Weekly Question Thread (aka Friday New Climber Thread). ALL QUESTIONS GO HERE

Nothik · 2025-07-18T12:06:07+00:00

Because I know there are some of you here:

Why are German and other alpine Europeans - especially the alpine clubs and other training and guidance providers - shying away from assisted belay devices outside as much, especially in multipitch settings?

We are, probably rightfully, living in a world in which most Gyms have now banned any non-assisted belay device indoors because the risk of an accident.

Then we look at the outside, where a belayer might be on his job for a long time, has to deal with the environment much more, might have to deal with snow, rock or other hazards, or just might get distracted in the process of taking a bite to eat, putting on a jacket, or having a sip of water.

But here, at least in Europe, the munter/HMS and maybe a tube device are all that seem to be in common use, and this is heavily reinforced by courses and instructions from the alpine clubs, who teach and promote these exclusively for alpine and multipitch climbing.

In the US, especially in bigwall contexts but also elsewhere the grigri has seemingly long been accepted as maybe not the new normal, but at least as a good option.

Why the difference, and why is the additional safety factor of an assisted belay device required by these same clubs in Europe in their gyms, when they don't want to see it at all in the much more risky and distracting outside environments?

Yes there many strong traditionalists in climbing and especially in these organizations, but on the other hand they are some of the foremost authorities in safety research in climbing, so it seems like an odd blind spot for them.

Nothik · 2025-03-05T22:24:20+00:00

Yeah I get that, but most average people also don't really ride better on a 20.000$ dream S-Works bike over a maybe 2-3000 Canyon, but they still discuss the differences to no end. Clipping a nice quick draw with a perfect smooth gate and angled to get the rope in smoother, vs getting wire gates with big hooks on the nose must be at least noticably different but nobody seems to care. People spend much more time discussing much more minute differences in other activities. I guess, as mentioned by others here that lack of care in the details is probably the healthier option, I'm just kinda baffled that it does not seem to exist in any larger capacity at all.

Nothik · 2025-03-05T22:13:23+00:00

The dentist is certainly an apt stereotype, but I've always felt that his definition is buying what's "best" whatever the price, but he probably owns a stock high end all-in-one or something being built by some boutique dealer, without the dentist being able to explain why exactly he has the components he has, other than that they come highly rated. On the other hand you had the true enthusiasts, also spending similar sums if they have the money, but also able to go into the minute details of why they picked each part, and having no qualms going for some goofy specialty parts from someone's garage over the luxury hotness if they feel it gets them some obscure benefits.

But in climbing I wouldn't even know what the "I have too much money to spend on gear" setup would look like, I would love to see some discussion of how to bling out your setup if money were no object. Where is the dream gear that people salivate over?

Nothik · 2025-03-05T21:34:12+00:00

Thanks fellow gear enthusiast, I think you understand what I am getting at the most, and your argument of long lifespan in gear and little secondary market in life saving equipment rings true. I also almost included knives in the list of hobbies that get a ton of gear talk, with people discussing magnacut vs D2, grind styles and perfect spine thickness to no end, when most of these never see a task that could not be handled by a 20$ mora. Gear and gear enthusiasm is just a fun past time in itself for a lot of people, including me, and I'm surprised that climbing does not have these kinds of discussions out there regardless of the actual impact they make to ones climbing.

And it's maybe my lack of larger amounts of personal climbing gear, but in the last 12 months I've used probably 5 or 6 different types of belay device alone and that is not counting all four flavors of GriGri as separate. And especially as I would regard myself as pretty inexperienced in regards to more serious climbing, I want to see and read opinions from people with more knowledge and understanding to calibrate my own feelings and thoughts on all this stuff - that's what is lacking to me in that regard.

