Guides’ Tech Tips
How to Dress for Mountaineering & Ice Climbing
January 9, 2024 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Guides' Tech TipsIt’s nearly winter, and I have started to gather my equipment together for my annual migration to New England for ice climbing and mountaineering. It’s second nature now, but packing for a mountaineering objective was overwhelming when I was first starting out. I’m gonna share my systems with you all- I hope to clarify and simplify all the stuff that’s needed to be comfortable in the mountains.(let's’ be honest- there are plenty of ways to suffer. Poor kit choices shouldn’t be one of them)
One important note when you are assembling your kit: Have your detective hat on when looking at gear. I’ve noticed a trend in the mainstream outdoor gear industry-street style is now being integrated into the design ethos of the kit. Ask yourself, Is it designed for the mountains or is it designed for Starbucks? Speaking of trends, Some of these same companies are also using the bleeding edge of climbing to influence design choices. The $900 ultralight Dyneema backpack or tent may be super useful for a trip to the north faces of the Himalaya, but for a first time kit that’s nowhere near necessary. All that happens is the high spe
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How to have Better Communication in the Mountains
October 25, 2023 fmg-adminGuides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingCommunication is an essential component of rock climbing. For decades now climbers have been using a system of commands to manage the inherent risks of climbing. Paul Petzoldt a legendary mountaineer and founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) developed this system of voice signals. He had realized that it is difficult to understand and hear the human voice in mountainous terrain. So, instead of trying to use sentences, Paul came up with a system that is brief and utilizes syllables. For example, “Tension” vs. “Slack.” Tension has two syllables while slack has one. So, even if one can’t hear the words clearly, they should be able to distinguish the syllables. While this system works well, it still has its limitations. Additionally, climbers have developed other commands which can be unclear in their meaning and aren’t cohesive with Petzoldt’s system. So, for this blog we want to explore a communication system based on principles instead of specific terms so that we can communicate better in the mountains.
The Principles of Communication in Rock Climbing(CAP):
Contract
The team must have an agreement on the
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Plus Clipping: How to Manage Risk in Multi-pitch Climbing
June 23, 2023 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingA factor 2 fall is a concern unique to multi-pitch climbing and is discussed during our Rock 401 course. This situation is present when the leader leaves the anchor and falls before placing gear. The scenario creates the highest possible forces an anchor can see and can lead to a host of problems. In this post we will discuss how to calculate fall factors and one solution to minimize high fall factors.
What is Fall Factor?
Fall factor is the ratio of distance fallen to amount of rope out. The largest possible fall factor is 2, which creates hazards for the team and the anchor due to amount of force generated. This would occur if the climber fell before placing any gear. Ex: A 10ft fall on 5ft of rope-10/5 is 2; we know that as a FF of 2. Larger forces on less rope puts more resultant force onto the belayer. This is a concern when there is hard climbing right off the belay. It only takes 3-4 kN to displace a belayer; and at a cramped stance, that displacement can get violent - violent enough to cause them to lose control of the brake strand of rope (due to their displacement into the rock).
Solving for High Fall Factors
Introduci
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The Munter Mule Overhand (MMO), Why is it Important?
April 22, 2023 fmg-adminGuides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingThe Munter Hitch
The munter hitch or Italian hitch is a foundational tool that serves many purposes in the rock and alpine environment.
The munter can work as a belay tool, to lower a climber or even to rappel. The munter-mule-overhand (MMO) is the munter hitch tied off with a mule hitch then backed up with an overhand. The MMO is a great releasable hitch that is integral to effecting any rescue involving a rope.
The MMO is material efficient, requiring an HMS style carabiner and a rope, and is easy to construct with practice.
How to Tie the MMO
Tying the MMO is simple yet should be practiced many times before being used in an actual scenario. You’ll start by tying a munter hitch in the loaded position, or lowering position, instead of the belay position. Next, you’ll use the brake strand to create a mule hitch around the load strand. Once you’ve created the mule hitch, you’ll need to pull enough slack through to then finish with an overhand around the load strand.
