Links
General climbing sites
If you think a link should be added, please email alpine@its. It would be nice to compile good links on avalanche conditions and weather, so please email the sites that you find useful. These links below are from the old website, plus a few new ones. There are many specific links in the Local Area Guide page and the Equipment page. Links are in no particular order.
Local rock gyms
See our
local gyms page.
General Mountain Related Sites
CascadeClimbers.com A forum for climbers in the Cascade area, but useful for other climbers. Info on Cascade climbs. They also run a pretty useful gear exchange.
SummitPost.org Perhaps the best overall mountain site; pages are created by users
Peakware World Mountain Encyclopedia I haven't used this site much, preferring summitpost.org
Great Outdoors Recreation Pages (G.O.R.P.)
National Outdoor Leadership School (N.O.L.S.) A big name in outdoor courses. Some of their courses are a semester long and may count for college credit (unlikely at Caltech). Many shorter courses.
Outward Bound The other big name in outdoor courses. The impression I have is that O.B. has less focus on leadership than NOLS but more focus on building character, but I haven't participated in either so don't take my word for it.
American Alpine Journal It appears the Caltech library does not have a subscription.
American Alpine Club
American Alpine Club's Rescue Insurance Might be a good idea, depending on where you are climbing and what your current insurance covers.
Sierra Club
tradgirl.com and their new tradgirl wiki.
A new Bouldering site: boulder.net using Google Maps to define locations of boulder problems
GI and GL table for common foods The Glycemic Index (GI) of a food describes how fast the carbohydrates in the food are absorbed into blood, while the Glycemic Load (GL) of a food measures how many carbohydrates are absorbed into blood (GL = GI * # carbohydrates). Useful for food planning.
Social Networking groups
Pasadena City College Rock Climbing Club on myspace
Arcadia Rock Climbing Gym on myspace
On facebook, Arcadia Rock Climbing is a user, and California Mountaineering Group and PCC Outdoors Club are groups.
Sierra Nevada and California Related Sites
395.com A website dealing with Route 395 through the Owens Valley, with weather info, etc.
The very nice
ice report from the Sierra Mountain Guides; they also have a ski conditions report (the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center often includes ski conditions in their avalanche report as well -- see our avalanche links for details).
Doug and the guides from SMG have led ice climbing sessions for the Alpine Club in years past. The Sierra Mountain Guides website has lots of good information on what to climb, as does the Sierra Mountain Center guiding service website. Both guiding services are first-rate.
Whitney Portal Store Forums, a good place for information on the Mt. Whitney area. Very active. Not as useful for info on the rest of the Sierras.
Mt-Whitney.info message board, for "Mt. Whitney, The Sierra Nevada and Beyond"
SierraClimbers.com Not a forum, but it looks like it has useful information. As of December 2005, it is focused on ice climbing.
Sierra Scrambles Yahoo Group, devoted to peak-bagging and such in the Sierra Nevada.
SoCalHikers Yahoo Group
California Mountaineering Group on Yahoo groups. Not the same as California Mountaineering Club!
Mt. San Jacinto message board
Mt. San Gorgonio and San Bernardino Mountains message board.
Mt. Baldy (aka San Antonio) and San Gabriel Mountains message board.
LA Trails.net hiking message board.
Summitpost.org's California forums
Mt. Shasta Avalanche Advisory
The Fifth Season, a store in Mt. Shasta. They have a conditions report.
ayola.com's Stoney Point website
climbingJTree.com, which
is now a part of the larger Mountain Project website.
Local Organizations
Southern California Mountaineers' Association (SCMA) at rockclimbing.org
Angeles chapter of Sierra Club
Central (Tehipite) chapter of Sierra club
UC Riverside's Outdoor Excursions program
UC Riverside's "Riverside Climbing Club" (check it out! New as of Spring 2008)
USC Climbing Club
Outdoors club of the Claremont Colleges
JPL Hiking Club For just hiking related activities, you might also try the Caltech Y, which also does social outreach activities. The JPL Hiking Club has been involved in trail building in the past. [note: you need a Caltech/JPL IP address in order to view the website]. Update: try the new JPL hiking club website.
Caltech hiking club
California Mountaineering Club (CMC) You can become a member, pending their approval, for $30. They have an email list for members.
The CMC's page of links
The CMC's 35 classic climbs in the Sierras list
Long-distance Running in SoCal and the Sierra
Angeles Crest 100, a 100 mile run in the San Gabriels, held every mid September. Registration without late-fee penalty is due around March; trail-work is also mandatory in order to participate (also limited to 150 participants).
SoCal Ultra Runners Grand Prix Series, with a list of upcoming ultra runs
Other types of links on the website
Avalanche Links including general information and information on conditions and weather
Altitude Links, a survey of the effects of altitude on climbers
Stores in the Sierra Nevada
Online Stores
Funding sources and major Caltech organizations
The undergraduate association is ASCIT; we recieved $120 from them in 2006/07.
The ASCIT webpage [we have a brief listing; you must be on campus or logged in to view it].
The graduate student association is the GSC; they typically give out funds as well, although we did not recieve funding in 2006/07.
The GSC webpage.
The new clubs.caltech.edu site -- we have a webpage on that server: Alpine Club site.
There is nothing there currently, but this server lets us run scripts and other things that we can't do on the ITS server. update Dec '07: this server is going down
The Moore and Hufstedler Funds, a source of major funding for Caltech projects. They have sponsored three of our grants in the past year, funding us roughly $10,000 (for new holds in the bouldering cave, and fully subsidizing a Wilderness First Aid course and an Avalanche course).
The Student Investment Fund (SIF) funds capital purchases. They gave us about $340 in 2006 for the purchase of ice axe and crampons, then about $300 more in 2007 for updating our library, and then almost $900 in 2008 for a portaledge. Thanks!
The Caltech Y is a large, multipurpose organization on campus, partially devoted to the outdoors. They rent camping equipment, and store our equipment for us. They also have meeting rooms. Occasionally they fund clubs. They have several email lists, including the Y-Outdoor list (which is not particularly active, although it's a good way to hear about major trips). We have sponsored several initiatives with them, including a purchase of the complete set of Tom Harrison maps in 2007, and a Wilderness First Aid course in May 2008.
Related Clubs
All ofo these have mailing lists
Personal Websites
We can link to your personal site - just email us the URL.