Friday, July 27th – Sunday, July 29th, 2012

Bigger and Better for 2012!

Come and enjoy a wonderful weekend in the Badger Creek Wilderness.  See spectacular views from the eastern foothills of Mount Hood, on hikes that include natural rock gardens, wildflowers, cliff-edged viewpoints, enchanting creeks, old growth, green-pooled cascades, and oak-fringed cliffs. 
Event Itinerary
We’ll start by gathering at the Mazama Lodge on Friday night for a light meal and a relaxing evening getting to know each other. After a night in the lodge and Saturday morning breakfast, we will be transported to different trailheads to start our hiking.  Groups will hike with daypacks up to a saddle near the Flag Point Lookout, where the lodge chuckwagon will meet us with our heavy gear (tents, sleeping bags, etc.) so we can set up our camp.  We will have time to tour the fire lookout - one of only 3 manned lookouts in the Mount Hood National Forest.  At our campsite, the lodge will prepare our delicious chuckwagon style dinner as well as breakfast on Sunday morning.  After breakfast, the groups will pack up their heavy gear for transport and head out with daypacks on different routes to be picked up at trailheads for the ride back to the Mazama Lodge.  The Lodge will have some Happy Hour appetizers waiting for you before you head home.
You will be able to choose whether you want scenic and shorter hikes or strenuous and longer hikes. We will have up to 3 groups of 12 participants per group. Sign up using the form below. If you have additional questions, email Sojo Hendrix at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Cost Breakdown
Food and Lodging: $80 (members) and $106 (non-members)
Food includes (2) breakfasts, (2) dinners and (2) bag lunches
Shared Transportation (lodge bus and gear shuttle van): $46 per person
Trail Fee: $2 a day (members) and $4 a day (non-members)
Total Cost = $130 (members) and $160 (non-members)

Do you know someone who would be a good choice for Executive Council?  The Nominating committee has met and is actively working on identifying a list of qualified candidates for executive council. Are you or do you know someone who’s skills and life experience would make a contribution to the Mazamas Executive Council? Please send a short description of this person to Nominating Committee member .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Please consider this your invitation to serve.

You’re climbing outdoors with novice friends, and you want to rig a toprope from a fixed-chain anchor. You’re the only one in the group who can safely install and clean a toprope setup, but you loath having to climb each route twice—once to hang the rope, and once to clean the anchor and rap from the chains. It’s tempting to thread the rope through the chains and lower off, letting everyone toprope through the fixed hardware. Don’t—it’s a sin and you know it. Repeated lowering will wear out the chain or rings faster than any other abuse.

Instead, go ahead and thread the anchor chains, but then clip quickdraws to the bolts or higher chain links and run the rope up through your draws, so the rope weights your own biners, not the chain links (Fig. A). Be sure to oppose the gates of the carabiners or use lockers. When the last person to climb removes the quickdraws, he or she will already be attached to the anchor through the chains, with no need to untie and re-thread. This way, you’re lowering just one person off the anchor, not an entire gang.

If the chains are shorter than your quickdraws, you can often get away with just clipping biners through higher links and running the rope through these (Fig. B); lockers are best. Watch your angles, and don’t use this method if the chains are pulled at more than a 90-degree angle, or if the rope feeds awkwardly in any way. If the anchors simply have rap rings on the bolts, you’ll have to climb and clean the old-fashioned way.

This tip is from climbing.com

If your compass is, ahem, not used very often, you may not be very familiar with its attributes.

A key feature on modern compasses is the ability to adjust for magnetic declination.  After this is set, all bearings are read to true north. 

Without making some adjustment for declination, bearings are read to magnetic north.  Converting them to true north requires some backcountry arithmetic, and while fairly easy in principle, invites error when done rarely and/or under the stress of being lost.

So, you may be wondering, I bought my compass years ago.  Does it even have adjustable declination?  Here’s how to tell:

Look for a tiny brass or copper colored screw, usually on the back of your compass.  Turn this (knife tip works) to adjust declination.

Once it’s set to the local value (in NW Oregon, about 17 degrees east) you should never have to touch it again as long as you hike in this area.