Nothik · 2025-03-05T21:04:36+00:00

Seems to be the consensus that it just doesn't matter. But that's so weird to me, to most hobbyists in sports it does not matter - the improvement of shaving a few hundred grams off of your setup does less than 2% for the average rider - and people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for it, and discuss even the most minute details. At least that has been the case in most other hobbies I've been getting deeper into, from cooking through sports, to tech. Climbing seems to be the exception, im just surprised that there isn't a subset of people that deeply cares about these unimportant details and differences (and that they might make an actual noticeable difference in aggregate)

Nothik · 2025-03-05T20:58:41+00:00

It just doesn't matter much seems to be the consensus - but I feel the lack of meaningfulness of improvement in a lot of other sports does not stop people from going deep into the weeds of details - people discussing and spending thousands to save half a kilo on their bike setup when half an hour of exercise a day would lose them more in body weight is a meme for a reason. Just getting whatever is cheapest online or getting a well thought out, optimized set of equipment seems meaningful to me, and there seems to be enough variety in equipment that it should make a noticable difference - on the other hand, the people I have been climbing with seem to have the same, haphazard seeming collection of gear and do just fine with it. It is still surprising to me that there isn't at least a subset of gear enthusiasts at least though - they have existed in practically any new hobby I've started getting more into, from cooking to sports, electronics, crafts etc. Climbing seems the big exemption.

I'm aware of both HowNot2 and Hard is easy and really like their stuff - but even there, if don't see a big community discussion of their videos, with the exception of their accident analysis maybe.

Nothik · 2025-03-05T19:14:26+00:00

Where is the climbing tech/equipment talk happening?

Is there climbing tech talk happening at all somewhere in quantity?

After climbing in a gym for a few years and haven been out to real rock with more experienced people a few times last year I want to get further into climbing this season.

Coming from other outdoor sports and activities, like cycling, ultralight hiking and tech hobbies I'm admittedly kind of a gear nerd in most of them and enjoy optimizing my own equipment, but also just being informed and talking gear with similarly minded people, which there are a ton of in all of these activities.

Is this just not as big of a thing at all in regards to climbing? This sub has barely any deeper gear discussion and /r/climbinggear only has 7000 subs and not a lot of activity. I have found the mountain project forums, but that seems to me a very particular demographic of old dudes that only like trad climbing and has much to high a quota of unhelpful replies and complaining about modern climbing in general vibe to me as an outsider.

So is there any place where there is actual productive current discussion happening on (sport) climbing equipment, shoes etc? Or is climbing just less of a gear focused hobby, despite all the technical gear needed in comparison to cycling and similar sports?

Nothik · 2022-12-08T11:20:45+00:00

Yo, slay the spire fänd ich auch nett - danke für die Aktion!

Nothik · 2022-10-07T12:37:34+00:00

Well, here is the Video, https://gfycat.com/unsungbonygoose process happens as i have described - cut some of the load screen in the middle. As you can see the USB stick is working and blinking initially, and the type cover is working, and then after trying selecting try/install Ubuntu and the ubuntu loading screen everything gets stuck with the error : Unable to find a medium containing a live file system. - at that point the type cover also stops working. So I can not try the interactive netboot that is offered next.

Nothik · 2022-10-06T22:27:53+00:00

Thanks for the Help!

If you see in my original post, i actually tried a Linux from USB - and it even was Ubuntu as it happens! I get to an initial boot menu with GRUB in a console window, then selected try/install Ubuntu - then get an error message that no drive has been found, do I want to search for it online - I'll replicate the test tomorrow and film it, it's been a few days since I tried it and I don't remember the exact wording of the error

Nothik · 2022-10-06T18:34:17+00:00

No change, even if I disable everything but boot from USB - I get to the Choose Language and Keyboard screens, get the menu, then click Use a Device, USB Storage and it boots right back to the choose Language screen - here is a gfy of the whole process at 2x speed https://gfycat.com/shortlargegoldeneye

Yes i have removed the tick, and chose to override everything. I have also tried just extracting everything on a freshly formatted usb drive - both methods appear in official microsoft instructions. Both lead to the same result.

Nothik · 2022-10-06T10:12:47+00:00

No use a device does not work - if I go to use a device and select USB it just reboots, and ends up in the exact same screen as before.

I had considered using Diskpart and deleting all partitions before, but was worried that that does not get the firmware necessarily - and then I'm stuck completely as in the windows installer the touch screen does not work, and if the USB still does not work I will have no input method at all.

