I was just browsing the watch counter at REI when the girlfriend surprised me by whipping out her credit card and buying me a new Core. Regular readers know the story about my previous Suunto and how it imploded at 14,000 feet – a problem which I may have triggered when changing the battery before the climb. Hopefully, that won’t happen again. I’m eager to give it another try at altitude (hopefully somewhere just over 14,000 feet) in just a couple of weeks.

On Guadalupe Peak our gear choices worked well. It was a training run more than anything else so we took more gear than was needed. We were intentionally going heavy for the workout. Fast forward a few months though and we were on the steep switchbacks of Mt. Belford, in deep rotten snow, and with the same big packs full of heavy gear. That didn’t go so well.

That attempt on Mt. Belford was probably doomed from the start but my choice of gear removed any hope of success that might have existed. Struggling under that unnecessarily heavy pack taught a very important lesson about weight. Being a pack mule on sea-level hikes is useful and relatively painless but every ounce counts when you’re gaining elevation. Alan Arnette and I went back to Mt. Belford a few months later, dozens of pounds lighter, and reached the summit.

The summit attempts in August won’t require much gear but getting to base camp will require hauling fairly heavy packs 6.5 miles and up over 3,000 feet to an elevation of around 11,000 feet. Stripping out as much gear and weight as possible will make the trip significantly more enjoyable. Here’s a brief look at some of the changes I’ve made.

Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1 Tent: Incredibly popular – and light at just over 2 pounds. My previous Kelty tent weighed twice as much – ok for backpacking but not so much for climbing.

Therm-a-Rest Z-Lite Sleeping Pad: Folds up small and weighs less than a pound. My previous self-inflating pad weighed almost 3 times as much and took up a ton of space.

Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles: The pair weighs only a pound. Just a little lighter than the damaged Leki’s they’re replacing.

MontBell Super Spiral Burrow #3 Synthetic Sleeping Bag: 30 Degree: Weighs in at 2 pounds 10oz which is about two pounds less than the Alps Mountaineering Crescent Lake bag that it’s replacing. I like the Alps bag but I’ll take it camping not climbing. Thanks to Alan Arnette for the recommendation on this one.

Black Diamond Half Dome: This isn’t the lightest helmet – those are about 4oz lighter – but it’s proven and durable. I’m not so sure that I’m willing to shave all the weight out of the one thing sitting between my head and flying rock – or the ground.

Platypus SoftBottles: Flexible, strong, and 80% lighter than hard bottles. This will be my first time using these but the larger platypus hydration bag that I use for summer hikes has held up extremely well.

REI FLash 18: I’ll be using this light pack for covering ground between 11-14k.

Fozzils: Super light (almost weightless) and space-friendly plates, bowls, and utensils.

More gear changes are likely. I’ll update as decisions are made. If you have thoughts on this, or other useful gear, leave a comment. I’m interested in your feedback.

Planning for summer climbs has been heating up and it looks like things are starting to settle. Wetterhorn was an initial thought but it looks like a hike into the Chicago Basin with potential attempts at Mt. Eolous, Windom Peak, and Sunlight Peak are in store. Most of the group will be attempting all three but I will probably attempt Mt. Eolus (Class 3) and Windom Peak (Class 2). I’ll post more details soon.

I’m going to stick to the ~100 story climbs on the weekends through May. Then, I’ll bump it up to 150 stories a workout and see how that works. While it sounds like a lot it’s really nothing compared to a day on a mountain. The combined pain and boredom does wear on me a bit but that’s a good thing. It takes a certain amount of mental toughness to climb over 100 stories when you’re already tired and that commitment will pay off when I’m climbing the real thing. As my friend Patrick said recently:

My mantra for the next month is, “Little Bear doesn’t care!” Just under a month until we go for one of Colorado’s toughest 14ers. Anytime I’m hurting when I train I’m telling myself, “Little Bear doesn’t care!” Climb On!

During the week I’ll stick to the routine I’ve had for a few months now – treadmill, elliptical, and weights at 24 Hour Fitness. In fact, I’ll be doing that tonight. My hope is to keep the routine somewhat balanced, and spend some time outside as well, to avoid the rut I got into late last year. I think I have it figured it out now but the next three months will tell.

This video was shot by a guy who climbed Belford a couple of weeks after I did last year. It doesn’t look like he had much more snow to contend with but the wind sounds worse – and it definitely looks colder. We had awesome weather with only a few heavy gusts in the last few hundred feet.

YouTube scouting continues. This series certainly looks less sketchy than some of the other Wetterhorn videos that I’ve posted.

