Hot answers tagged safety
20
No you should not use a bicycle helmet for climbing. They are designed for different types of impacts and will not provide you with proper protection outside of their designed activity.
Bicycle helmets are designed for a SINGLE ground impact. Like modern cars they are designed to crumple and absorb the energy from an impact. They probably provide the ...
14
I see three priorities:
Make sure no one gets hurt
Make sure possessions needed for survival (food, tents) are not destroyed
Make sure the fire doesn't spread further and become a forest fire
If the campsite you're using is an officially-sanctioned one, this last is probably the least likely to be a problem. You have a large group of people, so you can ...
13
No, it is not safe to use denatured alcohol for two good reasons:
Denatured alcohol refers to a class of ethanol produced for industrial uses that has been "denatured" which essentially means "made undrinkable" by mixing other compounds that are toxic or unpleasant to humans. The thing is, you, as the consumer, have no idea what exactly was mixed in. ...
13
I'm answering my own question to share some knowledge.
First, cold toes/fingers is serious. You start feeling discomfort, then a little pain, then you stop feeling them and forget about them, then you get them amputated. So you should constantly check if you can still feel toes and fingers, and if not, start to warm them up.
Second, I find most effective ...
12
Any pole will have a fractionally greater chance of attracting lightning than a piece of flat ground or a dome tent - but this doesn't mean the increased chance is that high. If you are in the middle of an entirely flat field and your tent pole is the highest object for miles, then it will be a slight risk, but some points to consider:
If you are anywhere ...
12
First, lets dispel a common myth: Rock fire rings do absolutely nothing to contain, corral, or control a fire.
That being said, a fire needs 3 things: air, fuel, and heat. An overabundance of one will create an uncontrollable fire. Thus, keep the following in mind:
Consult the local fire conditions. Public lands agencies will rate the fire conditions. ...
11
Cheese:
Long time. Especially hard cheeses. You can just cut any mold off the edge that might creep up. Cheeses sealed in cheese wax (gouda) are a good bet.
I've had extra-sharp cheddar un-refrigerated in the AZ desert for 8+ days, in the rocky mountains for 15+ days with no issues (aside from sweat.)
Blocks last longer than a pile of shredded cheese.
Be ...
10
This may speak to some of your concerns:
American Safe Climbing Association
The American Safe Climbing Association publishes guidelines for safe bolting. Their stuff usually targets the people who are actually doing the bolting, but can be worth reading for general purposes. They have articles on how to tell which bolts are good and which are bad. And ...
10
The bowline knot is very safe if loaded correctly. This is the usual, safe way to load it:
The chair foot is the body (sorry for not offering naked models), the part of the rope leading away from the picture will take the load. In this use case the knot should hold perfectly. On the other hand, you might get the idea to use the bowline knot to create a ...
9
Myth::Busted: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/alcohol-warms-up.htm
Turns out, just one alcoholic drink could make you feel warmer,
but it actually lowers your core body temperature.
How does alcohol employ this rule of opposites? Alcohol may make
your skin feel warm, but this apparent heat wave is deceptive. A
nip or ...
8
Please don't drink alcohol to stay warm. It may make you feel slightly warmer temporarily, but it isn't actually helping you.
According to my favourite volume on Wilderness Medicine (page 156), a small nip won't hurt you if you already have a cold-induced injury. However, it is strongly correlated with cold-induced injury, due to the cognitive impairment ...
8
There are two types of water-based concerns while doing strenuous activity in the desert: dehydration and hyponatremia.
Dehydration occurs when your body is not getting enough water, and is the most common. Symptoms include irritability, headache, lack of energy, bright yellow/orange and infrequent urine. You lose water while you sweat, but in hot climates ...
8
Question: Should I girth hitch my main belay loop
Answer: No! You shouldn't girth-hitch a sling to your belay loop. The belay loop should only ever be in contact with a carabiner, as the trained instructor told you. As the instructor told you, girth hitching to the main belay loop will cause it extra wear, and make it wear out faster.
You can girth ...
7
This sounds like an "escape fire" (Wikipedia); see also the Mann Gulch Fire for a real life example.
One of the The Gods Must Be Crazy movies had this technique used in a wildfire in the African savannah.
7
I'll answer a question in the comments:
I will be curious to know what is the average amount of Co2 produced by a stove vs the average amount of co2 generated by human breathing. My guess would be that stove will win but I heard of people suffocate in closed cars while sleeping
To make things simple, lets assume assume your body burns 2,600 ...
