in the game, the opening loops, snap rolls etc. were cool, but it was insane to nearly black out due to the Gs. Last time I nearly blacked out in the air was not good, and for different reasons. Anyhow, when you're doing a really high-speed high bank-angle turn and holding it for a long time the blood flow to your head doesn't work so well. But if you squeeze your abs, legs, etc. then you can keep blood moving through your head. It's disconcerting to see the blackness creeping in from the sides of your vision, and then squeezing your legs and having it recede. I didn't pass out, and I feel like I learned a lot that could be helpful in that situation in the future...

Knee: I've been climbing and training a bunch, which has been great, but I've had this swollen knee thing going for about six months. Finally went in yesterday and got the bursa on my right knee cap drained, all-time cool/gross experience to get the orange-sized lump taken down to something more manageable! I'm sore today, but I don't have my jiggly Jello friend hanging off my leg anymore!

David Lama, Red Bull, Patagonia

2010-06-02T09:44:00.003-07:00

Last winter a 19-year old Austrian youth, David Lama, went to Patagonia to try to free the Compressor Route. The actions of his film team and their guides have caused an international furor. For those not in the know, the Compressor Route was the scene of a complete debacle when Cesare Maestri bolted (bad style) his way up a big face on Cerro Torre, an amazing mountain in Patagonia. Maestri first claimed to have climbed the mountain using "fair" means, but few believe him, so he went back and blasted it with bolts.

Anyhow, Lama, a 19-year old prodigy, decides to free the route. Cool, that's a neat idea. But a film team gets involved and things get sticky for Lama when his film team and their guides add about 60 bolts to the climb, and leaves fixed ropes hanging all over it for months. If you're a climber you understand that this is really bad style on many levels. The climbing world has of course gone on a rampage against Lama and one of his and my sponsors, Red Bull. Lama hired some local guides to remove the ropes and some of the garbage, but the bolts are there. Lama hasn't helped his cause by declaring that he did "nothing wrong." Maybe he didn't put the bolts in, but his team did, and an athlete is responsible for what happens on his trip. Period. Ultimately the athlete has the power and the responsibility on any sponsored trip.

Without knowing Lama or exactly what really went on, I'm still very unhappy about this. Adding that many bolts to an existing route just isn't at all cool. In fact, I'm incensed about it. It isn't Red Bull's fault directly, but they did bankroll the trip--along with Lama's other sponsors. Much of the climbing world is rabidly pissed off at Red Bull. I don't think that's completely fair, but hell, I'm upset by this both as a climber and that one of my sponsors helped pay for this junk show. What's the best course of action for me as both a climber and Red Bull athlete?

First, I've contacted Lama directly. He's 19, and I bet many of us can remember that age and comment, "Yep, did some stupid stuff." I can imagine Lama arriving in Patagonia with a film crew, a few European guides (they are reportedly the ones who did the bolting for the film crew, the bolts weren't for Lama's climbing), and some bad weather. The Austrian guides want safe rigging for the film crew in the sketchy weather, bolts are safe, bad decisions are made in the interest of time. Lama may not even have really seen the repercussions of this; he's focused on climbing, not filming or rigging, and he's 19 so if an older guide is making decisions about safety and rigging he might just defer, or perhaps just not even get the issue (his statement shows he clearly doesn't get the issue actually). Still, as climber, you're responsible for what goes on on your trips. Lama is responsible for those bolts, and like it or not, so by extension are Red Bull and Lama's other sponsors.

Second, I've contacted a few of the people directly involved to see what the best possible solution is from their perspective (Rolo, Red Bull). Red Bull has always been one of the best companies I've ever worked with in terms of respecting what their athletes want to do. I walked away on a very expensive climbing project at one point because it just wasn't the right thing to be doing in terms of safety, and Red Bull stood by me for that. They tend to trust their athletes a lot, which is great but they certainly wouldn't condone something they knew was wrong. I'm sure this is causing some waves back at the world HQ in Austria. When athletes do something stupid--or great--sponsors have to deal with it. At the moment I'm most annoyed at the older European guides on the trip, they really, really should have known better and shown some leadership.

When I get all the first-hand information back from those involved I'll try to contribute in some positive way to getting the best outcome for this cluster, it's just not right. I'll post up here when I have some more information.

