The essence of human-powered ascent, by any means, is a lift followed by a rest. When climbing stairs, you lift yourself then stand while hoisting your free leg to the next tread. When climbing a rope, it's quite beneficial to have similar options. It is ideal if your legs can bear most of the lifting load, yet at any point relax while muscles regain strength.
Enter the prusik hitch.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Glacier Training on Mount Baker
The climb of Mount Adams two weeks ago was exhilarating and exhausting, but an important element of mountaineering was [thankfully] lacking: ice. Glaciers present a new set of hazards and require specialized techniques to overcome them. It behooves every mountaineer to obtain training and plenty of practice such that, in an emergency, the mountaineer can immediately swing into action and apply rescue procedures quickly and correctly. We react how we train.
I was fortunate enough to spend this weekend camping with Brooke and Ryan next to a glacier on Mount Baker. Ryan had taken a glacier class from a mountaineering guide service the previous weekend and explained to us as much of the material as we could get through. On the glacier, we put these concepts into action. Here is a list of the glacier traversal and rescue procedures we covered.
The two-day trip consisted of the following events.
On Day 1, we: drove to Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, we hiked 2.5 miles from the trailhead to the camp site crossing numerous streams carrying glacier melt water down the volcano, setup camp, discussed rope climbing fundamentals, prusiked up a tree, had camp supper, enjoyed a view of the heavily glaciated face of Mount Baker, enjoyed discussion with some other climbers camping there, and I slept in a bivouac sack+thermarest+sleeping bag.
On Day 2, we: carried gear onto the glacier, practiced traversal techniques, climbed over some ice mounds, made all sorts of anchors, setup ropes, practiced rescue techniques, practiced self-arrests, ice climbed, broke camp, hiked out, and enjoyed a nice supper at a brewery in Bellingham.
What will eventually follow is a brief description of each of the hazards and techniques we trained for. The entire two-day trip was well documented, for the sake of both posterity and so I can review material. It will take several days to coalesce photos from two cameras and write things down, but I'll try to complete at least one section before the end of the week.
Coming soon: Prusiking
I was fortunate enough to spend this weekend camping with Brooke and Ryan next to a glacier on Mount Baker. Ryan had taken a glacier class from a mountaineering guide service the previous weekend and explained to us as much of the material as we could get through. On the glacier, we put these concepts into action. Here is a list of the glacier traversal and rescue procedures we covered.
- prusiking
- glacier traversal
- crevasse identification
- anchoring in snow
- anchoring in ice
- roping up
- self-arrest
- crevasse rescue
- ice climbing
The two-day trip consisted of the following events.
On Day 1, we: drove to Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, we hiked 2.5 miles from the trailhead to the camp site crossing numerous streams carrying glacier melt water down the volcano, setup camp, discussed rope climbing fundamentals, prusiked up a tree, had camp supper, enjoyed a view of the heavily glaciated face of Mount Baker, enjoyed discussion with some other climbers camping there, and I slept in a bivouac sack+thermarest+sleeping bag.
On Day 2, we: carried gear onto the glacier, practiced traversal techniques, climbed over some ice mounds, made all sorts of anchors, setup ropes, practiced rescue techniques, practiced self-arrests, ice climbed, broke camp, hiked out, and enjoyed a nice supper at a brewery in Bellingham.
What will eventually follow is a brief description of each of the hazards and techniques we trained for. The entire two-day trip was well documented, for the sake of both posterity and so I can review material. It will take several days to coalesce photos from two cameras and write things down, but I'll try to complete at least one section before the end of the week.
Coming soon: Prusiking
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Climbing Mount Adams
Mount Adams Climb Report. What follows is a somewhat meandering description of my climb of Mount Adams. I wrote most of this several days after the climb but didn't wrap it up until just now. One could conceivably annotate each paragraph with photos from the next blog post.
Mount Adams is a prominent 12,280 ft stratovolcano in southern Washington state approximately 25 miles north of the Hood River and 20 miles east of Mount St. Helens. In early July, its beautiful slopes are snow-covered and offers an 'easy' climbing route along its southern face that is free from significant mountaineering hazards - crevasses to fall into, cliffs from which rocks fall, and avalanche-prone slopes - making it a popular climb for residents of Portland and Seattle. On July 11, 2010, I accompanied my roommate Tim and his friend Rumi to the summit of Mount Adams in a single day's climb.
Mount Adams is a prominent 12,280 ft stratovolcano in southern Washington state approximately 25 miles north of the Hood River and 20 miles east of Mount St. Helens. In early July, its beautiful slopes are snow-covered and offers an 'easy' climbing route along its southern face that is free from significant mountaineering hazards - crevasses to fall into, cliffs from which rocks fall, and avalanche-prone slopes - making it a popular climb for residents of Portland and Seattle. On July 11, 2010, I accompanied my roommate Tim and his friend Rumi to the summit of Mount Adams in a single day's climb.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Blog Slacking
Since May, I've driven across the country, lived in Seattle for a week, visited San Francisco for a week, attended Emma's graduation ceremony, moved to Bellevue, written a whole lot of code, climbed several hills, biked all around, gone sailing, visited Illinois, and climbed Mount Adams. Shockingly, the only thing I've blogged during all of this is a simple quine I wrote in CUDA, and even then it was only to document having done it first.
I'm a slacker.
In related news, I've implemented a photo gallery for FanBolt that I also plan on installing on akerr.net. It should satisfy the purposes of this blog quite well. As there is a value cliff coinciding with ComiCon for getting the photo gallery into production, it better be working by the end of this weekend. At that point in time, I'll upload photos from each of the above adventures to get some kind of documentation to you [few, eternally optimistic] readers!
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I'm a slacker.
In related news, I've implemented a photo gallery for FanBolt that I also plan on installing on akerr.net. It should satisfy the purposes of this blog quite well. As there is a value cliff coinciding with ComiCon for getting the photo gallery into production, it better be working by the end of this weekend. At that point in time, I'll upload photos from each of the above adventures to get some kind of documentation to you [few, eternally optimistic] readers!
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