Now you have a MMO which fixes the load strand of rope yet allows it to be released under load. This ability is what makes the
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How to Belay Two Followers: Split Rope Technique
April 13, 2023 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingAs an ice climbing guide, I often use a split rope technique for belaying two followers (primarily to keep two climbers climbing simultaneously far enough away from each other to avoid being hit by ice). Recently, I've been using it while guiding rock as well, as I've found it to be a useful technique to streamline my systems.
Belaying in Parallel and the Problem
For context, let’s first discuss belaying two followers at a time, in a parallel fashion, on rock. Typically, we as guides (and competent climbers) have used a plaquette style device (Reverso, ATC Guide, GiGi, etc) with both strands through one device. Simple, right? It’s straightforward, until you need to manipulate the system in any way. That's why I consider it a contingent system. Both ropes rely upon a single blocking carabiner that holds both of them in place within the device. In order to remove one rope, we need some sort of terminal closure to keep the other climber safe while removing a strand of rope. The system gets complex quickly, and there is space for error in the potential mess. On top of this, the two-ropes/one-device system has a significant
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Layering: How to Dress to Stay Warm in the Winter
February 2, 2023 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Fundamentals FridaysWhether you are ice climbing, skiing, or hiking, the key to staying warm outdoors in the winter is layering. With so many options these days for technical outdoor wear, it can be daunting trying to figure out how put it all together. As long as you keep in mind the types of layers you need, you easily can find pieces that will help you stay comfortable in even the coldest temps.
In this cheeky video, AMGA Certified Ice Instructor Dan Riethmuller shows you a typical layering system for ice climbing. Critical layers include the following:
Baselayer to wick moisture away from skin. It should be wool or synthetic. Absolutely NO COTTON! You also want to make sure it's not too heavy given the conditions, or you'll end up too warm.
Midlayer, which is a light insulative layer too keep you warm while you're moving. Fleece and lightweight puffy sweaters work well.
Shell layer to protect from wind and moisture. Depending on just how wet it is, you can choose a "soft shell" or "hard shell."
Belay parka for maximum insulation during long periods of inactivity.
These same principles apply to your hands, feet, and head! For the hands, a
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How to Stay Warm for Winter Activities
January 6, 2023 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Fundamentals Fridays Guides' Tech TipsIt is officially winter now, and many people are eager to get outside to enjoy the beautiful winter scenery. No matter the activity, staying warm is essential to an enjoyable outing. With a little bit of planning and diligence we can turn what could have been a cold, miserable day into a fun, memorable experience. By following a few basic principles, we can begin to develop good habits which will help keep us warm while enjoying any cold weather activity. This post focuses on ice climbing, but these principles work for any cold weather activity.
To keep it simple and easy to remember, I’ve broken it down into three principles or guidelines:
Maintain calories and hydration
Dress appropriately: layer & stay dry
Anticipate conditions
Maintaining Calories and Hydration
To efficiently produce heat, your body needs to be well nourished and hydrated. Before a day of ice climbing, I like to eat a dinner high in protein along with complex carbohydrates. I also drink plenty of water to get ahead of the hydration curve. The day of, I eat a breakfast high in fat and protein with at least 1000 cal
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The Figure Eight Follow-Through: The Most Important Knot to Know
December 22, 2022 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guiding Rock ClimbingWhy Choose the Figure Eight?
Why do I choose to tie in with the figure eight follow-through knot? Well, that's easy: it's the knot we all know and can readily identify! The figure eight follow-through knot has many great attributes. It's simple, strong, self-cinching; it takes two complete motions to untie; it's fairly easy to untie after being loaded, and most importantly, it's easy to identify and therefore double check! That ease of identification is my number one reason for using this knot and why we teach it in our Rock 101 Course.
Over the many years of climbing I've dabbled with quite a few tie-in knots, and I always find myself coming back to old faithful. I’ve gone through the phases of finishing my eight with a Yosemite finish or even the Kentucky tuck. I've tied in with re-threaded bowlines and the brotherhood knot. I've heard all sorts of reasons why these knots are all better for sending or climbing above your limit. Things like, the bowline is much easier to untie after loading it versus an eight or, the "bro" knot is way more streamlined and keeps your tail out of the way when clipping. Yeah…..those things might be t
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The Fundamentals: A Keep It Simple Resource for Rock Climbing Information
December 19, 2022 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guiding Rock ClimbingWith the social media explosion in the last decade and the attendant perceived need to constantly create new content to stay relevant, we have seen post after post on Instagram with climbing “tech tips.” Some are solid, but more often than not, they are just “clickbait”--some new slick trick to make you like a post, but not something you should necessarily be incorporating into your climbing repertoire, especially if you are new to climbing. Given the limits of the forum , you are not likely to get all the caveats of a particular application or appreciate the qualifications and motivations of the person posting.