Canada Crossfit Regionals

2010-05-31T08:09:00.008-07:00

I spent the weekend cheering/coaching my wife, Kim Csizmazia, and all the other athltes at the Canada Crossfit Regional Games, which are a sort of athletic torture festival. Athletes at the Regionals have already qualified through a "Sectional," and a top six result at the regionals will send them to the Games finals in California. The competition is fierce, the events nasty, and the effort level high.

I wrote most of the following as notes on my phone during the event, so it's a bit rough, quick sort and here it all is:

Impressive:

-Masters. The over-50 athletes are strong, every time I caught a little of their action I was incredibly stoked. I would love to be over 50 and still putting strong numbers like theirs. Solid.

-Crossfit athletic skills. Double-unders (skipping two revolutions of the rope per jump, it's harder than it sounds), overhead squats, wall balls, etc. If you didn't have these skills dialed you were going home in the bottom of the pack. Watching someone bust out 50 double-unders without breaking a sweat is impressive, give it a try... The level is now high.

-Going hard. These athletes try hard. That "dig deeper" effort is a hard thing to teach, but Crossfit does a uniquely good job of getting people to reach way outside the individual comfort zone many people never leave. Respect for that, it's one of the most valuable things Crossfit can teach.

-Ability to do an incredible amount of work for short (under 20 minutes) time. Tire flipping, clean and jerk, running, going like a total nut case for about 10 minutes for the winners. I'm super impressed, that's sick.

-Physical results. The top athletes, male or female, were physically impressive, and also impressive for what they could do. I did a workout in a local gym one day during the event, it was funny to watch a guy doing bicep curls after seeing a CF woman bust out sets of 20 pullups straight (full ROM too). No arguing with the look of the athletes, if you wanna look good naked this stuff works.

-Good vibe. Overall very positive, pretty much standard stoke for any good athletic event.

-Kim. She has a hip that's been resurfaced, a gimped knee, she's 42 and many other things that generally don't help athletic performance, but she gave it the whole comp and placed mid-field despite starting this up only nine months ago. If she could do double-unders she would have been ten places higher. Solid.

-The women. Crossfit is a great venue for athletic women to fit in. Kim said, "I've found my tribe." There's truth in that. A lot of the world still would prefer women to wear dresses and sip tea in the shade. Crossfit is for everybody, but I think it might be uniquely suited to bringing out the athletic best in women. Cool.

-The mental strength of the top competitors. I always watch for this in athletes, it's usually the biggest determining factor between winning and not. The top competitors were STRONG in their heads, cool.

-James Fitzgerald, of Optimum Performance Training. This guy is obviously one switched-on dude. He was quickly on weak judges, always cheering athletes, and generally giving it everything he had. It takes an army of hard-working volunteers to make a big event work, but the tone and direction comes from the top, and "OPT" did a great job from what I could see.

I'm less impressed with:

-The run. It was a 5K run, mostly on grass, damp mud and paths, Kim and I checked it out an hour before the race and thought it was a fun course. It was supposed to be 6.7K but the organizers cut out 1.6K at the last minute because it was "too dangerous." I ran the "dangerous" portion of the course immediately before the event, it was muddy but not bad at all. You'd think a bunch of people with sayings like, "Today is a good day to die" on their shirts could handle a little mud and even the possibility of a muddy abrasion or two, eh?

-Running times/skill. I'm sure an average junior high school trail runner would kick ass on all but a few of the running times (which, for some reason, weren't kept, just places), and an average trail racer would destroy all the times (and a trail racer would get destroyed on clean and jerks, but these athletes are meant to be "elite" generalists--this level of physical performance is like a 90lb bench press). I ran most of the course with the men to see what parts had been cut from my scout an hour earlier, their pace was generally anemic (and I'm a below average runner), as were the times I recorded. I ran almost all of it again with Kim ten minutes later, she was gimping hard on her hip, hadn't done any real running in ten years, and still finished mid-pack (which is a good effort for her). Several women and men would have easily gone to the games if they hadn't sucked so bad on the run. it was obviously a huge hole in their training even compared to the performances of others. This level of running fitness is tragically low, and really rips the heart out of the "Fittest Athlete in the world" hype for me. Running is a basic athletic skill, the Canadian CF programming is weak on this skill, no way around it.

