Ice Climbers Like American Death Triangles Too

The Viking discovers Jive-Ass gold.

Look! Two ice screws threaded with a piece of webbing into a textbook American Death Triangle! This ice climbing top rope anchor photo was submitted by climbing buddy Ally Imbody. That’s Portland’s own Keith Campbell posing with this masterpiece of Jive-Assery.

This is the first submission of the season from that jive-ass anchor Shangri-La, the Ouray Ice Park.  I’ve got a group of climbing buddies from Portland out there for a week, so I expect to see more coming.

Oh, and just by way of reminder. This is no way intended to be a disparaging commentary on the fine Ouray Ice Park. The fact that so many jive-ass anchors photos come from here is largely about sheer numbers and easy access, which I think I explained way back when in this posting. When there are over 100 ice climbing routes in one place, there are many opportunities to inspect ice climbing anchors. And invariably at least a few are going to be jive-ass.

Why will the American Death Triangle not die already? How do we make it stop?

Location: Ouray Ice Park, Ouray, Colorado, USA.

Mind the Carabiner Gate There Ice Climber

Oops! Check out what can happen if the crank handle on our Grivel 360 ice screw whips around into the gate of the carabiner we’ve got clipped into our ice screw. Kinda scary, eh? Yeah, I thought so too. The screw crank has cleverly opened the carabiner gate! Yikes! Don’t want to be taking a whipper on that thing, that’s for sure.

Here’s a close up for greater horrorshow.

Grivel-360-Ice Screw-Crank Close-up

My buddy Terry Brenneman took these photos while cleaning an ice climbing lead in the lower Ouray Ice Park. Before you freak out, assuming you climb with Grivel 360 ice screws, Terry suggests this might have been an early design flaw that’s since been remedied. “All my other Grivel 360s have a crank handle pivot which binds throughout its range and doesn’t flop around (see photo below),” he noted.

Current Grivel-360-Crank-Design left, Scary version on right.

As you can see, the current 360 (on the left) has this triangular bend in the crank handle wire to keep it from flopping about. The Grivel 360 Jive-Ass Edition® (on the right) doesn’t have it. It’s got some other sort of wire bend at the end.

Terry explains, “I suspect the rogue screw is an obsolete desipgn which made it onto the retail floor (purchased around 2007 but it was a good deal!). Don’t need this false protection jive-assery on my rack.” And how!

Something to keep an eye out for. Has anyone had something like this happen?

Climb safe out there kids. Ice climbing is hazardous!

Location: Ouray Ice Park, Ouray, Colorado, USA

 

 

Lara Croft is an Ice Climber Now

Lara Croft: Bow Shooting Ice Climber

I saw this large display ad for a new version of Tomb Raider while shopping over the weekend, and I just can’t help but to share it with you all. Check out those fancy ice climbing tools! Apparently Lara Croft is an ice climber now. She’s kicking ass and taking names, with her flare, and her bow and arrow, and her ice tools, which appear to be DMM Rebels, and both of which has an adze and neither of which has a hammer. Is she afraid of gashing her face open with an adze if one of those tools pops loose? Heck no. She’s totally that confident. Do you see a harness anywhere? No. You do not. Lara Croft free solos everything, always, because she’s a total freakin’ badass. She’s the Alex Honnold of ice.

What’s that? Where’s her helment you ask? Pshaw! Give me a break. She doesn’t even wear gloves! Of course the way that second tool dangles from her belt by the pommel with the pick swinging about at her knee marks her as a total NOOB. We’ll forgive her for that though, because shooting a bow and arrow while “on the sharp end” isn’t exactly easy. She deserves a lot of credit for that. Heck, I wouldn’t even try.

Actually, looking at some screen grabs from the game, Lara is a much more sane ice climber than the display ad suggests. Look at the image below. She’s got a harness, and a rope, and if you look closely, also a few ice screws. Of course why she’s tied to that other climber suicide-pact style with a 30mm container ship mooring rope is certainly a valid question. It looks like she’s about to take a whipper and I doubt that that other climber can hold the fall. It probably helps, in a situation like that, to have extra lives.