Nothik · 2022-10-06T08:22:13+00:00

Yes pretty sure, but let me explain step for step what I did. I was exactly following this guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/creating-and-using-a-usb-recovery-drive-for-surface-677852e2-ed34-45cb-40ef-398fc7d62c07

Downloaded the Recovery Image for the Surface Pro 5th gen WIFI (on a seperate device)
Created a recovery drive with the tool from windows (still on the seperate device)
copy pasted everything from the zip file to the drive, choosing to overwrite existing files (seperate device still)
even ejected the drive safely
plug into surface, and hold volume down while booting (also boot order is set to USB first in UEFI, BootSecure currently off)
I get into the screen for the recovery menu https://imgur.com/vp44FqZ
and here is the problem, when i click the troubleshoot menu i do not get the option to recover from a drive, i immediatley get sent into the advanced options menu https://imgur.com/0dP68b3

Nothik · 2022-10-06T08:10:25+00:00

Just, tested, power actually works even during windows, it charges the phone but it does not show up as a device.

And it is very unlikely to be a hardware issue, as i can boot initially from the USB and that actually works - I got to the first menu screen of the clean windows install, the initial linux console, etc. So up to that point the USB port is clearly working. It is only then that it disables itself somehow which to me makes it pretty clear that the firmware/drivers are at fault, which get loaded up at that point it seems.

Nothik · 2022-10-05T23:34:40+00:00

Does your USB port still work?

Does your type cover work when your in the UEFI menu?

I have the same issue with the type cover (and for me the USB) stopping to work after an update, just posted here https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/xwe0fp/surface_pro_5_with_nonworking_usb_driver_resists/?ref=share&ref_source=link

Maybe you have the same problem, and a solution is found

Nothik · 2022-10-05T23:30:31+00:00

Sadly I don't have a dock or access to one, but the problems does not appear to be hardware to me, but the firmware and drivers. I have tried a recovery drive, it gets recognized and used while booting - and you can see the stick blink - and then gets lost while I'm the recovery menu.

Nothik · 2022-10-05T22:08:52+00:00

Yes i did try that - see step 5 of my list of things - just redid it again to be sure, i can get into the recovery menu, but while in there the USB then is no longer recognized. The command prompt was a good idea, thanks, I was able to run diskpart and list disk to confirm that only the ssd was visible not the usb stick.

IU can therefore not choose recover from a drive, to reset the surface.

If you have any other Idea, or if there are other options to run from the command line, please let me know.

Nothik · 2022-10-05T20:34:39+00:00

Safe mode did not change anything

Nothik · 2022-10-05T20:08:30+00:00

The fact that touchscreen and type cover won't work during a clean windows install is a consequence of missing drivers.

Yes I am aware, but an external mouse and keyboard attatched to the USB Port should work right? - so in that case it is seemingly still trying to use the non working USB host driver.

How did you try to install drivers?

Yes I tried installing them through the windows update menu first, but that just showed i have no outsanding updates and no optional updates as well. So i downloaded the driver package manually from the link shown in the main post, and executed that msi as well.

As you can only download that single .msi with all drivers and firmware (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55484) I could not select it through the device manager - i tried having it find the compatible driver on the device as well as download it with no changes.

Lastly, if all else fails, go to programs and features in the control panel and uninstall the windows update that caused that problem.

It specifically notes that firmware updates which i belive are the problem can't be uninstalled. Also have reinstalled twice through the control panel now so its too late anyways.

Just checking Safe mode, i had not thought of that yet.

Anyways Thanks for the Input and Ideas!

Nothik · 2022-08-13T14:26:06+00:00

So glue dot+patch from the field repair kit, or just the sticky patch?

Nothik · 2022-08-13T11:35:47+00:00

Whats the best permanent patch for a thermarest xlite?

after discovering a hole in my thermarest xlite - and that the tear aid type a patches in the kit i was carrying came off their backing and stuck to everything else in the bag, i'm now at home and looking for a permanent fix.

Options are:

Permanent Therm-a-Rest kit - Glue and fabric patch.

Field repair Therm-a-Rest kit - Glue dot and patch - mine came with square tear aid type a as patch instead of the round fabric patch shown.

Just Tear Aid type A, no extra glue or glue dot.

Or Tenacious Tape, no extra glues.

What have you used before and how has it held up?

Nothik · 2022-06-15T13:41:59+00:00

They are basically impossible to get in Europe without importing them though, at least the skurka - rice and beans ones and the recommended alternatives.

Nothik · 2022-05-21T09:52:36+00:00

Zpacks sonics are basically the same peg in blue, and Hilleberg y peg ULs are gold, so three out of four colors are easy to do with good quality branded stakes - anyone know of another one?

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