News of Technique and Training

Hi Summit Post community.

I'm a recent transplant from Vancouver to Toronto (7 mos ago). Back home I was always a 'casual' mountaineer: mostly overnighters to some of the mainstream-follow-the-trail summits: e.g. Elk Mountain, Mt McFarlane, sport climbing in squamish, etc.. A few months ago I did a 3 day overnight sea kayak tour of the Bay of Fundy. While on that trip I realized that being outdoors really makes me happy (something I took ...

Last month I had a very nice time hiking the Liahona Loop trail. My first real hike ever! I can admit my main motivation to start hiking is to promote weight loss and burn calories. It has at once destined to become one of my favorite activities. The whole trail is well marked and nothing better than hiking on a clear sunny day, being overwhelmed by the immense beauty of nature. I was able to ...

I'm thinking of putting up a small home climbing wall. I'm not progressing at the gym like I'd like because its a long drive and I just don't make it there often enough. My goal is not ultimately bouldering but improving my strength for more technical trad routes. I'm planning on putting in a 40 degree wall in my garage with 8th ceilings so I'll only be able to string together a few moves. I'm ...

Hello,

Was wondering how you folks who are comfortable solo'ing class-4+ without rope got to where you are. I've been taking yearly trips to the Sierra for all kinds of class-3 fun, and would like to get to the point where I'm able to go beyond that if a route requires it. (Not necessarily sustained, but at least for short sections.)

There are climbing gyms nearby and I'm wondering whether to take up bouldering, or ...

I've read about adding internal guy lines to the tent set up to make the tent stronger in bad weather. I can't find much information on how to do this. Can anyone help me out with some links to instructions on how to internally guy out a tent? I appreciate the help.

I'm looking to improve my training for Denali. I'm looking specific fitness benchmarks. For example each branch of the armed forces has their own PFT standards. Anyone, particularly those who have climbed Denali, have suggestions about specific fitness standards to aim for?

For example: mile times or interval times (as a gauge for MaxVO2 output), pushups, pullups, bench, squat (reps/weight), etc.

I realize there is no substitute for pulling a massive sled up-mountain through snow ...

Hi all,

I've had an issue lately when training with a weighted backpack, and I'm not sure why. When I jump on a stairmaster with my 25L pack (loaded between 45 and 60 pounds) I experience rapid fatigue and painful cramping in my hip flexor complex and lower back, and especially in my right gluteus minimus.

I have always had some hip flexor imbalances and recently had some glute/hamstring atrophy due to injury, but it's ...

New to the forums, here, so let me introduce myself: climbing and mountaineering are something of a secondary pursuit for me. I am more of a runner and backpacker, but have always enjoyed getting a bit further up into the peaks, over the years, and have been along on trips up some basic, Alpine type mountaineering routes up steep snow or moderately mixed/class 3 stuff. And that's more or less the limits I really want ...

Hey,
I know they make left and right handed jumars, just curious which people use and why?

I had an interesting experience last week that I wanted to share. Bushwhacking (no trail whatsoever) through some very heavy blowdown. At some point after climbing over and under a bunch of fallen obstacles I reached into my pocket for my compass to get a new bearing. Compass gone. Obviously a rookie mistake committed by an old timer. I was about a mile away and 1000 feet up from the nearest trail. Moral of the ...