One of our goals with our blog posts Our goal with our Fundamentals Fridays series is to introduce you to (or reacquaint you with) tried-and-true fundamentals of climbing: simple systems, redundancy, back-ups, and preparedness, rather than showy, slick-tricks designed to get clicks. The reality is, most people just want to have a fun, meaningful, and safe climbing outing. We seek to provide you with basic knowledge that will apply in most situations rather than esoteric techniques that have limited value at be
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How to Build a First Aid Kit for Climbing
December 8, 2022 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingThe first aid kit is one item that I pack into my climbing kit no matter what. Ultimately a first aid kit should be an essential part of any kit for venturing into the wilderness. However, WHAT you put in your first aid kit can be tricky. There are plenty of kits out there that come pre-loaded with many of the essentials, but often they are lacking necessary items.
The longer I have been climbing the less I want to carry to the crag or up the mountain. Over the years I have worked on dialing in my climbing kit which includes my first aid. I used to just buy one of those pre-loaded kits and throw that into my pack. Eventually, I realized that there were items in those kits that were unnecessary and they lacked items I deem essential. For this blog I’m focusing on a basic first aid kit for a single day out cragging or multipitch climbing. If you’re planning longer trips, the items below will provide a good foundation to add to.
Prevention
Before I get into discussing the first aid kit, I’d like to emphasize that prevention is the best first aid. Of course things happen, which is why it’s important to carry first aid supplies, bu
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Second Coming: An Example of How to Manage Risk when Climbing
August 12, 2022 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guides' Tech Tips Guiding Rock Climbing Route BetaA few weeks ago, another guide and I were climbing with guests and witnessed an experienced climber fall and break his ankle at the crux section of Second Coming. This is a popular 5.7 multi-pitch climb at Looking Glass Rock in North Carolina. We managed to get the climber to the ground, splint the ankle, and help him walk down the trail to meet with the local rescue squad. While the injury was not life threatening, it resulted in surgery and an estimated six months of recovery for the climber involved. While climbing is an inherently risky activity, this particular accident could have been prevented. Read on to find out how.
The Route
Second Coming follows a beautiful crack system for roughly 300 feet up the south side of Looking Glass. The first pitch starts off easy as 4th class terrain, but around halfway up it begins to steepen gradually. The top of the first pitch is guarded by the technical crux of the route which has some polished foot and hand holds and is steeper than the terrain below. Depending on conditions and overall comfort level, this is where you’re most likely to fall. This spot is roughly 80 feet off of the groun
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How to Manage Risk with The Pre-Rigged Rappel
June 13, 2022 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guides' Tech Tips GuidingMost people know what rappelling is, but are you familiar with the pre-rigged rappel, what it is, and why you should use it? Essentially "pre-rigged rappel" means that everyone who will be rappelling from the top of a climb sets up their rappel device before anyone leaves the rappel station. For example, if you are in a party of three at the top of multi-pitch climb, all three of you would set up your rappel devices on the rope before the first person rappels. Why would you want to do this? We'll explore that below and also discuss how to set it up.
