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Outdoor Gear News You Can Use

As you sit around the house bloated with turkey and stuffed with stuffing, take some time to catch up on all the latest news from your favorite outdoor vendors. Black Diamond talks with Exum Guide Bill Anderson about the extended column test for avalanche safety, quizzes climbers on the best way to rack your gear, and tells you dirtbags how to heal your nasty fingers. Got a Pieps? Learn how to check it. And while you're metabolizing that pumpkin pie, you might as well pull a little maintenance duty and evaluate your gear for safety.

Not to be left out, Petzl brings the flowchart to choosing the right crampon, Arc'Teryx showcases their down technology complete with a video on how to wash down, and even The Man has something for you; check out the new Global Mountain Explorer from USGS to plan your next epic. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good climb!

Denali Climbing Weather Forecast Now Up

The first summit of the season came early this year, with two climbers succeeding via the technical Cassin Ridge route and enduring a white-sphincter descent that saw their tent shredded by high winds at 19,000 feet. Preparation, judgment, technique and gear are all necessary components of your safe ascent and descent, start by checking out our Denali Approved gear!

Every year the Denali climbing season is brought to you by the good men and women of the National Park Service with a huge assist by Fort Wainwright's B Company 1st Battalion 52nd Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the Sugar Bears. These brave men and women fly their CH-47 Chinook helicopters to basecamp, getting valuable high-altitude mountain flying experience while doing the Park Service - and all us climbers - a solid by hauling thousands of pounds of supplies to build basecamp. Check out some great photos from past years.

Your first stop should be the National Park Service Denali Mountaineering page to look at the annual weather summaries and mountaineering summaries. Last season saw many fewer than normal climbers registered for Denali, the lowest number since 1992. Only time will tell if we'll be anywhere near the crazy 68 percent summit rate from 2013. The biggest factor is of course the weather, and the National Weather Service Denali Climbing Forecast page is now live. You can also get some stats at Mountain-Forecast.com. Be sure to terrify yourself by looking at it daily. And don't forget, this is your big chance to beat Kilian Jornet's speed record from 2014 on the West Buttress route: 11 hours and 48 minutes, set in June of 2014.

You'll want to schedule a regular check-up of the official Denali Dispatches blog, your source for daily-ish field reports and mountain alerts. Check it out to meet the rangers who will be working the mountain this season, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of Denali National Park, and the second year since Denali became the official name in 2015. Suck it Ohio!

 

By the way, you know what do all these organizations have in common? They are paid for by our tax dollars, so respect that and don't burden them any more than you have to. Plan and train to take care of yourself and your team on the mountain, and don't be a Jadranka! So switch on, get up there, have fun and most of all be safe. As always getting to the top is optional; getting back down is mandatory.

Petzl Expert Advice for Ski Mountaineering

Petzl makes an uncommon effort to provide free, high-quality educational advice on all aspects of climbing. If you haven't subscribed to their e-newsletter, get it done. Their latest edition focuses on ski mountaineering in particular. Since ski mountaineering pulls together such a wide array of climbing gear and techniques, it's a great primer on a lot of different topics.

First up, What's in Tony Lamiche's Pack? looks at 35 items included in a professional ski mountaineer's loadout. He provides a glimpse into his rationale for some of the choices, and as gearheads we all like to compare out stuff with other people's stuff, so go nuts.

Next up are a pair of videos: adjusting your crampons, featuring the interestingly unusual Petzl Leopard and Irvis models, and switching from skis to crampons on a slope. Who carries the rope in a group of skiers is a quick review of gear apportionment in a group in three specific situations, while ice axe usage for skiing is an equally brief treatment of that topic.

Finally, Skiing Around Mount Aspiring is a cool story with lots of inspiring pictures of a group of three guys attempting to traverse the biggest mountain range in New Zealand, the Southern Alps.

Patagonia Worn Wear Tour

We've all got stuff. Some of our stuff has stuff. And when the stuff breaks or gets worn out, sometimes we replace the stuff. Even when we might be able to repair it, if we just knew how.

Patagonia is here to teach you how. In their own words: "This spring our biodiesel repair truck will travel from California to New York doing free clothing repairs, teaching you how to fix your own gear and selling used Patagonia clothing. Bring us your tired, well-loved clothing for repair. If you don’t have any, we’ll supply it. Fix it and you can keep it. Join us for local food and drinks and celebrate the stories we wear."

Sounds like an offer we can't refuse, at least in the following cities:

• San Francisco
• Bend
• Portland
• Seattle
• Moab
• Boulder
• Ft. Collins
• Chicago
• Nashville
• Asheville
• Raleigh
• Fayetteville
• Brooklyn
• New York City
• Boston

Check the link for details:

Patagonia Worn Wear Tour details

Orvis 2015 Customer Matching Grants to Protect Nature

Since 1856 - seriously that's pre-civil war - Orvis has been purveyor of all things for the fishing of the flies and the shooting of the wings. They even have a store (pictured) with an 18-hole casting course. And no, we did not even know that was a thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that; hey, some of our best friends are flyfishers.

Anyway, like any good company Orvis does not neglect its civic obligations. They commit 5 percent of annual pre-tax profits to protecting nature.