If you are looking to buy a compass with adjustable declination, the Mazamas map geeks highly recommend the Suunto M3.  Read more about this compass here

The traditional friction knot, a 2 or 3 loop prusik, has a few drawbacks.

• It can take a long time to tie properly and dress
• It’s next to impossible to tie with gloves on
• It can be tough to release it while the knot is under load
• It’s hard to “fine tune” the grip of the knot.  Sometimes 2 wraps is not enough but 3 is too much.  If you need to adjust the grip of the knot, that usually means untying most or all of the knot and starting over

Consider an alternative: the French prusik.

Close related to the Klemheist knot, the French prusik is:

• Unidirectional (like the traditional prusik); and can take a pull from either side
• Fast and easy to tie, even with gloves on
• Does not need to be dressed perfectly to function properly
• Easy to adjust grip, simply add or remove a wrap around the rope
• Releasable under load.  This can be VERY helpful!

The French prusik may be familiar to you as the “autoblock” knot, commonly used to back up a rappel.

Explore the Google maps below to see all of the peaks that Mazamas climb in Oregon and Washington!

This map covers every peak the Mazamas have climbed over the past 8 to 10 years.

Tips:

• Note that the peaks are best viewed in “Terrain” view, which shows shaded relief and contours.  Activate this by mousing over “Satellite"in the upper right corner of Google maps and checking “Terrain” from the drop-down menu.
• Scroll down the left sidebar for an alphabetical list of peaks.
• Flag colors: Green = Mazama grade A: “scramble” peak, minimal technical climbing skills required;  Yellow = Mazama grade B: some technical climbing skills required;  Red = Mazama grade C, D or E: rope and/or technical climbing skills definitely required
• When the new Mazamas website is up, clicking a photograph will take you to the route description for that peak.
• These peaks may also be viewed in in amazing Google Earth fly around 3-D.  Once you open the map pages below, if you click on the “KML” file link under the explanatory text at the top, and if you have Google Earth on your computer, Google Earth should launch and you should see the peaks.

I want to see the Oregon climbing map

I want to see the Washington climbing map

As many newer smart phones have both excellent screen resolution and GPS capability, a reasonable question is, can my smart phone replace a standalone GPS receiver? The short answer, (at least as of 2012), is probably not. Here are a few reasons why.

Rugged design
Smart phones such as the iPhone are simply not as rugged or waterproof as a dedicated GPS receiver.

Battery life
Smart phones generally are not optimized for continuous GPS use. If you leave the GPS capability turned on continuously, you may find yourself with a dead smart phone in just a few hours. While it’s easy to swap out standard AA batteries on a dedicated GPS, you would probably have to carry a small solar or other type of charger with you to fire up your dead smart phone in the backcountry.

Receiver sensitivity
A dedicated GPS receiver typically has a much better quality antenna that a smart phone, and will thus perform better in challenging conditions such as under heavy tree cover or in a steep canyon.

Lack of a good positional fix
Finally, realize that a smart phone may not accurately fix your position when you are outside of cell phone coverage. This is because cell phones use a technology known as assisted GPS.  This system allows your smart phone to get a position fixed very quickly by using information it receives from nearby cell towers. This works great when the smart phone is within the coverage area. If not, it will not always work.

This information is from the excellent book, Outdoor Navigation with GPS, by Stephen W. Hinch

The backcountry navigator has many options when it comes to buying a compass. The bad news: many of these are inappropriate for wilderness use. The good news: a handful of them are terrific, and one in particular has dropped dramatically in price.

Direct from the Mazamas lead navigation instructor, here’s the scoop on what to buy and what to avoid.  The most important feature of a good compass is adjustable declination! Tip:  If a product description says “fixed declination scale”, avoid it.