-Event organization. Crossfit is a young sport, and young sports always have teething problems, but this event really, really needed an experienced event manager. Maybe there was one, but starting the running race almost two minutes early (there were women running hard for the start line 30 seconds after the gun went off) and a few other errors I saw like that hurt the event's credibility. CFers suck this sort of stuff up (read this woman's comments on her wall-ball experience), but it's not right.

-Communication. Kim had to restrain me from going and grabbing the microphone and doing some announcing on the last day--there were a lot of spectators there, but nobody was getting any useful information or even PSYCHE over the PA. Here are some athletes doing some RAD shit, and the announcer has nothing useful to say at all about what they are doing, who is in the lead, fastest time in the heats so far, nothing. If Crossfit wants to make these games spectator friendly, and I fully think it's deserving of spectators, then it needs to be more spectator friendly! I was so stoked by what was going on, but unless you personally knew an athlete there was no way to figure out who was battling, or how the heat was doing relative to other heats.

-This lack of organized communication is a real problem with the Crossfit Games organization as well; the Games web site is getting better, but it's still near-useless compared to what it could be with a little work. There are no athlete bios (beyond the occasional "featured" athlete) so you can't click on a results or registered athlete page and know how old an athlete is, where he or she is from, what they weigh, sporting background, etc. I'm sure every CFer in Canada and likely around the world was checking the event out, it would have been a lot better to have all this info available, and it's relatively easy to do today.

-The hype, the "Ultimate proving ground for the world's fittest athletes," the T-Shirt slogans, "forged" stuff. This type of poseur rhetoric is a lot like the fat kid on the playground telling everyone how he's going win the elementary school running races the next day. No he's not, and you know he's not cause the kid who is going to win is out playing soccer.... Crossfit kicks ass on all general physical training I've ever seen, it is highly athletic, so talking big only makes it look weak. Talking all this smack about "being the fittest" is a form of "Compensatory behaviour" in psychological terms. When someone talks endlessly about how great they are they're usually not secure with their own worth or accomplishments. Crossfit obviously isn't very secure in its own rightful place as a worthy form of training and athletic event; grow up, get rid of the insecure hype, and celebrate what Crossfit is.

-Weak Calves on almost all the athletes. This relates to the run; most of these athletes must spend most of their time on relatively stable, flat surfaces, the relatively weak lower leg musculature shows it. More running, more time playing sports. "Paleo!" is a big rallying cry in the CF world, no paleolithic guy or gal had weak lower legs.

Overall, I completely dug the Games, it was a worthy experience to watch even if Kim hadn't been there. I'm proud of her, she put in a hell of an effort. Watch out in seven years, we're both gonna give 'er in the Masters!

Dai Koyamada Interview: Climb to climb!

2010-05-28T07:59:00.005-07:00

It's been a really good spring for interviews with top rock climbers. Climbing's "The Low Down" just did an OK one with Dai Koyamada, surely one of the all-time best boulderers on the planet. He is repeating cutting-edge problems in short order, while living in a country without very many high-end technical rock climbers (Yuji and a few others obviously are amazing, but Japan isn't Europe).

Part of becoming really good at any sport is hanging with the best in the sport, at the places in the world with the best venues for the sport. Surfers go to Hawaii, Sharma moves to Spain, Graham to Switzerland, etc. etc. That Koyamada does what he does in relative isolation is extra impressive to me. This "get together with the best" program is important no matter what your climbing level; the fastest way to go up a grade or two technically is to climb with people who are a grade or two better than you. Anyhow, in keeping with Ondra, Sharma and others, Koyamada describes his training as, yep, climbing:

For training I just climb in the gym. But I climb kick-ass hard problems and volume! And I also do campusing occasionally.

If anyone has any doubts about what basic training apparatus is required to become a stronger, better and higher-performance climber the last three links to interviews with the best climbers in the world should remove them. Want to be a better climber? Climb. Of course there's some art and science with quantity, quality and programming, but that's secondary and not that hard to figure out if just get a little guidance from a book, coach, friends, whatever, and track your performance.

