There are days when I’m reminded that one can get a bit soft from hiking and climbing in the Gunks. My first day in the Cascades was one of those days. Although short, the bushwhack in to the base of the White Salmon Glacier on Mt. Shuksan is reportedly one of the worst (it’s the worst I’ve done out here – lots of slide alder, salmonberry and a bit of Devil’s Club thrown in for extra prickly fun). I stumbled across an old Alpine Club of Canada newsletter in which the author devised a scale that helps climbers more fully understand what their climb is going to entail. The White Salmon approach is classified as BW4 in the newsletter – “Severe brush, pace less than one mile per hour, leather gloves and thick clothing necessary to avoid loss of blood. Much profanity and mental anguish. Thick stands of brush requiring circumnavigation are encountered”. Thankfully the brushy section only lasts a few hours. It seems that 3600′ is the magic elevation there for getting across several steep gorges with waterfalls in them.

My friend Carolyn Riccardi and I just wrapped up a week climbing on Mt. Shuksan and near Cascade Pass in the North Cascades. The North Cascades don’t have the biggest mountains in the lower 48, but they definitely take the prize for the most complex range in the contiguous U.S.  Despite modest summit elevations there are some serious big-mountain style objective hazards – loose rock, heavily crevassed glaciers, long approaches and serious routefinding challenges. For this reason the North Cascades have the become the training and testing ground for the AMGA Alpine Guide Program. Most guides in the alpine course progression inevitably spend a fair bit of time acquainting themselves with the subtleties of the North Cascades.

Our week was successful and rewarding. While we didn’t tag any of the major summits we did climb new, unfamiliar routes in two areas. The first trip, as mentioned above, was to Mt. Shuksan where we climbed the White Salmon Glacier and descended the Fischer Chimneys. Both of these routes are scenic, outstanding(and not super complex but not a giveaway either). We decided to descend from our 7000′ bivy due to a weak low pressure system that was dropping rain and sleet on us the morning of summit day. Without a tent or hard shell outerwear the only real option was to go down. After a bit of wandering in whiteout conditions by Lake Ann we managed to make it out and back to our car at the base of the White Salmon Lodge.

Our second objective was the Torment-Forbidden Traverse near Cascade Pass. We climbed this over three days (including the approach and descent) and didn’t get to climb the West Ridge on Forbidden. Carolyn was due to fly home early the morning after we finished and we didn’t really want to push it too much. The ridge climbing on this route is stellar, and the routefinding challenges and steep snow/ice on the first half of the route make this route seem big and committing. I didn’t get too many photos – it always seems that when the climbing is more demanding you take less pictures.

Marty from Alpine Endeavors, and three clients are flying in today, so by the end of next week I should have some more really nice pictures of the Cascades. Unfortunately, my camera has developed a scratch on the lense that affects how images look when the sun is shining at the lens. If you look carefully you may be able to see a slight blurry spot just right of center in all of the images.

The most recent Rock and Ice magazine addressed an accident that occurred last year in the Gunks in their “Accidents” column. The column’s title was “Chopping Block” and it presumably refers to the all or nothing action that occurs when you try to release a plaquette style belay device that has been loaded. The column doesn’t really address lowering with a plaquette correctly. My aim is to correctly address lowering safely with a plaquette in this post.

Belay devices like the Black Diamond ATC Guide, Petzl Reverso and a few others are multi-functional. They allow climbers to belay in two different configurations: off of your waist like a typical plate/tube style belay device and like a plaquette (Kong’s Gigi is the classic example of a plaquette). These devices are really a compromise; they don’t do either task that well. However, climbers on a quest to have one belay device that does it all, seem to settle for these devices all the time. The general climbing public has really been led to believe that these devices are something everyone should have.

Considerations When Using a Plaquette Style Belay Device

So when is it really appropriate to use a plaquette to belay off the anchor? Probably less of the time than you think.  I have listed some compelling reasons to use a plaquette style belay device:

• Belaying two climbers at once
• The likelihood of repeated, hard falls is low
• Smaller diameter ropes are being used
• Other things need to be accomplished while belaying

And now a list of things that might make you consider using another belay method:

• Hard to release or lower with a plaquette
• Hard to pull thick ropes, especially two – can lead to elbow tendinosis
• Only need to belay one climber
• Repeated falls are likely
• Occasionally the ropes will get stuck next to each other or actually flip around, negating the autolock mode, which means this device really can’t be treated as a truly ‘hands free’ device.
• Frequent lowering is likely, even short lowers

Both a Munter hitch and a Petzl Grigri (or Trango Cinch) work better than the ATC Guide or Reverso when hung from the masterpoint for top belays. They are both strong, smooth, and easy to belay and lower with.