Lara Croft Suicide Pact.

Lara Croft Carries Ice Screws.

Location: Your XBOX, apparently.

Update: Sept. 29, 2015

Special thanks to Eddie Ferrer for sharing this Tomb Raider game demo YouTube Video, where Lara, with the climbing rope attached to a gear loop on her harness, takes a factor 2 fall onto the other climber who is not anchored, but merely attached to the ice with is tools. Awesome!

The Bow Tie

Holy crap, I am so excited to share this anchor submission with you all! It’s awesome jive-assery of the “over-engineered macrame project” variety (my favorite style). Beyond that it’s just bizarre. It’s from the Ouray Ice Park (hard to believe, I know) and the photos were submitted by Kent Bailey, who was visiting the park for the first time.  Kent calls this beast “The Bow Tie”, which is aptly named, as you can see.

Figure 1: An utterly strange ice climbing top rope anchor, macrame stylie.

As you can see, this is a redundant two point anchor. One anchor point is that simple loop of rope tied around the left tree with a knot I can’t quite identify. Here is a closer view. Any ideas anyone?

Bow Tie Ice Climbing Anchor from Another Angle.

That knot on the left edge of the photo: it doesn’t quite look like a bowline. Not sure what it is. At any rate, here is a third photo from another angle:

Figure 3: Bow Tie Ice Climbing Top Rope Anchor from another angle.

Let’s move onto the second anchor point of this redundant anchor. It appears to be the load end of that elaborate spiderweb of rope wrapped around the two trees and tied up in a bow. You can see it better in figure 1. Yep. Looks like that’ll hold. I think it’ll hold. Which brings us to the question–to the elephant in the room as it were: why are those two trees bound together with that macrame project of rope? Is the idea to keep one of them from uprooting and getting yanked down the ice wall? They seem like pretty stout trees to me. Is this intended to be an art installation? In the end it really doesn’t look all that dangerous. It’s just…well…bizarre. I really don’t get it. I think Kent put it best when he wrote “I’m not really sure what all is really going on in this anchor.” My thoughts exactly, Kent. This is Jive-Ass Gold!

Location: Ouray Ice Park, Ouray, Colorado, USA

My What a Long Anchor!

My, my. It’s been a while since we’ve been to the Ouray Ice Park, hasn’t it? So with no futher ado, let’s dive right in, shall we? These photos were taken by my climbing pal Ania Wiktorowicz just this month. I like to call this ice climbing top rope anchor the loooooooooooong anchor. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with a long anchor. At Ouray you often sling a tree set back 15 or 20 feet back from the cliff wall, so the length here isn’t unusual. But that’s not what’s Jive-Ass about it.

Tree bone connected to the sling bone.

Let’s see, let’s sing the anatomy song on this one. The tree bone’s connected to the nylon sling bone…

Sling bone girth hitched to…another sling bone!

The nylong sling bone’s connected to…another nylong sling bone. The…wait! Isn’t there suppossed to be a carabiner in here somewhere? Preferably a locker (since this is a single point of failure)? Nah! Just girth hitch one sling to another. We’ve addressed this issue before here, and here. This practice is, um…er…(cough! cough!) Jive-Ass.

And yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a freakin’ top rope anchor. No one’s going to crank that much force on it. It’ll probably be fine. Fair enough. It probably will. Probably no one will fall to the canyon floor and break both ankles. Probably not. But you really shouldn’t connect soft goods to soft goods like this–especially where it’s a single point of failure. “Probably” isn’t the same as “bomber”, and when you’re standing on the nice flat ground next to a tree, why not just go bomber?

My what a loooooong ice climbing top rope anchor.

And the final product. Try not to break off the sprinklers! That’s how they make the ice. You kids get off my route! And watch those crampons! This anchor isn’t EARNEST (no redundancy)!

Location: Ouray Ice Park, Ouray, Colorado USA