Specific injuries, rehab, etc. may require gym time as Clyde Soles noted in the comments.

Personally, I'm doing some Crossfit-inspired programming for general fitness as well as short rock and gym sessions, along with paddling, mountain biking and running. Yeah, I'm a multi-sport mess, but I've got some goals that are going to require high fitness in three different sports, so stoked!!

My elbow feels good, but I am sure that if I push it too hard it will blow up, I need to build it up slowly. I'm also getting some great results with these thera-bar exercises, which is what I'm going to do as soon as I stop typing on here.

Today's workout is going to involve a short (45 minutes of movement) session at the climbing gym, followed by moving a ton or two of logs (we heat with wood, time to get next year's wood!), then driving to the Crossfit Canadian Regionals in Okotoks, which my wife, Kim, has qualified for! I'll likely run part of the course before she has at it this evening, busy day. And some kid wrestling....

strongest all

Rock climbing, Dave MacLeod's blog

2010-05-24T09:45:00.003-07:00

There's a lot of information on the web and in print about how to get stronger for rock climbing, but very little on how to actually get better at climbing. Those two aren't the same thing. Being stronger will help, but really you need to climb a lot to get better at climbing. Anybody promising that doing any form of non-climbing training will make you a better (better means climbing harder) climber is flat-out missing the point. I really mean that: If you want to climb better then climb, and structure the vast majority of your training around climbing or climbing-based skilled movements. Why this is so hard for people to understand I don't know, but let's flip the argument around for a minute: If you wanted to be a better Olympic lifter would going climbing help you more than doing Olympic lifts? No. So why would traditional weight lifting make you a better climber? I have yet to see anyone fail on a route because they couldn't do enough bicep curls, lunges, weighted pullups, or bench press. Not once. But I have seen those with huge biceps, quads, and pecs fail on 5.9, which is a grade anyone not clinically obese, missing more than two limbs or massively brain damaged ought to be able to climb on TR after a few days of actual climbing. Enough said.

Then I finally read something that actually makes sense, like Dave MacLeod's training blog. I'm sure Dave and I could find something to argue about in terms of climbing performance, but it might take a while. Here's a quote I like from the same blog about moving fast (one component of climbing well under duress):

"Climbing fast comes from being good at climbing. And being good at climbing comes from having a lot of routes under your belt. So if you realise you are climbing too slowly on a redpoint, but can’t seem to go faster without making mistakes, there’s no shortcut unfortunately - if you clock up more routes, you’ll slowly be able to make movement decisions quicker."

Lots more there, worth a good long read.

Now it's time to start rock climbing again. I'm in sad rock climbing shape, but most of my winter injuries are healed up (I can get my feet into rock shoes again, elbows healed up pretty much, etc). I'm also paddling a fair amount through May and June, and have a hideous travel schedule in June and July, so my climbing training is going to have to be effective to get results. I'm going to post what I'm doing with my overall and specific rock climbing training time on here, which over the next six weeks will amount to about 6 hours a week of actual climbing time at the most. I aim to be back to onsighting at a reasonable (for me that's 5.12c or so more than 50 percent of the time) level by August 15, which is when rock season gets really going for me, and when I have a few big rock climbing goals to throw myself at. Giddyup.

Addicts on Bikes

2010-05-21T06:59:00.004-07:00

Floyd Landis finally admits he WAS doping. I had a conversation with a friend about this just last week; I thought it likely that Landis was doping, but still had some doubts based on Landis' exhaustive defense. My friend said the lab screwed up, and he had a whole list of rationalizations and conspiracy theories to explain the positive drug test. Finally, the truth is out: Landis is worse than just a failed doper, he's a long-term lying doper. The guy extracted almost a half million dollars to defend his "innocence," but it was all lies. I wonder how Landis feels about that? I wonder how the people who gave him money based on his and his mennonite family's "ethics" feel about it all? Is there a lynching in the works?