How to use an ATC Guide or Reverso correctly

Most people understand how to belay and rappel using a plate style device so I won’t go into too much detail or instruction about how to use this device when it’s attached to your waist. Suffice to say that if you want to slow/stop yourself in this configuration you bend the brake (tail) end over the edge of the device and apply downward tension. You would never think about trying to stop yourself or your climber by holding the tail end along side the load end. You would have no braking power and nothing more than a simple redirect around a locking carabiner attached to your waist.

When using one of these devices while belaying from above you have two options:

• belay off of your waist (with or without a redirect off the anchor)and maintain the tail end all the time or
• use it as a plaquette off of the masterpoint on the anchor. I won’t explain how to set up the device correctly in this configuration either.

If you don’t know how to do this you shouldn’t be using one of these devices. The latter configuration allows the belayer to bring up two climbers at the same time and the device theoretically should lock whenever the climber’s rope places a load on the device. The device locks because the climber’s load pinches the tail end underneath the load.

The plaquette configuration is incredibly useful for climbers and guides on multipitch routes where time is a factor and other things need to be done at the belay (take pictures, re-rack gear, stack/lap coil ropes, etc.). It also allows a belayer to safely belay two climbers at once. The problem comes when one or both of the climbers falls or decides they no longer want to continue going up. Lowering in plaquette configuration is not practical and, as many have learned the hard way, can be downright dangerous if performed incorrectly.

So how does one go about lowering with a plaquette? The belayer must change the orientation of the device from “plaquette” configuration to “plate/tube” configuration in order to lower. This is where most people make their mistakes (and where magazines and even gear companies incorrectly inform unassuming readers/consumers). One useful trick if all you need to do is lower a person one or two feet back to a ledge or stance is “ratchet” rope down through the device using the carabiner that the ropes are wrapped around. Toggle this carabiner up and down and rope will slowly move down through the device. For longer more substantial lower the belayer needs to “flip” the device (go from plaquette to plate). Anyone who’s done this knows it can be really challenging.

How to “flip” from Plaquette to Plate

The ATC Guide, Reverso and Gigi all flip in very similar manners. When in plaquette mode you need to pull the carabiner (that the rope is wrapped around) away from the device or use the loop on the bottom to change the orientation of the device. Either method works well. However, when you flip the device you are turning it into a plate, and plate devices require braking behind the device. Therefore you must redirect the tail/brake strand before even beginning to consider lowering.

Flipping the device is the next step. Sometimes this can be accomplished using a carabiner or nut tool through bottom loop made specifically for this. Demonstrations and videos, like the one on the Black Diamond website (mentioned in “Chopping Block”) make this process look really easy. My own (and many others) experiences have shown that flipping the device is rarely this easy. Lowering is usually necessary after repeated falls, when the ropes are heavily pinched together. Flipping a device that has been heavily loaded usually requires using a 48 inch sling attached to the bottom loop (or carabiner) redirected through the anchor and attached to the foot or waist for extra force. This extra force fully opens the device, necessitating the redirected brake strand.

Black Diamond, in their user manual, suggests stacking a munter hitch off of the belayer’s waist when flipping the ATC Guide. This is one way you can add friction to the system. However, if the device flips rapidly (this is common with a heavily loaded device) and the brake strand is not redirected the belayer (who is attached to the brake strand) could get pulled straight into the device. For this reason I can’t really suggest using this method.

How to Lower Using an ATC Guide or Reverso off of the Anchor

Guides routinely use lowering as a descent technique, especially with beginners or anytime it’s not convenient or safe to leave a client at the anchor. Lowering is an underused technique and one that’s useful even for recreational climbers. Plate/tube style devices work brilliantly for lowering directly off of the anchor. Lowering this way is smooth and efficient, and has the advantage of being easy to escape should something go wrong.

Lowering should be done with the device directly on the masterpoint of the anchor, in plate configuration. The brake/tail strand needs to be redirected! A friction hitch backup on the belayer’s waist is a worthwhile thing to consider when lowering as well.