Rappelling Fundamentals
When I’m teaching newer climbers, one of the first questions I ask is, “what is our primary level of security when climbing a route?” Most times, people will answer “the rope.” Though the rope is certainly an integral part of climbing, it is only a backup to our movement. Our ability to climb is our first level of security, and then the fall protection system (rope, bolts, gear, belay, etc…) is in place to arrest a fall. While climbing up, the rope is just a component of the backup system we have in place. This totally changes however when it is time to desce
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How to: Tethering on Multipitch Rock Climbs
December 15, 2021 fmg-adminFundamentals Fridays Guiding Rock ClimbingWhen multipitch climbing, it is imperative that we attach ourselves to the rock with some form of tether. After I first got into multipitch climbing, many people were using daisy chains as a method of securing themselves to the mountain. Due to my lack of experience at the time, I assumed that this was a standard and safe practice. Fast forward a few years, and I learned that daisy chains are intended for aid climbing and are not designed to be used as a personal anchoring system (PAS), and in fact can be dangerous if used as such. I ditched my daisy chain and started attaching myself with a sling, or sometimes two slings. While not an unsafe practice, I learned that this system is unnecessary, inefficient, and creates clutter at the anchor. Eventually I learned the practice of anchoring myself by tying a clove hitch into the rope I’m attached to and securing the clove to a locking carabiner on the master point of the anchor.
Clove Hitch Tether
When I first discovered using the clove hitch, I felt stupid for not learning it sooner. “How simple but utterly genius!” I thought. By attaching yourself to the anchor with the rope, yo
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Choosing Your First Multi-pitch Climb!
September 27, 2021 fmg-adminGuides' Tech Tips Rock Climbing Route BetaWe recently posted a photo of a party doing their first multi-pitch climb with us and had several calls from people wanting to do the same. While climbing your first multi-pitch climb with a guide is a great way to get started, not everyone wants to hire a guide; they would prefer to tackle their first mp climb on their own. With that in mind, we have some suggestions for how to choose your first multi-pitch climb because finding a route that is appropriate for a climber who is just starting to break into this terrain is a bit more complicated than finding a long, easy line: the YDS grade isn’t everything!
Following are some criteria to help you have a positive experience when you leave terra firma behind:
Easy Route Finding
Getting off route exposes the entire party to greater hazard. There may not be protection, the climbing could be much more difficult than anticipated, the consequence of a fall can increase significantly, and it wastes time (there are only so many hours of sunlight in a day). Being able to easily follow a route saves time and frees up mental bandwidth to problem solve team protection and stance organization. It
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Unsponsored, Unaffiliated, Unbiased, and Unfiltered Gear (and Travel) Recommendations
September 14, 2021 fmg-adminGear Reviews Guides' Tech Tips Travel Recommendations and TipsClimbing gear is great. FREE climbing gear is awesome! I mean, who doesn't love free gear? We all certainly do, but our guides also want to be able to make gear recommendations to you based on their personal favorites and not because they are sponsored by a particular company. With sponsorships and partnerships so ubiquitous in the climbing industry these days, it can be hard to know if someone making a recommendation "really" prefers a particular item or is perhaps making a decision that's influenced by their sponsorship. Sometimes you even see recommendations on a forum where the person answering says, "Even though I'm sponsored by ___________, I really do think their __________ (rope, shoes, helmet, etc) is the best." Really, I do. But how can you be sure?
Petey in his Misty Cadillac harness
Because of this dilemma, we as a company made a decision over a year ago to forgo sponsorships so we can allow our guides to recommend their favorite gear without bias. We give them a yearly gear allowance to purchase whatever climbing gear they want to try rather than requiring them to wear and promote a particular harness or brand of shoes or rope
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Simul-Rappelling: Is it Worth it?
May 18, 2021 fmg-adminGuides' Tech Tips Guiding Rock ClimbingSimul-rappelling is a technique that is touted as being a faster method of rappelling as a team of two. However, it comes with far more risk than the traditional rappel setup and requires several extra steps in order to mitigate that risk. A quick google search on simul-rappelling accidents will reveal several incidents that have occurred over the years including the more recent accident resulting in the tragic death of Brad Gobright. Read the accident report for Brad Gobright here. There is a way to simul-rappel safely which involves tying stopper knots into both ends of rope, using an autoblock backup below each climbers device, tethering each other together, and knowing without a doubt that both strands reach the next rappel station. So, is simul-rappelling worth doing for the sake of expediency?
After all the safety measures are in place, it can be argued that simul-rappelling is not any faster than a standard rappel and likely takes more time. Additionally, we’ve found that there are other methods of descent that are quicker and safer than simul-rappelling. One such method is the pre-rigged rappel, a method where everyone in t
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Train Locally, Climb Globally: The 5 C’s of Training
April 27, 2021 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Guides' Tech Tips The Guides' Climbing AdventuresTraining. It’s a critical portion of any adventure, whether around the corner or across the world. We train to get our bodies and minds accustomed to the stresses and pressures of our destination, and in an ideal world, I would want to train as globally as I climb. That being said, work and family responsibility often take priority. Otherwise, I'd be on a permanent vacation to train!
