All Climbing

Over the years, I think I’ve read almost every book on training for climbing. Always looking for that missing element to my training plans or that hidden technique I never knew existed.Obviously, there never has been a magic bullet, though many books would have you believe so (although I do recommend Training for Climbing). As a result, I began to re-evaluate my own goals and training plans and came to a few conclusions based on what I’ve read, discussed with various doctors and physical trainers, and my own background.

Clif Bars, a favorite of climbers and outdoor enthusiasts, has issued a recall for some of its popular products including Clif Bars, Clif Builderâ??s Bar, Clif Kid ZBaR, Clif Luna Bar, and Clif Mojo Bars. Basically any Clif product that has peanut butter as an ingredient that was manufactured within a certain timeframe may be part of the recall. The peanut butter came from a single source that may be contaminated with Salmonella.

From what I consider to be a somewhat morbid website, I was forwarded a link from Obit Magazine (yes, a website all about people dying, I don’t care how they try to spin it) regarding a climbing death at Seneca Rocks, West Virginia last Fall. The author reflects on her death and how other climbers at the scene reacted and handled the incident.

It’s time for the first in a series on polls here on All Climbing.With the significant number of you readers out there, I figured we could have some fun and gather some insight by having polls on a regular basis.I know most climbers (myself included) are quite passionate about their climbing shoes and usually have a favorite brand that fits out feet the best.

Stewart Green writes up an excellent and detailed analysis of a climbing accident at the Garden of the Gods, Colorado. Apparently there were two sets of anchors at the top of The Practice Slab, an 80-foot sandstone slab route on South Gateway Rock, but the climber used the older set.This climber, however, disregarded the new anchors, choosing instead to thread his rope directly though one of the old bolts.

Jonathan Thesenga and Brittany Griffith visit the climbing at Stolby, a central Siberian nature reserve, where all the locals free solo – many barefoot and with homemade rubber climbing shoes.Watching dozens of people simultaneously soloing these routes is amazing and frightening at the same time.

Adam Ondra sends the first repeat of Francois Legrand’s, “Roby in the Sky” rated 9a, in the Calanques outside Marseilles, France.(via Czech Climbing and 8a.

I know we’re a few days into 2009, but what better way to start the year off than to do a little retrospective of the top posts written on All Climbing during 2008. Last year was great and thanks for all your support in reading the All Climbing blog.These posts are the most popular over all of 2008 according to most page views for the year on Google Analytics.

In what is truly a great example of using new media tools for expedition reporting, Andy Kirkpatrick is blogging and posting updates to Twitter on his solo ascent of the North Face of the Eiger.Unfortunately, as of yesterday, it looks like he is retreating:Starting this morning I put my solo belay device upside down. I didnâ??t even have the energy to sort my rack and in my mind the eiger stretched on to heaven.

Following up on their climbing shoe rubber friction test, Spadout has recently released a belay device friction test. While highly unscientific not rigorous, this is at least a nice starting point for an objective debate over which tube-style belay device is best (they did not test auto-blocking devices). Their overriding view on the tests were:We believe two key factors that distinguish belay devices are the range of friction the device can provide as well as the maximum friction it can achieve.