I’ve probably climbed more in the Kitchen (Hellhole) than in any other spot due to both convenience and the abundance of sustained challenging climbs that build great late-season fitness. I’ve begun working on e-guides to many of the Catskill climbing areas and the Devil’s Kitchen area is the first that’s nearing a more complete phase. I found an open source program (Hugin, which runs on Panorama Tools) that stitches images together well. Next year I’ll take better photos but for the time being I have a good image of all the climbing in the Lower Kitchen. Here’s the link to the page on my site. Check it out and get psyched. Only four more months before you get to dull your razor sharp tools again

This year I’ve taught quite a few SPI Courses, as well as crevasse rescue (sans crevasse) and rock rescue clinics. All of these programs have allowed me to think a great deal about skills that climbers of all disciplines should know before they decide they are self-sufficient.

Basic self-rescue skills involve the following components – belay escapes, load transfers, rappelling/lowering, raising and simple rope ascension. If you understand these skills you can extricate yourself from most (even complex) climbing rescue situations. Assuming that the participants have a basic understanding of knots, anchoring, and belaying I begin most clinics with how to tie off the standard plate belay device (like an ATC) and how to tie a few basic friction hitches. From there we rappel safely and then practice rope ascension. Once those basic skills are mastered you can add load transfers, raises/hauls, and work towards seamless transitions between any skills you might need to employ in a situation. A one-day clinic typically finishes with top belays and raising a stuck climber. A two-day clinic would spend day two solidifying skills and employing them in several possible scenarios.

The participants from last Sunday’s clinic asked me to post pictures from the day. I’ve resized all of the images. While they’re not the best images they’ll help you get an idea about some of the skills, and some safety considerations when initiating any sort of climber assistance.

If you like what you see here consider hiring a professionally trained AMGA certified guide (like me;). They’ll help you iron out any skills that need polishing and can help you build confidence in your climbing systems and knowledge. See you all out there and be safe!

No, I’m not talking about Atlantis.

A couple of years ago I got into a heated debate with a housemate of mine about whether Lost City should be a “locals only” area. Earlier that day he had seen a guide friend of mine there with a client. It frustrated him that guides would decide to take clients climbing at Lost City. He felt it was a “locals only” spot and that it was taboo to take outsiders there. However, when I asked him how he’d learned about the climbs there he replied that a “local” friend had shown him. And when I asked him how long he had lived in the area the response was a meager three years. I told him that my guide friend’s client has owned a house in the area nearly twice that long, and that she was climbing in the Gunks back when my housemate was still in his early teens wondering when he’d get to shave for the first time and what to do once he got it up. So who’s a local now? To me the answer seems muddy at best.

In fact I could care less.  I’ll gladly take the time to show any one of my out of town friends around Lost City. Hell, it might be the first place I take them. The climbing is fabulous – gymnastic, crimpy and sustained. There’s no road beneath you, and you get to hop from rock to rock so that you don’t harm the most amazingly large, green beds of moss.

If you want sustained climbs you definitely won’t find them in the Trapps. With the exception of the Workout Wall in the Nears, sustained climbing can’t be found there either. Go to Millbrook looking for sustained climbs and you’ll need to change your underwear afterward. Lost City, however, has sustained climbs galore, many of which you can toprope or lead(woohoo!).

Some of the locals have tried to keep Lost City to themselves. It is, however, decidedly not a local’s only crag. On crowded weekends it’s busy with “nonlocals” too (damn, how did they ever find the place?). Not as busy as the Trapps, but as busy as the fragile ecosystem above and below the cliff can probably handle. It’s no secret either; you can see it from the road, and the High Peterskill trail parallels the cliff from below. Jeez, there’s a parking lot with a flat trail that goes straight there in under 15 minutes (and a ranger who’ll give you directions).

A long time ago the Mohonk Preserve decided that they didn’t want a guidebook published to Lost City. For better or worse the local climbing community has acquiesced to the preserve’s request. That’s not to say no one’s written a guidebook to the area. This just isn’t true. There’s more than one local who could probably furnish a publisher with pretty detailed guidebook to Lost City tomorrow if they felt it was a good idea.

Myself, I’ll live without a guidebook to the area. Some of my best experiences in the Gunks have involved being shown new climbs by other people who are more familiar with the cliff. More than one of those people have become my best friends. As I started to think about writing a post about Lost City I did a little internet research. You know what I found? Not much. Mostly I found forum bitch sessions on sites like rockclimbing.com about how unfriendly the locals are about their precious cliff. Now I can’t get it out of my head, and it’s under my skin. I’ve never been a smug unfriendly local to visiting climbers, and most of the people I know aren’t that way either.