I’m guiding Denali this summer with International Mountain Guides after having guided Rainier the last few summers, and I’ve been training all spring down here in North Carolina while guiding for FMG. We have an incredible resource in forests and public lands, and I use them to their fullest extent! Here’s how I train locally to climb globally. I have five “Cs” that I use to focus my training.
First, I work CARDIO. I run closed forest roads. They are a happy medium between full-on trail running and pounding pavement. I’ve found I can keep my heart rate closer to the aerobic thresholds that I want on forest roads than on trails. I’ll still run trails, for sure, and especially when I’m going for a longer, distance
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Beginning Trad Rack: What to Buy and What to Skip-2.0
December 1, 2020 fmg-adminGear Reviews Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingA lot has changed since our original “Beginning Trad Rack: What to Buy and What to Skip” blog post in 2017. Black Diamond discontinued the much-loved C3 Camalots, updated the C4, discontinued the short-lived X4 line, and replaced it with a new line called the Z4, which is supposed to take advantage of the best features of the X4 but eliminate the floppiness so many people found difficult to deal with. Our guides have been putting these new cams through their paces since they were introduced earlier this year and have some updated recommendations for you based on their findings.
Standard Rack
Cams: BD Z4 0.2; doubles of C4 0.3-3
Nuts: BD Stopper set #4-13
Set of Tricam Evos, black through brown plus violet and blue regular tricams
Minimalist (cheapest) Rack
Cams: BD Z4 0.2 and C4 0.3-3
Nuts: BD Classic Stopper set (#5-11)
Set of Tricam Evos, black through brown
High-End Standard Rack
Cams: BD Z4 0.2, doubles; C4 doubles 0.3-3 plus a 4 and 5
Nuts: BD Stopper set #4-13
Tricam black-brown Evos plus violet and blue regular tricams
Rationale for These Choices
Z4 vs. C4 (
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Sport Draws vs. Alpine Draws
January 14, 2020 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingAs a result of this video posted by Rock and Ice on their Weekend Whipper series, I have been getting lots of questions about what type of draws I use on sport climbs, sport draws or alpine draws.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdY1Ow0Q-Fo
Easy answer: sport draws. For the “why,” read below, but in the meantime, here is a list of the types of draws I carry for the different types of climbing I do:
Sport Climbing:
Petzl Spirit Draws (one extra from number of bolts on the pitch)
Trad Climbing:**
2-4 sport draws
2 over the shoulder slings (one carabiner)
2-4 alpine draws
**For a complete list of the gear I take trad climbing, see my post on trad racks.
Alpine Climbing:
1-2 sport draws
1-2 over the shoulder slings (one carabiner)
3-5 alpine draws
Ice Climbing:
6-8 sport draws
2-3 alpine draws
As with many aspects of climbing, the “why” choose one draw over another can be a bit confusing. Each has advantages and disadvantages, which I take into consideration when choosing what gear to carry.
Let’s start with alpine draws. Most of us use dyneema slings and so
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The Well-Dressed Figure Eight Knot: Start Hard, Finish Easy
July 17, 2018 fmg-adminAlpine & Ice Climbing Guides' Tech Tips Rock ClimbingWhy is a well-dressed figure eight knot even important? A messy eight will hold just as well as a neat one, so what's the big deal? In climbing, the main reason most people tie in with a figure eight (and why the vast majority of climbing gyms require it) is because it is easy to recognize and therefore verify that it is tied correctly and will perform as expected. So dressing the figure eight is an important step in tying it as it will make it even easier to identify.
To properly dress the knot we can use a technique called start hard, finish easy. We start by pushing the standing part of the rope over while poking the working end through the hole this forms.
Once this step is complete, the working end only passes through the knot two more times. Both of these passes should be "easy." The video below illustrates this simple process:
[embed]https://youtu.be/D_Fmb8C_gqo[/embed]
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