New Petzl Lynx Crampon!

This should stoke up the ice and alpine climbers



The new Lynx crampons from Petzl offers a forged and easily replaceable monopoint or dual point option all done with a single bolt and spacer size with nothing else to cut or "screw" around with! And they are about to be introduced here in North Americalater this week. Typical Petzl designquality. Some cool innovations like having the option of twosetsof boot toe attachment systems with the same crampon. Mono point can be centered or off set, your choice! The front points (single or dbl) can also be adjusted forwards or back or off set, along with twoversions of the toe bail. Much lighter as wellthan the past M10 version.And a much better bott system than the M10. Although I haven't had a chance to weigh a pair yet likely the lightest crampon on the market with replaceable forged front points. Better yet IMO a full set of 12 (yes twelve) down points in addition to the forged front points. Full botts as well. Finally a company did it all in one package! Petzl hasjust upped the game, again!



I'll do a complete review once I get my hands on a pair! (or even better a pair on my boots ;) Delivery should be Nov. , may be even a bit earlier! Retail is being quoted currently @ $240.



Reported weights are:



1080 g (configuration with two points and ANTISNOW)



910 g (configuration with one point, no ANTISNOW)













Shown above for an easy comparisonis theearlier Petzl M10 that is now discontinued.







And thethe obvious rivals that will be slugging it out next winter. And a previous review of the newest BD Stinger here:



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//01/preview-of-fall--black-diamond.html?showComment=1313220566067#c8734409473319898100





This follow up came later from Petzl:

The new Lynx crampon from Petzl offers a forged and easily replaceable monopoint or dual point. The Lynx will replace the M10. A much lighter replacement and should make a lot of people happy.



Modular crampon for ice and mixed climbing, with new LEVERLOCK universal bindings



From snow couloirs to dry tooling, the LYNX is a versatile crampon. Modular front points allow for many options: dual or mono-point, long or short, and/or asymmetrical. They come with two types of interchangeable front bindings to adapt to boots with or without toe welts.



Selling points:



• Versatile crampons for ice and mixed climbing

• Configuration and length of front points can be modified with one screw:

dual points in short, long or asymmetrical position

offset mono-point in short or long position



• Crampons adaptable to boots with or without toe welts:

interchangeable front bindings: stainless steel toe bail wires for shoes with toe welts, or flexible “Flexlock” style toe bindings for boots without toe welts both types of toe bindings can be adjusted to accommodate shoe width and provide sufficient point length



• LEVERLOCK heel bail is height-adjustable, designed for boots with heel welt

• Integrated front and rear ANTISNOW plates

• FAKIR carrying pouch included

• Marked bars facilitate crampon adjustment



• Comes with:

FAKIR carrying bag (V01)

front and rear ANTISNOW (T24960)

flexible front binding

stainless steel wire heel bail



Product specifications:

Number of points: 14

Boot sizes: 35 to 45 with M linking bar (included), optional L linking bar fits boots sizes 40 to 50 (T20850)

Weight: 2 x 540 g = 1080 g (configuration with two points and ANTISNOW)

2 x 455 g = 910 g (configuration with one point, no ANTISNOW)

Certification(s): CE, UIAA

The Snowpack Only Gets Better and Better

The past few weeks of winter storm snow have added several more feet to the mountain snowpack making the outlook for the 2007 climbing season better and better. The last two weeks of snow have practically doubled the size of our snowpack according to the full-depth snow profiles that we dug today and yesterday on the upper and lower Muir Snowfield respectively.

The snowpack at 8,900 feet on the Snowfield consists mainly of several feet of new snow bonded to the sturdy early February melt-freeze crust. Below the crust are several layers of older, somewhat facetted grains which are well on their way to rounding. At the base of the snowpack is a layer of more highly-developed facets which has also begun the process of rounding. Other melt-freeze and rain crusts are also present below the main mid-pack crust. Were it not for these crusts bridging the snowpack, we might be seeing a bit more avalanche activity.

Steady work continues on the road to Paradise with huge loads of rock being transported into the park every day. We are still shooting for May 1st as the optimistic forecast for the road opening. More on Access

Today's Photos

Today I have uploaded a bunch of photos. Here is one of an apple tree blossom. There are some of the desert wildflowers that grown in my yard and on the nearby desert. There are some of the redbud trees in our yard and some of my geraniums. Then there are a couple of our new kitten Wiley. Hope you like them.

Waiting for Treats

Greetings from Louisiana :: Shelter from the Cold

Wednesday afternoon, with temperatures forecast to drop into the teens for the next few nights, I considered my options: Continue camping and deal with the cold. Accept the fact that I'm a wimp and get a motel room for a week (or until the overnight temps get back into the 30s). Accept the offer of a friend to go visit them a little sooner than planned.