Not having a published guidebook to the Lost City is a blessing. It forces us as climbers to do a few very important things: to be friendly and open-minded and to explore. Climbing is about making friends. And, the things that most likely attracted us to climbing were the sense of independence that it gave us, the wonder of exploration and the discovery of new places and things.

Climbing is like an art or a trade. There’s some information in books and on the internet, but most things you learn get passed on to you by someone who’s generally wiser and more experienced at climbing than you are . It’s a word-of-mouth skill that you acquire over years, not overnight and definitely not over the internet. I definitely don’t sit at home polishing my climbing skills and knowledge in front of my laptop, that’s for sure. I don’t think there’s a climber out there who’s learned everything they know about the sport from books and other media sources. The beauty is in the process and the interaction. You make friends, find new climbs, appreciate the outdoors and realize that you have it really good. And good it is. Lost City is a very fine crag. Oh the Gunks! How I love thee.

I recently returned home from a two week trip to Red Rocks, just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Red Rocks is home to some very classic long climbs, many of which are moderate. The approaches are fairly long and the descents are complex. This area has become the venue for the AMGA Rock Guide Exam because of the long climbs with challenging approaches and descents.

Like many other things in life (relationships come to mind) it’s easy to get complacent as a climbing guide. Professional development is important for staying current on your skills and knowledge. AMGA courses are one great way that guides can receive extra training and work towards greater certification. Most guides that work exclusively on the east coast don’t need the full highest level of certification. The terrain is mostly rock, and much of the climbing is on smaller, single or multi-pitch cliffs. However, if you want to guide in places like Red Rocks, Yosemite, the Sierras, the Wind River Range or many other national and international locations extra training is pretty helpful (I think it’s necessary).

The American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) is a relatively young organization that helps U.S. guides train to become internationally certified. There are several other professional development organizations in the U.S., but only the AMGA has the full support of the IFMGA (International Federation of Mountain Guides). Passing your AMGA Rock, Alpine and Ski exams leads to full international certification and the ability to legally guide in many countries worldwide.

It’s fairly common for exam participants to show up in Red Rocks ahead of time to train for the exams. Additionally, spring exams are tough because most people are in ski or ice climbing mode up until early April. Prior to my exam I agreed to rent a condo in west Las Vegas with three of the other exam participants. This may have created the best possible scenario for training and preparation for what many guides consider a stressful 6-day period. It’s hard to have someone watch you do everything throughout the day. If you’re not absolutely confident in your skills it can make you second guess your decisions, even if you have very solid judgment.

So, the condo seemed like a great idea to me, and apparently it seemed like a very good idea for a few other guys too. Rentals in Vegas are relatively cheap and very abundant, especially with the soft housing market there right now. Jeff Witt of Exum Mountain Guides sent out an email expressing interest in a rental and Bill Dyer, Tico Gangulee and I had a place booked in about and hour or so. Upon arrival we met up with one of the other participants, Matt Pickren. He stuck around and slept at the place for the duration of the exam too. It ended up being a great way to relax, shower, hang out and make some new friends.

AMGA exams (I took a Rock Instructor Exam in 2006) are a great learning experience. They’re not a time for gaining new skills so much as refining your current skills so that you can become better at the subtleties of guiding. This exam helped me build confidence in my shortroping and shortpitching abilities. For those unfamiliar with the terms “shortrope” and “shortpitch” they refer to times when you and your climbing partners use the rope for security but stay close together. Security is a relative term and is frequently dictated by the type of terrain one travels over. If the terrain is easy (and frequently loose), yet not easy enough to remove your rope, you can move safely and faster with half the rope or less between the climber(s) and the belayer.

The exam went really well for me. I passed comfortably which was reassuring, as I’ve been honing my skills and teaching the AMGA Single Pitch Instructor Course for almost three years now.  I’m thrilled to be done with the rock discipline and very excited to begin working towards my alpine and ski certifications. I didn’t have the chance to take too many photos during the exam but managed to snap a few of my new friends on our training days in the week leading up to the exam. For now I’m happy to be back on the east coast enjoying our fine spring weather.

I started using NEice.com pretty early on for information about conditions at many of the areas around the Northeast. These days it’s hard for me to imagine a winter without NEice. The website takes conditions reports for all of the areas around the northeast and puts it all in one spot. It also keeps climbers up to date about exciting events and new route information on the east coast.

Doug Millen has been running NEice almost singlehandedly for about a decade now. It’s not his full-time job. He does it as a service to the climbing community. The past few winters he’s had some help from other individuals, but strictly on a volunteer basis.

