You’re planning a big mountaineering trip, maybe up Orizaba or Kilimanjaro or even one of the 8,000-meter peaks. You’re going down the equipment list: Stove, check. Ice axe, check. Sleeping bag, check. You reach Music, but your buddy scratched a line through it. “Hey man, I gotta take my music!” “Can’t,” she says. “Can’t take your IPod above 10,000 feet. It’ll get altitude sickness.”

Yep, that’s what Apple and the experts say. If you do, there is the possibility your IPod will not only stop working but can be irrevocably damaged. Don’t believe me? Then check your IPod specs: “Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m).”

We never think we can’t take our IPod everywhere we go since they're part of us. Here in Colorado, lots of climbers I know regularly tote their IPods up Fourteeners or on alpine faces like The Diamond on Long’s Peak. The technies, however, say it’s just not a good idea and it’s probably a matter of time before it has a high-altitude hiccup. An IPod’s hard drive heads use air pressure to float on a cushion of air about 5 millionths of an inch thick with the platters spinning at 53.55 miles per hour. Since air pressure decreases the higher you go, the greater is the possibility that the air pressure is too low to produce the air cushion, resulting in the hard drive head smacking against the spinning platter, leaving gouges and you without tunes. This also applies to laptop computers.

If you need the sound of music in the mountains, then you’re better off taking a Nano or a Shuffle since they’re solid-state like a flash drive and are unaffected by altitude. Oh, extreme temperatures also affect IPods. A stored unit can sustain temps from -4F to 115F but if you operate it, then its optimal temps are between 32F and 95F.

I never listen to music when I’m climbing, but I do carry a little 1G Sandisk player in my pack so I can listen at a bivouac or laying in the tent on a long winter night. I use it because it holds plenty of music and it’s cheap so I don’t worry about losing it or breaking it. What do you think? Does your IPod work at high altitudes? Or does it get what I call IPAS (IPod Altitude Sickness)? Let me know what your IPod’s high point is.

Photo above: You would be waving your arms too if your IPod stopped working on top of Mount Everest.
Photograph courtesy Miura Qomolangma 2008

It’s mid-November now. The days shorten. The air chills. Snow flies in the mountains and across the northern United States. The weather report is bleak, calling for yet another Arctic front to dive south from Canada. If you’re like me, snow and cold isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be by avid skiers and ice climbers. For me and other snowbirds, it’s time to flap our wings and head south to sunnier climes.

Since I like fun-in-the-sun rock climbing in mid-winter, I've always gone to Hueco Tanks near the city of El Paso on the Texas-Mexico border. It's an easy day's drive from Colorado and the weather in December and January is about perfect. Oh, and the climbing is great too. Really great. If you want to head south to Hueco Tanks this winter then check out these articles and find out all the beta on visiting Hueco, as well as topos and route descriptions, and a great gallery of climbing photographs. See ya down there.

Photo above: Brett Green bouldering at Hueco Tanks.
Photograph © Stewart M. Green

Several tragic climbing accidents occurred in the past month.

On Saturday, October 11, 49-year-old doctor Amy Ruth Stine from Pittsburgh was killed in a leader fall at Seneca Rocks, a popular and historic climbing area in West Virginia, when some gear pulled. She flipped upside down, landing on her head and dying instantly.

Also in early October, William Eldridge, 57, from Staten Island, New York, was killed at the Shawangunks Mohonk Preserve in a similar accident. He was 40 feet up a route, slipped and slid down the cliff. Unfortunately he bounced off a ledge, and like Ms. Stine, flipped upside down, striking his head on a rock at the base. Climber Jannette Pazer reported, “The leader put in a piece 10 feet up, and then, because it was easy ground, continued 20 feet up beyond it. He was a very experienced climber who probably didn't think he needed to put in lots of gear on easy ground, and because he was out of sight, his partner doesn't know why he fell. But because of the runout, it was a groundfall.”

Now this last Monday, November 3, a pair of teenage rock climbers died in a tragic fall at the Red River Gorge, one of the nation’s premier sport climbing areas, in eastern Kentucky. Benjamin E. Strohmeier, 18, and his climbing partner Laura Fletcher, 18, fell off a route near Torrent Falls after a weathered rappel sling broke. While details are still sketchy, it appears that Strohmeier was lowering Fletcher. Both of their weights were loaded onto the sling since he was clipped into it rather than the anchor itself. The sling broke, dropping them 60 feet. She landed at the base while he fell over another ledge below. The bodies were found the next afternoon by concerned friends.

John May with the Wolfe County Search and Rescue told reporters that the webbing on an anchor bolt “essentially tore in half, and as a result the climbers fell.” Webbing and a rappel ring were found at the cliff base as well as on the cliff. Shannon Stuart-Smith, founder of the Red River Gorge Climber's Coalition, told the Lexington Herald-Reader that the webbing could be 10 to 15 years old. She also noted that these are the first climber fatalities at the Red according to Forest Service records. Other climbing-related deaths were by people scrambling without gear or sport rappelling.

It’s all freaking tragic. Every time we go climbing we need to remember that it’s dangerous and we’re putting ourselves in harm’s way. That is the reason why I emphasize climbing safety on this website. Safe climbing is all about personal responsibility and taking care of ourselves on the rock. The lessons from these accidents are simple: always wear a helmet; place lots of gear on routes; and never ever trust your life to a single anchor or sling.

Photo above: Ben Strohmeier was killed in a climbing accident at Red River Gorge.
Photo courtesy Ben Strohmeier/Photobucket.

I was at the Garden of the Gods yesterday afternoon. Brian and I had to traverse over to the Kissing Camels, a delicate arch perched atop 300-foot-high North Gateway Rock, to evaluate the condition of the sandstone formation and to take photographs of various cracks that need to be stabilized for the Colorado Springs Park & Rec department. To get across the face to the arch we fixed a rope across a long traverse. Since I wasn’t being belayed, I attached myself to the fixed rope with a Prusik knot and a Klemheist knot and slid them along the rope as I traversed across the steep face to the arch.

Every climber needs to know these two friction knots, along with the Bachmann knot, to ascend a fixed rope, to extricate themselves from an emergency situation, and for self-rescue. Another important friction knot to know and use is the Autoblock knot, which is used as an emergency stop while rappelling. Learn all about these important knots in this new article 4 Friction Knots for Climbers that was posted yesterday.

Photo above: The Kissing Camels arch at Garden of the Gods.
Photograph © Stewart M. Green