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May 10, 2022

Essential Peak-Bagging Gear Before Heading for the Hills This Summer

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 10:30 pm

From American conservationist John Muir’s mantra, “The Mountains are calling and I must go” to Jack Kerouac’s rephrase, “In the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn—climb that goddamn mountain,” we get why alpinism, skimo, and plain-old peak-bagging are so popular. There’s something uniquely fun (and sublimely ass-kicking) about mountaineering, whether it’s climbing Oregon’s Mt. Hood in June or dropping into the Super C Couloir in Portillo, Chile in late August.

If you dream of climbing this spring and summer—whether it involves Canadian icefields, Peruvian volcanoes, Alaskan steeps, or Colorado “14ers,” (and 14ers in disguise like New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington), you’ll up your chances of success (and survival) by bringing the right gear. Each specific mission requires a different recipe, but here are some basic ingredients for a safer, more comfortable adventure through spring, summer, and beyond.

Back Country Access T4 Avalanche Rescue Package
Back Country Access T4 Avalanche Rescue Package Courtesy Image

1. Back Country Access T4 Avalanche Rescue Package

Avi gear isn’t just for backcountry skiers. People who love mountains know that avalanches and crevasse falls happen year-round. If you’ve hesitated about equipping yourself with a shovel, probe, and beacon, the T4 Rescue Package is a foolproof option—offering core equipment that you can use from the backcountry and steep-deep resort skiing to alpine climbing and glacier travel. The package includes the Tracker4 avalanche transceiver, extendable B-1 EXT avalanche shovel, and quick deploying Stealth 270 avalanche probe—all state-of-the-art equipment. You can buy each piece of this treasure trove of safety gear separately, but save serious green on package pricing.

[$475; backcountryaccess.com]

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Trango Agility 9.1 Climbing Rope
Trango Agility 9.1 Climbing Rope Courtesy Image

2. Trango Agility 9.1 Climbing Rope

The highly versatile Agility 9.1 is rated to serve as a single rope, as well as in a double or twin set up. Light, strong, and extremely durable, it also comes with an optional waterproof treatment. The best part? The middle and both ends of the rope are woven in a different, contrasting color as the rest of the rope, so you know when you’ve reached the halfway mark or if you’re nearing the end of the line. Think of the Agility 9.1 as a safety net for big mountain objectives and an ideal tagalong for local cragging.
[$365; trango.com]

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October 5, 2021

OnCrux Liquid Climbing Chalk Helps You Get a Grip

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: , — admin @ 6:33 pm

Visit any climbing gym or outdoor climbing area and you’ll see the same scene: athletes with white chalk coating their hands, clothing, even streaked across their faces. Adding to this problem, chalk bags commonly explode when stuffed in a pack leaving moisture-absorbing magnesium carbonate dust everywhere. Seeking a lower-mess chalk solution, several companies have been experimenting with liquid chalk.

The usual alcohol base dries the skin and helps the chalk mix stay on hands, but still didn’t manage to stop chalk dust from covering clothing. So while gyms aren’t left with a dusty haze, climbers’ hands still leave an imprint on everything they touch.

This year OnCrux is taking that quest one step further with its new Cruxgrip Liquid Chalk—which stays on your hands and off your clothes.

OnCrux Cruxgrip liquid chalk in hand with climber in background
John Larracas

“It gets into all the holes in your hands and blocks the sweat glands,” says OnCrux chemist and co-founder Michael Doan. “This way, when you touch other things, there’s minimal transfer. It’s also a good thing for gyms because it reduces the dust levels and doesn’t clog air filters.”

To get his formula just right, where it wouldn’t separate on the shelf or wipe off on clothing while, most importantly, doing its real job of providing optimal grip, Doan went through months of trial and error. “You do it over and over until you find the right ratios,” he says. “I ran 50 to 100 tests before I got it right.”

Bag of liquid climbing chalk
OnCrux creates no-mess hygienic liquid climbing chalk Nika Kuznnetsova

With a 70 percent alcohol base, Cruxgrip Liquid Chalk is strong enough to be used as hand sanitizer, which can also be useful to help slow the spread of COVID-19 since climbing requires putting hands and feet on whatever terrain climbers ascend.

Though Liquid Chalk works as a standalone product, it’s most commonly applied as a base—before adding a very thin layer of dry chalk, such as Cruxgrip Powder Chalk. This is an especially important combo when it comes to competition climbing, says OnCrux co-owner Glen Suh. “If you’re not base-coating and layering loose powder, you have a disadvantage. You get a better grip on the holds. The liquid chalk helps the loose chalk stay on your hands.”

