When REI came out with it’s seasonal 20% off coupon, I figured it was time to pull the trigger, and took a gamble on the Mammut Neon Gear 45. Having never seen one in person, let alone tried it on, I was a little skeptical, but after breaking it in on a trip to Lion’s Head, a couple trips to Mt Nemo, and more recently, a week in Squamish, I am completely sold. This is one of the most versatile climbing packs I’ve ever used, and will likely be the only climbing/cragging pack I will ever need in the foreseeable future. (See how I worded that for when I eventually do cave in and buy another pack?)

So what makes this pack stand out in the crowd?

Tonnes of space without having the feeling of being a “big” pack. It swallows everything in my gear list like a black hole, and still has a bit of room to spare! The combo of back-load and top-load zippers makes loading and gaining access to your stuff a breeze. Unlike most top-load packs, you don’t need to empty out everything to grab something from the bottom. Everywhere I go people comment on the convenience of the back-load design. It’s actually quite shocking that it’s not more commonplace in packs.

Everybody loves gear loops. If for some reason, 45L just isn’t enough space, there are plenty of gear loops to clip extra gear on the back. And if you don’t want to store your rope inside the pack, or happen to be carrying an extra rap line, there’s a handy tie-down strap on the top that’ll take good care of your beloved cordage.

Plenty of mesh interior pockets and dividers help keep your gear organized, and there’s even a rope tarp to keep that Kentucky sandstone from infusing itself in everything it touches. There’s one small exterior zipped pocket large enough for carrying a phone, wallet, and couple Clif bars. Unfortunately this pocket is blocked if you’re carrying anything up top, and there’s no other exterior pockets for water bottles or other things you might want quick access to. I suppose that’s what the gear loops are for.

Worthy of separate mention is the removable, zipable, chalk bag pouch. Yep, it seems totally gimmicky, and maybe it is, but if you carry around loose chalk and don’t trust it in a Ziploc, at least you’ll have the peace of mind of knowing that if it does spill, it’ll be in a zipped pocket, and not mingling around with the rest of your gear.

Of course, comfort is one of the biggest factors in buying a pack. Although completely subjective, I found that the Neon Gear effortlessly carries weight on long approaches… in fact, didn’t feel like i was carrying a rope at all. The waist strap is a tad thin, but has the added benefit of tucking away to convert into a decent piece of check-in luggage. On that note, the shoulder straps have convenient velcro coupling for carrying like a duffel. The back padding, while comfortable, leaves a bit to be desired in terms of breathability.

In the past, I’ve been pretty biased against Mammut gear… one of the first ropes I owned was a Mammut Flash 10.5. At the time i wasn’t very discriminating in my tastes for gear (my wallet, however, was very discriminating), and later came to the conclusion that the Flash (and basically every other Mammut rope that I have ever used) quite simply sucked. The Neon Gear goes a long way to changing my mind about Mammut products. Its unlikely that I’ll ever buy another Mammut rope, but the pack is definitely a winner.

I pretty rarely read manuals, but I happened to pop open the C3 manual while having a bite to eat, and came across the “Bad Placements” section…. the last line of which reads “Avoid placing Camalot C3s”…

Wtf?

Seriously?

Ummmmmm….

A sigh of relief came over me as I flipped to the page to find that the sentence continued to read “in vertical bottoming cracks where it is not possible to align the stem in the direction of the load”

Hah, copy writing fail, BD! better get on that one…

• Saturday – Climbing at Mt Nemo
• Sunday – Gym climbing at the Toronto Climbing Academy and Living room biking while watching Top Gear
• Monday – Running and Bouldering
• Tuesday – Crossfit
• Wednesday – Running and more climbing at TCA
• Thursday – Ridiculous leg and shoulder workout

Needless to say, it’s been one of the more intense weeks I’ve had in quite some time. Before my Peru, Chile/Patagonia trip, I was pretty worried about my fitness level, thinking that I would get destroyed by a combination of hiking and the altitude. I uppped the cardio and starting doing a lot of stair climbing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that i was in reasonably good shape when it came to trekking time. What I regret, however, was not doing any actual strengthening exercises. The omission of which eventually led to a pretty frustrating knee injury. It’s been about 6 months since, and it feels like I’m finally at a point where I can push myself again without constantly worrying about whether my knee is going to hold up to the abuse. Of course, this time (I think) I’m going about it much smarter and focusing on both strength and endurance.