From the title of the post, you can probably tell that I chose the third option! And so, after traveling 650 miles west and 150 or so miles north from central Florida, I arrived Friday afternoon... in northeast Louisiana!

It's true, it's still cold here too and will be for a few more days (I'm not sure there is anywhere that you could go to escape the cold right now), but good friends warm the heart and soul as well as provide shelter from the cold. And for that, I thank them ever so much.

Rainbow Springs State Park, Dunellon, Florida
January 5, ..

A review of the movie, "The Pinnacle"

"In one legendary week on Ben Nevis in 1960 Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith climbed six first winter ascents on consecutive days, including the mini Alpine-route, Orion Face Direct. They also made the first one-day winter ascent of Point Five Gully, went for a long walk and got arrested over an incident with some dominoes! Exactly 50 years later Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner pay tribute to Smith and Marshall by setting out to repeat all the routes that were climbed in that famous week. This film tells the story of the original events and follows MacLeod and Turner as they discover exactly what an achievement it was."



I have mentioned this film several times on the blog. Last year I really wanted to be in Scotland for the Premier. Formost of us Yanks that was a pipe dream even without a volcano in Iceland.



My copy showed up on Christmas Eve! I was stoked!! In the lastweek I have had a chance to view "Pinnacle" and all the extra footage on the DVD twice.



It should beobvious thatI am a student ofour sport'shistory. That interestis one of the reasons I started the blog. Waterfall climbing started in the late 60s and early 70s in my part of NA and Canada. I was lucky enough to latchon to the last bit of it and even luckier to see the sport transformed in the years that came after. The grand scale of it, now 40 years later, for me is some what akin to having done the West Buttress on Denali in a 3 week slog and then go back years later to do it again in a day.



Your perspective is forever changed by the events you witness.



I have no history of ice climbing in the 60s. But I knew "my sport" was born there and we all learned how to walk from that beginning. Sure there were great things done in the Alps the previous 40 years to 1960 but none fired the imagination that Scotland did if for no other reason we were made more aware of it by the British climbing publications, both magazines and books.



I grew up with the stories of Point Five Gully and the Orion Face as much as I did with Annapurna, the Eiger and Everest.



The film maker, Paul Diffley has taken a truly amazing story of one week's climbing in 1960 and one of the originalclimbers involved and woven a intricate, humorous and touching adventure story from the facts of 50 years ago.



The extras on the interview and other bits of climbing footage just enrich the experience. This is a film that had me smiling, laughing, enthralled and at one point brought a tear to my eye. It is a film I will ponder and reflect on for a long time to come. And one I will pull off the shelf on occasion and sit with a glass of Scotch and watch again, when I need to remember it all myself.



Likely part of that reverence I attach to this film is the fact that I saw much of the climbing pass in front of me over the last 40 years. And I know that I won't always be pulling down on cold hard ice myself. But for the moment I am. And I can still respect the climbersthat came before me. It is obvious they earned it.



Diffley's editing is nothing short of superb. The camera footage is some of the best winter climbingI have seen on film . And it is not hard to image Smith and Marshal being just as comfortable and complimentary as MacLeod and Turner are in their partnership. Both were easy to relate to and enjoyable to watch on film. Not always easily donefor climbers.



Marshal and Smith is the true stars of the movie. And Smith never utters a word in the entire program.



I suspect if you are on this blog for any of its content,you'll want to see this DVD......more than once and on the biggest screen you can find.



You can order it here:



http://www.hotaches.com/films.htm#Pinnacle







5 Star Review - Climb Magazine -

"A beautifully crafted film"







"The Nevis scenery and the climbs are completely exquisite; rarely has the Ben looked so ethereally beautiful or sugar icingly-enticing."

- Colin Wells - Climb Magazine



"The film is a rare jewel of climbing history and a visual treat for the guilty armchair mountaineer! ... it leaves me with a feeling of profound longing for those special mountaineering moments that become ever more rare and inaccessible."

- Stone Country



•People's Choice Award:

Kendal Mountain Film Festival



•People's Choice Award:

Dundee Mountain Film Festival



•People's Choice Award:

Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival



And a review much better than mine I just had a chance to read plus two links on Robbin Smith:



http://tohatchacrow.blogspot.com//11/iron-in-soulthe-pinnacle-review.html





Most of the trailers and much of the modern climbing is linked here on the blog as well. Easy enough to find by checking the "climber, video" in the labels at the bottom right hand corner of each post.

New Puppy

We have a new puppy. She is a German Shepherd mix about 4 months old. We named her Ziva or Zivy. I have a new blog to tell all about Ziva at http://thepuppytale.blogspot.com/as well as some of Ziva's tale at this blog. It was a new experence for us to adopt a pup at the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Center and well worth it to get such a nice pup. Go to my new blog to learn more about Ziva.