I really liked my Suunto Core. Really. And then it popped at 14,000 feet on Mt. Belford, filled with condensation, and stopped working. I almost did the same thing by the way but that’s beside the point. My watch was supposed to work up there.

In fairness, it might have been partly my fault. There’s a chance that I didn’t seat the delicate seal properly when changes the batteries before the trip. However, that also points to one of the Core’s biggest flaws – battery life. The thing eat batteries like nobody’s business. Given the battery life, and the possibility of this happening again, I decided to explore other options.

I looked at the Timex Expedition WS4. Timex got a lot right with this watch. It’s biggest asset is usability. It’s easier to use that most of the competitors and the wide screen is nice and readable. Downside, It doesn’t have the altitude logging that I loved in the Core and the size and old-school boxiness of it makes anyone who wears it look like a ginourmous retro geek. Some find that aspect of the design appealing but frankly I don’t want to look like a ginourmous retro geek. Sorry Timex. Keep tweaking, you’re close.

Next, I looked at the Casio Pathfinder PAW1500-1V. This is a bad-ass watch. It looks as good as a sport watch can. I’m still iffy on the whole black plastic watch thing but this is as good looking as that sort of watch can be. Solar power is a huge plus with this watch. It’s also rugged and, despite the incredible number of features, pretty usable. However, I can’t find a use for moon-phase, tide reports, and many other features. I wish the folks at Casio would strip some of these features out and build in better altitude reporting and tracking – build a watch just for climbers. That’s not likely to happen but if Casio builds it I’ll buy it.

I haven’t taken a serious look at Highgear’s lineup. They’re affordable but I don’t get the impression that they’d take much of a beating. At least one climber I know wears one though so maybe I’m being harsh.

Timex has introduced a surprisingly attractive alternative in the E-Instruments collection. The E-Altimeter might be worth a look but like the others it lacks Suunto’s logging features. I also doubt that I could make sense of the display while fatigued and oxygen-starved at altitude.

After looking around I find myself considering Suunto again. The battery life is a pain but I can live with it. Perhaps the failure at 14,000′ was a fluke? Or maybe altimeter watches, with all their inherent flaws and inaccuracies, just aren’t worth the expense. What do you think?

I hit Huntsville State Park before sunrise and was in the empty back sections of the park by dawn. With clear skies and temps in the 50s it was a perfect morning for hiking. I carried a gallon of water (just for weight) and about 10 pounds of stuff (like a change of clothes for the drive back) in the backpack for even more weight. It was a pretty leisurely hike though. I circled the entire park – just over ten miles – in a little over three hours. It felt good to get out of the gym again but I wish we had more challenging terrain and trails nearby.

More on Mr. Brown from Wikipedia:

Brown is widely regarded as the outstanding pioneering English rock climber of the 1950s and early 1960s. He established an unprecedented number of classic new routes (especially in Snowdonia and the Peak District); that were at the leading edge of the hardest grades. Examples on Dinas Cromlech in the Llanberis Pass include “Cenotaph Corner” (1952, E1, with Doug Belshaw) and “Cemetery Gates” (1951, E1, with Don Whillans). As well as creating pioneering routes, he often helped create new types of “protection” to improve safety on climbs, and is acknowledged to have created some of the first “nuts” by drilling the thread out of nuts and threading the centre with a sling. So famous was he that the Post Office would often deliver letters simply addressed to “The Human Fly, UK”.

In this context, Brown’s mountaineering achievements in the Alps and Himalaya have often been overlooked: he made many significant ascents in the Alps in the 1950s with Don Whillans and other members of the Rock and Ice climbing club and, in 1955, the first ascent of the third highest mountain in the world, Kangchenjunga in the Nepalese Himalaya, with George Band. In 1956 he made the first ascent of the west summit of the Mustagh Tower in the Karakoram with Ian McNaught-Davis. The other members of the team, John Hartog and Tom Patey, reaching the main summit the next day.

Apart from his numerous classic rock climbs in Britain, and his considerable mountaineering achievements abroad, Joe is remembered for televised rock climbs in the 1960s, three in Snowdonia, and then, in 1967, of a spectacular new route on the Old Man of Hoy, a Scottish sea stack, with luminaries of the climbing world Ian McNaught-Davis and Sir Chris Bonington. Fifteen years later Brown repeated the climb on the Old Man on a popular TV documentary with his second daughter Zoe. Her bubbly personality led her to being chosen as a presenter on the children’s TV show Tiswas.