I’ve recently (rather sporadically) started doing CrossFit workouts – holy [insert noun here]! I’ve never in my life felt so thoroughly destroyed from 20 minute workouts. If you’re looking for an awesome strength and conditioning “program”, look no further. Check out the page for more info, and try it yourself.

So what’s the point of all this? What’s the eventual goal? Really I just want to be well prepared for some some good old type-2 fun…. You know… The kind of fun you don’t realize you’re having until it’s over. That gut wrenching, anger inducing, “are we there yet” kind of fun… where in the end, the rewards are worth every moment of agony.

I’m hoping to head out to the Yamnuska school next year for an introductory course on agony… er.. i mean mountaineering. With any luck i’ll be able to drag some people out there to join in the fun (have i made an appealing enough sales pitch?)

I actually started writing this post about a year and a half ago, after returning from another trip to the Red, where I pretty much sucked, due to what I assume was an A4 pulley injury. It seemed like every time I trained hard for trips, I’d end up with finger injuries and not actaully get to enjoy the trips – I’ve since learned that it was a combination of my training, overuse, and simply not treating the injuries properly and thus never allowing them to heal.

If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you know me, and not because you randomly googled “finger injuries” … if you did, you’re much more likely to end up finding a fantastic article written by Dave MacLeod on this exact subject. So rather than saying exactly what he said, but in my own, less scientific, less eloquent way, I’ll comment on a few things that have worked for me:

Rest:
Yes, it’s hard to stop doing someting you love, but tendon injuries take a while to heal. In all honesty, it wasn’t until I had an appendectomy and was forced to take 5 weeks off climbing that I actually felt like my finger had come close to a fully recovery. If you’re like me and just can’t stay away from the rock/plastic, at least be sensible about it:

• Cut out the hangboard training for a few weeks, particularly campusing.
• Avoid climbing anything too crimpy.
• Try to look at the brighter side of things. I used it as an opportunity to work on two things that I was particularly weak at: footwork, and slopers. Both have improved drastically as a result.

Tape:
There’s a lot of conflicting thoughts on whether or not taping helps. Some say it does absolutely nothing and is just a placebo with no purpose other than preventing flappers. Personally, I find that it helps significantly, but shouldn’t be over used. I would tape firmly for support to the pulley, but also overlap slightly onto the distal joint to prevent me from overcrimping. The other added benefit was that the tape would provide an extra layer of protection from any sharp rock/holds directly poking into the inflammed area.

I find that there comes a point in your recovery where tape will either do nothing, or end up causing more harm than good – By continuously taping and helping stabilize the finger, you may actually be preventing the tendons from developing this strength and stability themselves. In my case, I just knew when it was time to stop taping.

Anti-inflammatories:
Inflammation is the body’s way of dealing with injury, but when it becomes chronic, it’s likely doing more harm than good. Ice is always the go-to remedy for me – not only does it feel great, but it helps keep swelling down, and promotes blood flow. Oh, and it’s basically free.

I’ve had a limited experience with topical anti-inflammatories like Pennsaid and Voltaren, and the only thing that I can say is that they don’t tend to be particularly effective unless you use them a few times a day – putting Voltaren on an injury once a night isn’t going to help – you need to be hitting it every 4 hours or so.

Prevention:
Tendons aren’t like muscles, they take a long time to build up, and can be injured ridiculously easily, particularly with new climbers whose fingers have not been previously exposed to the kind of force that the sport often entails. When they DO get injured, they can take weeks or months to recover, so your best bet is to cut them some slack and try to keep them healthy. If you’re just starting out, ditch the hangboard. For beginners (and actually for almost anyone), the best training for climbing, is climbing. period. You don’t need finger specific training to pull on some 5.7s in a gym, it’s just an injury waiting to happen. The same goes for campus training – it’s a great tool for training for advanced climbing, but pretty unnecessary until you reach levels where finger strength and campus style movement is holding you back. That being said, if you are hangboarding, campusing, or just climbing hard, warm up! I see way too many “kids” walk into the gym, throw on a harness and start working on their 5.12 project or head straight for the training room. Climbing or training hard on cold fingers and muscles is just a bad idea… do an easy (V0-) 30-50 move traverse, then sit down and stretch out those muscles and fingers. Your body will thank you, and you’ll likely find that your fingers work so much better once they have some blood flow going. Even if I’m not training, I’ll still start my day with a route at least 3 full grades below my redpoint max, and work my way up. If adding 2-3 “easy” routes to your session over-tires you, then I dont think think finger strength should be your primary concern.