7
Motorcycle helmets should not be used as a replacement for a ski helmet:
Most motorcycle helmets weight between 1,000 and 2,000 grams, while ski helmets weigh between 330 and 600 grams.
You are expected to fall repeatedly with ski helmets (on the order of up to several times a day), so it needs to be lighter to not exact an additional toll on your neck
...
7
In addition to great strategy advice by Kate Gregory and berry120, there are some technical points.
Take a deep breath
If there is no immediate health/life risk, take a deep breath and think a little. 1-5 minutes of planning beforehead will help you do important things first, and avoid doing unnecessary or dangerous things.
At this time, you will decide, ...
6
You can get a lot of the way towards understanding which ground has a good likelihood of being marshy from full use of Ordnance Survey (or equivalent) maps, and looking at the type of rock in the area you will be hiking.
Good quality maps give a lot of detail around topography, so you can look at slopes and heights near watercourses etc. If you are on a ...
6
Perhaps manufacturers advise on how much strain their ropes could take before retirement?
Yup, they do. The rating is given in terms of UIAA falls, which are pretty "major" falls. A UIAA fall is one with a fall factor of 1.77 and the weight is 80kg - or typically a pretty big fall with a pretty big guy.
This related question may also provide some ...
6
I use a film canister for salt when backpacking. I have had people tell me that same story about poisons leaching from the plastic into the food, but nobody is able to substantiate that. The canisters I have are labeled HDPE (high density polyethelene). Plenty of food-touching things are made from HDPE, so that by itself shouldn't be a issue. Of course ...
6
In the context of rock climbing, compared to a figure-8 knot, bowlines are:
About as strong under ideal circumstances
BUT:
Can come untied on their own when unloaded
Are more difficult to visually inspect (important, because climbers frequently rely on partners to check their knots, and may be tying and untying knots when they're tired and / or ...
6
Adding to Steeds self-answer. Other ways to warm up fingers and toes:
Wiggle your fingers and toes vigorously (while walking, while sitting) - circulation is aided by muscle movement.
Sprint (if you have the extra energy)
When not using them, ball your hands up inside your gloves (remove your fingers from the glove fingers and make a fist inside the ...
5
When it's possible you will be crossing ice on your route, there is a couple of stages:
Planning at home
First of all, you should explore the area of your trip. The question is are the water sources frozen and how thick is the ice
Small lakes in the forest, where there is no winds and no water flow, freeze first. If you know that a couple of small lakes ...
5
There are several factors you should considering when judging the severity of a fall.
The most important is the fall factor. That's the distance of the fall (where the climbers started minus where they ended up) divided by the amount of rope between the climber and belayer. In most climbing situations, fall factors are relatively small. A fall factor of ...
5
Is this a real risk?
Yes.
However, I would have thought it's a much higher risk with soft rock, such as sandstone, which could easily crack and break apart due to heat. I'd imagine the risk would be lower with something like granite, but I'm still not sure I'd risk it unless the cave was very large and well ventilated.
5
I'm always using sandals. There are good trekking sandals with profiled soles that gives you adhesion not much worse than trekking shoes. Of course, they are not as much stabile, but you have no problem with drying them.
When the water is not higher then the knees, the current is not strong enough to be dangerous for you, of course you must always be very ...
5
CO and CO2 dangers are real, and most tents aren't ventillated well enough without outside wind to make it safe.
CO2 dissolves well in water, especially cold water, and your body has mechanisms to deal with it. Somewhat surprisingly, what causes you to breathe harder is not lower oxygen concentrations in the blood, but higher CO2. It's just one of those ...
5
This is one of these subjective topics where there's advantages and disadvantages both ways - I've seen people that will religiously advocate either one of these approaches in all scenarios.
I'd personally scrap both those hard hit rules however and instead promote a knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of each, and an awareness of the surroundings ...
5
Your blood and body need sodium, potassium and various other solutes in order to function (without the correct potassium levels, your heart will start to fail etc)
In a hot country, where you may sweat a lot, and top up your liquids by drinking water, you lose these solutes quite rapidly. The quantities you require are generally a lot higher than you might ...
5
I know I am answering a slightly different, more general question, but
I think it is quite crucial to learn how to unjam a rappel device without relying on anybody else's help before embarking on any kind of outdoor-rappelling adventures.
I have gotten my ATC stuck more times than I'd like to admit. ATCs don't just like to eat poorly assembled autoblock ...
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