If you read this blog there’s good chance you’re also an NEice user. If you haven’t donated to NEice yet for this season I urge you to do so now. The list of donors is pretty short, and the cost of maintaining the site is substantial. Any amount helps, and the standard donation is $25. Here is the link to the donations page.

Included in Governor Paterson’s 2010 budget cuts is the planned closing of 55 state parks in New York State. Minnewaska State Park is on that list. This would drastically change recreation on the Shawangunk Ridge, one of the recreational and scenic crown jewels of the eastern United States.

Minnewaska State Park is home to incredible rock and ice climbing, amazing cycling, absolutely scenic hiking, clean freshwater swimming and has a storied recreational past. The state park comprises the majority of the land on the Shawangunk Ridge (approximately 22,000 acres). The Mohonk Preserve and Mountain House properties are small in comparison. Closing the state park will severely limit recreational opportunities in the Shawangunks.

For rock climbers, Minnewaska is an untapped resource. Climbing there isn’t allowed there (except at Peterskill – a great little spot) yet. You’ve visited the Mohonk Preserve and you thought the Gunks had a lot of climbing, right? You haven’t even seen the motherlode yet. As a climber you’re jaw will drop as you approach the top of Hamilton or Castleton Points and see Gertrude’s Nose across the Palmagatt Ravine. And if you stand on top of Gertrude’ Nose? Well your jaw would drop upon looking at Hamilton and Castleton Points across the way. The carriage roads traverse under gigantic roofs and above sheer vertical drops of 30 meters or more. It goes on and on, all the way to Sam’s Point at the south end of Minnewaska state park. Unlike the Trapps and the Near Trapps the cliffs of Minnewaska wind in and out as they traverse the ridge top.

I could go on and on but instead I’m going to tell you what you can do to help keep this park open:

• Check out saveminnewaska.org
• Join the Facebook group “Save Minnewaska” – it has 20,000 members already
• Write to your state senators, assembly members and contact the governor’s office
• Attend a rally this Saturday, March 20th from 3pm – 6 pm at Rock and Snow, 44 Main St. New Paltz, NY 12561
• Tell others about this soon!

I live, work and play in the Shawangunks so this is near and dear to me. As a guide the closing of Minnewaska is going to directly affect my job and close a large portion of what I feel is the most beautiful parcel of land in the northeastern US. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think the ridge is an amazing place. I am thankful that a group of very dedicated individuals recognized the beauty of the place and had the foresight to preserve it. Let’s make sure that doesn’t change come April 1.

Well, I’ve just returned from a 2 week trip to Red Rocks. If you haven’t been there to climb it is definitely worth checking out. The rock is very high quality sandstone with a lot of features – cracks, flakes, edges, and tons of chickenheads. It’s a climber’s dream and a rappeller’s nightmare.

I spent the first week staying with some friends from Boston in a house (a rental). This worked out very well with people pretty much being able to choose who they were going to climb with for the day. The choices varied from sport climbing to long multi-pitch routes.

My second week was spent guiding for Alpine Endeavors. We won the lottery this year! Well actually we were one of the guide services chosen to receive a permit to guide at Red Rocks for 10 days throughout the calendar year. We ran one 5-day trip in the spring and one 5-day trip this November.

Here are some of my better pictures from the trip:

Having returned just returned from Red Rocks, my next few posts are going to be related to rappelling. I’ve been thinking that I will cover different options for rappelling, and the different rope systems you can use.

It snowed last week, was really sunny and warm this week, and it’s torrentially raining out there today. Welcome to late October in the Hudson Valley. A friend called last week to let me know he’d climbed Pinnacle Gully already and that I should come up to ice climb. Now why would I do a thing like that? There’s dry, warm rock in the Gunks for at least another month.

I was out yesterday with a client. The forecast was calling for a chance of rain and cold and windy conditions. Great for climbing. I had the chance to do a few routes with Vic Benes, of Millburn, NJ who’s been climbing in the Gunks since the mid-60′s. More than a full decade longer than I’ve been alive. It was a pleasure and we were able to do some classic routes that I haven’t done in a while. I can only hope that I’m as mobile as he is when I’m his age.

I have posted a picture, and you can see the foliage is definitely past peak, but it’s still very beautfiul outside. The yellow-orange color of the hillsides is unique to a few days of the year during the fall. Our climbing season here doesn’t really end for another month or more, but it looks like today’s rain and wind may actually bring many of the leaves down.