Other resources:
Here’s a few helpful pages – if you have any other recommended reading, please feel free to comment and I’ll add them to the list.

• Dave Macleod
• Eric Horst (some good diagrams here)
• ClimbingInjuries.com
• Finger Stretches (video)
• Hand Exercises

Some the others in the group want to get onto BOHICA (Motherlode, 13b), which, to be honest, I think they’ll get totally spanked on (think 100ft sustained steep hauling on 2 pad holds after only training on 25 feet of plastic all winter… no offense to their skill, they’re all crazy strong, but I just think it’s a little ambitious). On a more positive note though, it’ll give them a good feel of what it’s actually like to get on a 5.13 outdoors, and what kind of training and commitment it’ll actually take to be able to send stuff at that grade. I think if I were to pick one climb at that level to strive for, it’d be Predator 5.13b at Rumney. The climb starts after the first pitch of Tropicana (my first 11a onsight with super fun movement), and just looks like a wicked good time! Check back in a year or so, an I may haven take a run at it, lol.

I assume that Predator gets it’s name from the epic prow finish, and BOHICA = “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again”. So that got me thinking about Transworld Depravity. What’s in a name? Google just left me even more confused. I don’t even know how to begin wrapping my head around what it has to do with the climb, but perhaps that’s because it’s been a looong day, and I really shouldn’t be up past midnight reading up on The Problem of Evil and The Free Will Defense. Damn you Wikipedia! I’ll get back to that one in the morning. More to come

The weather was probably just about as awesome as it could possibly be, and by the time we finished dinner, it must have been 11pm, and the sun was finally almost down, revealing a pretty clear sky. The calm breeze made us feel regrettably confident in our ability to pitch a tent. So much so, that we didn’t even bother with the guy wires.

I slept like a baby… an exhausted baby… nice and comfortable on a (highly recommended) Therm-a-rest Prolite Plus (brand new for $40 from some shady guy on Craigslist). Until about 4am. That’s when we got our first truly Patagonian experience. We awoke to gale-force winds pounding the tent to the extent that if we weren’t actually in the tent, it likely would have flown away (as we later learned others had that night). Every once in a while, a gust would hit the tent hard enough to bend the pole and collapse the sidewall. I was honestly expecting a pole to snap, fly though the nylon and stab me in the face. I considered sleeping on my stomach, but the thought of a tent pole enema wasn’t much more appealing. We thought this would simply pass, but as the sun starting making an appearance an hour or two later, the wind was still happily being a pain in the ass. I decidied to man up and go outside to hammer in and bury the tent pegs and survey the damage. The, once calm, glacial lake, now had tidal waves. The wind was so strong it was actually lifting water out of the lake, and raining it back down on us. Brilliant. The contrast of weather compared to just a few hours earlier was like heaven and hell. It’s true what people say, never underestimate the weather in Patagonia… it will literally knock you off your feet if you’re not prepared.

Long story short: All things considered, I’m glad I sacrificed a bit on packing size and weight and went with the Limelight over something lighter like the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL. For places where weather is questionable, I’d rather have a roof over my head than worry about carrying an extra pound on the trail. Total damage: one slightly bent tent pole. The Limelight held up like a champ despite my dumbassery, and I’ve learned and important lesson about always setting guy wires

Pros:

• Bang for the buck – it’s cheaper than the competitors and comes with a footprint and (surprisingly handy) gear loft and pole repair sleeve.
• Well built with materials that aren’t likey to rip and keep water out
• The windows provide enough breeze to kill condensation, but still keep you warm on a chilly night
• Sets up fast thanks to well designed pole and fly clips

Cons:

• Weight and stuffed size – it’s definitely a bit bulkier than some ultra light competitors, and doesn’t stuff quite as nicely. I also found the poles were a tad longer than i expected.
• Windows obstruct views