I could almost have some respect if Landis had of simply said, "I doped, everybody is doping and I went along with it, and I got caught." OK, we all know pro cycling is full of doping, fair enough. But this circus that Landis put on has done massive damage to pro cycling, and bike racing at all levels. Who wants to be associated with a sport defined by lying drug uses? Landis of course accused everyone of doping, and that's believable to me. The mountains of circumstantial evidence around Armstrong's doping are just that, same for all the other riders. Whether they are or not, the Landis saga has now painted 'em all as doping liars. It's basic psychology 101 to never believe what an addict says; why do we treat these riders any differently? They're a bunch of addicts on bikes, no difference.

Why do I care? I guess it's because I want the best for all athletes. I want to believe in the power of the human mind and body to overcome obstacles. I want to believe in the Landis staging a dramatic comeback from a horrible stage. When somebody dopes it knocks my belief in the magic feats of athletes down a peg, and that pisses me off. It's childish maybe, I should be more cynical, but I'm not. One of the reasons I love outdoor sports is that doping, as far as I can tell, just isn't much of an issue. Some fool might be on the juice to climb harder, but I've hung out enough with the best sport climbers, alpinists, back country skiers and so on to feel confident they aren't doping (well, maybe smoking green stuff and pounding Red Bull!). When Steck climbs the Eigre in an incredible time I feel confident his ascent was "clean" from a performance perspective (insane from my risk standard, but not his).

Anyhow, I wrote about Floyd Landis back here, boy was I a sucker. My message to Landis, for what it's worth, is this: Fuck you Floyd, not because you doped, but because you lied about it for four years. You're Madoff on a bike, suckering money, support, even dreams from people, all the while knowing you were a liar. You're an addict; you can clean your life up and move on, but it's gonna take a long time of living well to get over this mess.

Some training thoughts from Steve House

2010-05-11T14:26:00.002-07:00

As most who follow Alpinism know, Steve House had an accident on Temple a month or so ago. I saw him in the hospital, he was a mess but in far better shape than not being a mess (Being alive sucks sometimes, but it's better than the alternatives). Anyhow, he wrote an interesting report on his blog, which got me going on his training blog.

I am a very firm believer in looking at what the best in any sport (or business or whatever) actually DO. There are many coaches who have a lot of theories, but I always look at the very best to see what got them in that position, and then work backwards. It only makes sense, but many athletes somehow follow some junk-science "program" that does little to nothing for their performance levels. In the spirit of examining "the best" I posted a link to an interview with Adam Ondra, likely the current best sport climber in the world, so that others could look at what the best did there. It is much harder to define "best" among alpinists, but Steve House is certainly successful, and is a thinking alpinist for sure. I think his training regime is instructive for anyone who wants to be an alpine climber, good of him to share it. Check out his training blog, it has some useful info and thought, and the last entry is an account of his fall on Temple and also definitely worth reading.

One of the things I'm working through in my own training is intensity, and Steve gets into that in a way I can relate to. About 20 years ago I blew up as a sport climber due to too much intensity, and then I blew up (injuries, headspace, etc) due to too much volume. As Steve notes, any training is training, and we can only handle so much of it. I'm feeling incredibly good at the moment due to a few days of rest; I was likely training too intensely in the last month, and not allowing myself enough rest. My back is still injured, but I WANT to train today, and that's a sign to me that I'm back fresh. If a workout is drudgery then you're over-trained... Get really overtrained and it may take a month or more to totally recover, and there are still sport climbers form the 90s battling chronic fatigue and other issues brought on by horrendously hard training regimes with famine-like diets, that was a very, very bad combination for a lot of us (we would all have likely been better off just eating high-quality food instead of the caloric restriction and resulting mental waste of time).

Anyhow, good reading from Steve, who I course wish a speedy recovery to!

Injury, and a few Crossfit mods as a result. Planes.

2010-05-09T14:45:00.007-07:00

I injured my back last monday, and made it a lot worse on Thursday. Now, injured is a relative state--I define an injury as anything that keeps me from going 100 percent, or having full function compared to historical levels. My back first "twinged" while doing the 21-15-9 Snatch/chest to bar pullup combo last week. I did it as prescribed, meaning 95 lbs, 'cause I can snatch more than that relatively easily, why not try? I should have scaled way down to do 21 reps of course... So this injury is my own damn fault, as most are. I felt strong on the snatches and pullups, and went hard, especially in the last set, trying to get it unbroken, and set a competitive time (ha!). I let my back round out a bit (OK, a lot), jerked the bar a bit (OK, a lot), and basically did piss-poor quality snatches (true). I was racing the clock, myself, etc., and not focusing on what is for me a technical and complicated lift, the snatch.