For 2015 Orvis has awarded cash grants that match its customers contributions to four organizations. From its press release:

• Trout Unlimited, to continue its multi-year collaboration with Orvis on the Orvis/Trout Unlimited 1,000 Miles Campaign, the goal of which is to reconnect 1,000 miles of stream passage for fish in watersheds throughout the United States over ten years. This project will open up waterways through the repair, modification and/or removal of culverts and other obstructions.
• The Petfinder Foundation, for its programs benefitting shelters and providing homes for rescued dogs across America. This program, whose goal is to ensure that no adoptable pet is euthanized for lack of a loving home, is so popular with Orvis customers that it more than tripled its goal in 2014.
• The Chesapeake Bay Foundation to benefit its Oyster Restoration Program, which works to restore native oyster reefs in Maryland and Virginia. Restored reefs improve water quality and fish habitat in Chesapeake Bay.
• Rare, for its Fish Forever partnership in Belize. Fish Forever empowers local communities to sustainably manage their fisheries, thereby increasing food security, conserving important marine habitats and species, safeguarding local jobs and creating coastal climate resilience. The New York Times called the Rare method, “one of the most critical, and underappreciated, social technologies to protect ecosystems and biodiversity”.

Gotta hand it to Orvis, that's generous support of some good causes that we can all get behind.

Orvis 2015 Customer Matching Grants to Protect Nature

Denali Annual Mountaineering Summary 2012

Every year since 1979 the National Park Service has published the Denali National Park and Preserve Annual Mountaineering Summary. The 2012 edition is hot off the electronic press and required reading for everyone planning a trip up The Great One.

In 2012 there were 1,223 climbers on Denali and 6 on Foraker. The summit rate was 41 percent for the West Buttress, the preferred route for 93 percent of climbers. The average trip length was 17 days, the average age 39 years, and a record 162 women (13 percent of climbers) attempted the mountain. 37 percent of women made the summit.

Most climbers were from the US (730) with a slight plurality from Alaska (103). The busiest summit day was May 26 (56), but most summits were landed in June (280). There were six fatalities on the mountain: a climber fell while chasing a backpack at 16,200, a skier fell on the Orient Express, and four (out of a party of five) climbers were swept into a crevasse in an avalanche on Motorcycle Hill.

2013 is the centennial of the first ascent of Denali by Hudson Stuck's party, which stood on the summit June 7, 1913. The Mislow-Swanson Denali Pro Award went to Bernie Babcock of Alaska and his teammate Ben Smith of Montana. They responded to a request for help from another party on the "Shaken Not Stirred" route on the Moose's Tooth, rendering assistance that in all probability saved the life of a fellow climber. Way to go guys!

National Park Service Denali Mountaineering

Black Diamond quality control lab: slings and draws

You stingy bastard. You know who you are: the guy who insists his gear is still fit for duty as it crumbles into dust. Everyone is guilty of it, but we all need to take a deep breath and realistically assess the state of our gear.

Black Diamond's quality control lab hooks us up with pointers on how gear degrades, what to look for and what to do about it. This edition focuses on slings and quickdraws, but there's plenty more on their site so dig around.

The bottom line: BD claims two main factors wear out slings and draw, and those are abrasion and ultraviolet light. One interesting finding is that both nylon and Dynex degrade similarly from UV, and most of that 16% loss in strength happens in the first ten weeks. So don't think it's even over time.

Their next gear lab will focus on biners, so stay tuned.

Think you can outrun an avalanche?

 

Black Diamond tests the breaking point of runners

Black Diamond tested the breaking point of wet and dry runners. We're generally supportive of the abuse of runners - what kind of sport is that, really? - yet initially we were sketical; surely a wet person will break at the same point as a dry person. Then we realized they were talking about webbing! Nylon and Dynex specifically:

"Dynex runners don’t seem to be affected when soaked, which was to be expected. Nylon runners, on the other hand, show about a 10% decrease in strength when wet. Should this slight decrease in strength be concerning? Not really. The strength of these, wet or dry, are well above the product rating and pretty much any force that can be created in the field. Bottom line: runners are crazy strong, wet or dry. So even if my partner had gone for a ride during our rain-drenched climb, he would have been fine.
 
"Note: If your runners or other gear gets soaked, don’t dry it out in direct sunlight. This causes degradation and a potential decrease in strength. How much? Check out an entry from the QC Lab archives: Testing Old Gear from the VRG. Dried out and sun-bleached slings broke at around 11 kN with some as low as 5 kN. That’s 1124 lbf and getting well into sketchy land."

Read complete article at Black Diamond

If you live in Boulder you're a lucky SOB

Ooh, you lucky bastards! The Boulder outdoor industry is having a ginormous sale Friday and Saturday in Boulder, Colorado. We're talking demos, seconds, samples, discontinued stuff and more.

Top brands including Scarpa, Sportiva, BCA, Cassin, CAMP-USA, Deuter, Smartwool, Roxy, oh my Bag, Gibbon Slacklines, Simple, Sherpani, Wallaroo, Bonfire, Salomon, Kombi, Billabong, and Sea to Summit.

Portions of the proceeds go to various worthy groups and causes, so spend like there's no tomorrow! Big mountain season is almost here, so go big or go home! At 3850 Frontier Avenue, Suite 250 (12-6 Fri, 9-4 Sat) and 3550 Frontier Avenue, Unit E (4-7 Fri, 9-5 Sat).

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