Invermere to Canmore

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

"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...

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...

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

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

WG

Eat this

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.

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

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

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,

WG

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.

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

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!

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.