Pro climber and OnCrux athlete Sierra Blair-Coyle shows off a chalked hand
Happy hands. Pro climber and OnCrux athlete Sierra Blair-Coyle. Courtesy of OnCrux

Climbing is notoriously hard on the hands. Each time your hand slips ever so slightly (and frequently) on a hold, skin gets scraped. On demanding routes, where sharp edges dig into fingertips, the damage is that much worse. For minor scrapes and sore hands (and feet), OnCrux developed Cruxcare Handsalve. Like with Cruxgrip Liquid Chalk, the hand salve is fast-absorbing and doesn’t leave a residue on everything you touch.

Despite liquid chalk’s growing popularity, “most people still don’t know what it is,” says Suh. Of those who do, “about 90 percent of them say they like it,” he adds.

For those 10 percent naysayers—mostly gym route setters—who believe liquid chalk doesn’t do enough to dry their hands, OnCrux plans to release its Performance Liquid Chalk next year, which will include additional drying agents.

“It’ll have more coverage and dry twice as fast,” promises Doan, “so you can use less and get even more out of it.”

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September 24, 2021

Five Ten Hiangle Pro Climbing Shoes Will Help You Reach New Heights

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:53 pm

With giant holds bolted to 45-degree walls, today’s gyms are a far cry from yesteryear, back when indoor rock climbing mimicked outdoor terrain. Gone are the gray rock-shaped holds, replaced with bright neon blobs, triangles, boxes, and various geometric shapes and sizes. Climbing shoemaker Five Ten’s solution to these indoor-specific holds is to design a shoe specifically made for ascending artificial terrain. They also want to drive maximum power out of it—especially on holds with smooth sides. That’s why its new Hiangle Pro lacks an inside edge; this way, it hugs giant shapes like a palm over a basketball rather than skimming and scraping off them.

Made with a seamless 3D forefoot wrap of sticky rubber that tapers from 3.5 to 2.1 millimeters underfoot, the soft inside of this shoe smears over holds. At the same time, the thin-rubber underfoot feels every nook and cranny. This increases balance and power on tiny edges and slopers.

“The lack of inside edge, coupled with a reinforced outer edge, is totally unique,” per Five Ten. “As indoor and competition climbing has become more dynamic and acrobatic, the way climbers use their feet has changed.”

Winner of three innovation awards for its unique shape, the Hiangle Pro is wrapped in sticky rubber called Stealth C4, from the heel to toe, with additional rubber over the forefoot and reinforced outer edge. This way, the shoe securely hooks, backsteps, and adheres to large volumes and other gym-specific terrain. They also have an aggressive talon-shape toe area to deliver precision and power from the ring-toe to big toe. The design helps them fit snugly and securely. There’s a single Velcro closure strap to secure feet inside the unlined synthetic suede uppers.

The Hiangle Pro excels in gyms on the steepest terrain, where extreme movement and fluidity are mastered. Here, individuals and groups work out the beta (sequence) and help their friends on the send (making it to the top).

Five Ten's Hiangle Pro climbing shoe
Courtesy image

Reaching new heights at the Olympics

The 2020 Summer Olympics helped bring this language to those outside the climber’s world. It brought viewers to parkour-style routes, which means running and leaping over a series of holds to catch a distant grip, as well as compression style, in which athletes cling their arms and legs around the terrain like a starfish pulling in with all points at once. One of the most exciting moves seen in today’s gyms is the paddle dyno: You leap through the air with outstretched arms bouncing (paddling) from one hold to the next to secure an out of reach jug (big hold). This advanced movement is exactly the style of climbing the Hiangle Pro was designed for. (To learn about climbing terms, check out Matt Samet’s book The Climbing Dictionary: Mountaineering Slang, Terms, Neologisms & Lingo.)

Launched in Europe and Japan in time for the Summer 2020 Olympics, today the Hiangle Pro is available for U.S. customers looking to get the most out of their gym climbing, from recreational climbers to the best in the world competing for the top of the podium.

I found the shoes comfortable out of the box. Despite their radical design—which squeezes, wraps, and secures the foot in place while shaping it to a point at the forefoot—my forefoot and toes didn’t feel pinched, and the heel area felt secure and snug. There’s only one drawback: Because they fit like compression socks, removing them was energy-consuming, making me want to leave them on and keep climbing.

[$160, available at adidas.com]

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