California Institute of Technology

Climbing News -- Safety and Techniques

This page contains links and brief summaries to relevant climbing articles, mainly concerned with safety.

  • WMI wilderness first aid course acronyms -- added 5/10/08
      The Alpine Club hosted a WMI course in Fall '06 and again in spring '08. Here is a list we compiled of useful acronyms used in the course; also, a similar list of acronyms (PDF) is hosted on the NOLS site.
  • Lactic Acid myth -- added 4/13/08
  • Backcountry Lightning Safety Guidelines -- added 8/28/07
  • Short article about electrolytes -- added 8/28/07
      Taken from "Bicycling Magazine", Aug 2007
  • Clove Hitch concerns -- added 5/26/07
      Analysis by SP Parker. Summary: the clove-hitch is a symmetric knot (i.e. you can pull on either strand), but on a carabiner, there actually is a right and a wrong strand to pull. You want the tension to be on the strand nearest the spine of the carabiner, otherwise the carabiner is loaded poorly and can break at about 40% less than its rated strength.
  • Cordelettes and friction knots (e.g. prussik, Klemheist, Autoblock) -- added 5/26/07
  • "Euro Death Knot" testing -- added 5/26/07
      Read the analysis here (by Tom Moyer) Summary: the knots fail by "rolling over". They can be relatively safe if you pre-tighten them very well and leave a very good tail. In this case, they don't fail until over 1500 lbs generally. Figure eight knots tied this way can fail aruond 200 lbs!
  • Girth hitching skinny slings -- Mammut's Dyneema 8mm contact slings -- added 5/26/07
      John Sherman, in 22 October '06, reported breakage. Here's a text version of Mammut's Analysis (hosted locally), or their PDF (which doesn't seem to work always). And the same PDF hosted locally.
      Summary: Mammut claims it was a fluke accident, after failing to recreate the accident on test slings.

    • General links

  • Black Diamond's KP page has some good general safety advice. One review is of girth-hitching slings to each other (using either nylon or BD's skinny slings). In general, he found up to 50% strength reduction, and the worst case was when one sling was dynex and the other nylon, and with one skinny and the other wide.

  • Tom Moyer's testing site has some good informatino. He's with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team.

  • Local Search and Rescue: Altadena Mountain Rescue and Sierra Madre Search and Rescue. Alpine Club members are involved in both organizations.

  • The club has many good books in the library (hosted at the Caltech Y). We have books on:
    • Wilderness First Aid
    • Avalanche avoidance
    • Climbing rescue (and climbing anchors)
    • Glacier travel