My back was darn sore and tender the next day, and not in the good muscle sore way, but it didn't prevent me from working out, and doing a quick paddle session across the Columbia Gorge in my boat (fun in the wind and waves!), as well as a workout at Crossfit Hood River on Wed (thanks for that!). But on Thursday my daughter was using me as a tree, and I was bent over with my back basically parallel with the ground when she jumped forward onto my shoulders. I felt something "pop" or chunk in my lower back where it was already a bit sore, and I've been messed up (barely walking at first but getting better fast) since. My back was strained a little already, my daughter just loaded it up in a weak position. Feels like L2, but hard telling, and harder knowing what is wrong without a lot of testing that likely won't add much to the recovery prescription, which is to go easy for a bit and then re-develop function and strength with time as pain permits. There's not much that can truly be done for back injuries, even surgery (for chronic pain vs. broken bones) has a relatively low success rates. Anyhow, I'm already doing way better, but it's made me think a a lot about about doing complicated strength motions for time (for me--likely just fine for many people, I'm just not real good at moderation).

My only other injury this year was a tweaked shoulder from doing kipping pullups really fast. The kipping swing is brutal on shoulders when you're trying to punch reps out against the clock. Hmm, does my mild kipping shoulder injury have any parallels to my back injury? Racing for time, complicated motion? Hmmm....

What I've learned from this:

1. I'm not going to do any sort of highly technical lift or movement with what is for me relatively heavy weight for time. Lift heavy, go for time, but not at the same time.

2. I will drop the weight to less than half my max on any workout involving a race against the clock. Or less--if the goal is more work then less weight may mean more work...

3. I'm not doing full kipping pullups anymore, it's too temping to use shit technique in order to squeeze fast reps out at the expense of my shoulders. Maybe I'm getting old, but for me the most efficient kipping pullups are done on a "relaxed" and therefore unsupported shoulder, mine don't like that motion at all. I've had almost zero should problems over the years, it was a surprise to have 'em with kipping pullups. I'll still kip, just not full-out butterfly kip, and I'l keep the support muscles of my shoulder engaged, not relax dead-hang style on the swing. If I can no longer support my shoulder I'm getting off the bar until I can. Plus "strict" pullups are more manly, no more swinging around the bar like a d-bag, ha ha!

4. I see a lot of videos of people doing CF workouts with rounded backs, poor squats, chin below the bar, etc. etc. (like I've done!), even on the main site front page. This sort of shit technique obviously helps to get a faster time, but I don't think it's a good idea in the long run, at least for me. I would much rather be a healthy athlete long-term than a faster CFer. You can't perform if you're injured.

5, My first goal for CF workouts is now excellent form. If a rep isn't done in good form then it doesn't count (for me). If my workouts lose ten or even 50 percent of "work" done then I'm fine with that, I fucking hate being injured, and both of my recent injuries have involved racing the clock and using bad form in complicated movements as a result. If you're Rob Orlando then maybe you can round your back with a deadlift of twice your own bodyweight and apparently not suffer injury; me, I'm a skinny-ass climber, that sort of poor form is going to leave me messed up, as it has twice now.

6. I'm not bagging on what anyone else does; give 'er. I love being stronger and more functional, I just want that path to continue and not lose time 'cause I messed myself up. If you can bust out 200 pound snatches for time without injury then you're rad, I just figured out that I'm not at this type of training and have modified my approach as a result.

So, form first!

In other news, life in the Gorge is awesome, I've been out flying a Piper Pacer every day (even with a tweaked back) with Kim's dad, Joe, today we flew around Mt. Hood, fantastic! I can even taxi the thing sorta straight at a walking pace now, that is one twitchy plane. I'm fine in the air, but I'm definitely not going to be taking off or landing it anytime soon. Amazing plane, feels like you're wearing it. The difference between it and a Cessna 172 is the difference between a Ford F-150 and a Lotus. In the spirit of getting slapped down that I'm experiencing this week, I'm no Lotus driver! But I am still having a damn good time, yeah!