Desirable features of a good land navigation compass include:

• adjustable declination (the most important feature!  Did I mention this?)
• a long straight edge for plotting lines on the map
• meridian lines inside the compass bezel
• a clear base plate, so you can see the map through it
• ruler(s) engraved on one or more of the edges, for measuring map distances

Higher end compasses may have the following (optional) whistles and bells:

• a clinometer, for measuring slope angle, especially good for backcountry skiers
• a sighting mirror, which marginally improves accuracy of bearings
• liquid filled housing, to dampen the compass needle

As you might imagine, compasses not suitable for backcountry use have few or none of these features.  Compasses are unsuitable for mountaineering if they:

• are too small for accurate bearings
• do not have meridian lines
• are numbered in 5 degree (or more) increments
• do not have degrees marked from 0 to 360
• have non-transparent housings
• cannot be used for measuring and plotting bearings on a map

Here are three compasses that the Mazamas navi-geeks recommend for wilderness navigation.  Students in any Mazamas class with a navigation component are highly encouraged to buy one of these three. All are sold at REI.  They are listed in general order of price and features.

1) El Cheapo but it works:  Suunto M-2D
This compass has adjustable declination, some bare-bones features and not much else. If you want a compass to keep in the bottom of your pack and don’t plan on using it very often (let’s be honest, that describes most of us!), this would be a good choice.  Cost: $24 at REI

2) Just Right: Suunto M3
This is been my go-to compass for many years, and I love it for lots of reasons.  A unique feature of this compass is its ergonomic design. Having a curve on one end reminds the user that that’s the end that belongs in your hand. This almost eliminates the common problem of holding the compass backwards, which results in an error of 180°. It does not have a clinometer or sighting mirror, but these are two features that I feel are largely unnecessary for the majority of backcountry users.  This compass will best serve the needs of most Mazamas.  Cost: $34 at REI

3) High End with special sauce:  Brunton 15TDCL
This compass has recently seen a dramatic drop in price and can actually be found at Amazon (as of January 2012) for a rather unbelievable $31.  It has a clinometer, liquid housing and sighting mirror.  Normally, compasses with all these features sell for well over $50.  If you’re a backcountry skier, search and rescue team member, or frequent user of a compass and require extremely accurate bearings, this is probably the one for you.  Cost: $42 at REI, $31 at Amazon.  (Heck, now that it’s cheaper than my favorite Suunto M3, I may have to get one myself!)

Here are some photos and brief descriptions of compasses that are not suitable for Mazamas classes. If you have one of these, consider getting one of the ones recommended above. You’ll be happy that you did. 

Lensatic compass – accurate bearings, but no baseplate

Baseplate compass, but without adjustable declination

Baseplate compass with mirror, but without clear baseplate

Some material on this page is from The Mountaineers

Whether you are big wall climbing, caving, or setting up a big tree swing in your backyard, sometimes you need to get serious about ascending a fixed rope. The proper tool to do this is not the humble prusik knot, but an ascender (aka jumar). 

The traditional set up typically used by big wall climbers is two ascenders clipped to the rope, two daisy chains connecting the ascenders to you, and two aiders hanging from the ascenders for your feet. While this is certainly a time tested and efficient technique once you get the hang of it, many people find this set up to be quite awkward and inefficient when first learning.  Plus, you need a lot of expensive gear!
Here is an alternate technique that has a few advantages, and many find easier to learn.

Gear you need:

1. Petzl Gri-Gri, Trango Cinch, or similar auto-locking belay device
2. A single ascender, usually for your dominant hand (right or left)
3. A daisy chain or 4 foot (double-length) runner to connect the ascender to your harness
4. A single aider or some kind of tied foot loop to stand in

Advantages to this system:

• You are always attached to the rope with the Gri-gri
• The Gri-gri allows you to slightly lower out and release tension on the rope if necessary, which is often extremely handy
• You are always ready to rappel with the Gri-gri on the fixed line
• It uses much less equipment (lighter and less expensive)
• With a bit of practice, this ascending technique is just about as fast as the traditional one described above.

Note:  The pulley in the image below is nice to have, but optional.

This is a better show than a tell, so check out the good diagrams of this set up and a more in-depth discussion at this website.

photo from chockstone.org

and here’s a nice YouTube video showing the technique in action:

Latitude and longitude coordinates are a bit of an enigma.  Everyone has heard of them, but few people know the basics of how they work, let alone how to effectively use them for navigation.

Here is a nice tutorial that lays it all out for you.