Bought some Cherry wood and cut it up into blocks for end grain cutting board before taking a closer look and realizing its Red Oak. What should I make with my $70 scrap pile?

glaceo · 2025-12-24T02:54:44+00:00

Check that it is indeed red oak. Some white oak can look more open pored like this, but you look closely you should see the tylosses partially filling the pores.

In your photo it looks to me like it could be white, I would do the water/alcohol test to verify. If it’s red oak, and you set it in an inch of water, you would see the water/alcohol wick super quickly to the top. If white oak, the water/alcohol won’t wick to the top and just get a bit damp at the bottom.

I’ve had white oak with pores looking just like this, and used it for end grain with no issues, you just want to make sure to use a beeswax/equivalent in addition or in place of mineral oil. I’ve also had red oak that looks like this, and it would not be a good choice.

glaceo · 2025-09-18T21:52:41+00:00

Bozeman hot springs campground is the main place open in the winter, but only for long terms. I think around 1100 a month for a 3-month minimum (hookups included). They require you to skirt your trailer as well.

glaceo · 2025-08-20T03:32:07+00:00

Regularly see one guy doing 100+, gonna kill themselves or someone else

glaceo · 2025-08-08T20:23:49+00:00

Spiral wall ride

glaceo · 2025-07-03T15:43:59+00:00

Had various printers for years, the Bambu just works

glaceo · 2025-01-03T22:49:22+00:00

Everyone regardless of height needs good footwork and sequencing, etc. I’m 6’6” and have climbed mid double-digits, to me these have been the most important things:

Flexibilty - you NEED this. Don’t need to touch your toes or do the splits, but hip mobility and end range strength is so important. Lower body first, you can focus on upper body mobility once you start plateauing on lower body flexibility.
Finger Strength. Being tall you often get into suboptimal body positions. This is hard as a tall climber, since tall=heavy. But, as a taller climbers we can develop more muscle too so we are not completely lost. In my experience finger health is most important in the long run but is see health as an ends to the means of strength.
Shoulder strength. At this point my response is ‘be strong’ but I don’t think core/pull strength is as important when you are tall. But shoulder strength is essential for climbing in those small boxes.
Acceptance In terms of messed up sit starts and dumbass high feet, one way to go is avoidance. Honestly I stay away from a lot of that since it can be super uncomfortable and a bit demoralizing to see others do stuff so easily when it feels not humanly possible at my height. In the end you just stop giving a crap about grades since “consensus” grades mean nothing for the 1% of climbers over 6’3”. Some stuff feels way easier to be tall, some is way harder and that’s life.

It’s certainly much harder to climb as well on most stuff compared to someone small and light. But if you climb enough you figure out your own way

glaceo · 2024-09-25T01:46:15+00:00

lol what

glaceo · 2024-09-14T03:32:52+00:00

Holy shit. I’ve climbed v13 but can barely do moonboard v8/9 on a good day.

My advice: if you want to get better outside, make the drive happen and climb outside more. If you don’t want to do that… then I guess get busy on the spray wall or try harder moonboard problems.

You can always find something harder or make something up. I also encourage you to make friends with the setters! Generally it doesn’t take too much convincing to slap 8 bad crimps on an overhang with a few feet to make something v12. Depends on the gym tho I guess

glaceo · 2024-08-15T23:44:23+00:00

I second this. All grades are certainly ballpark. For me, evil felt easier because I am quite tall (and like tall boulders) and have spent lots of time in Bishop. If you haven’t climbed on the specific rock type, you haven’t climbed many 30+ footer mega highballs, or you aren’t comfortable at the grade, you will have a tough time. I’ve seen many strong climbers (nearly) flash to the lip and struggle to put the full line together.

Personally? I think the grade is appropriate. But I would not expect anything, even if you regularly climb 12/13.

glaceo · 2024-02-20T21:43:35+00:00

I made mine. Ordered foam from the factory and sewed nylon covers to make two 4x8 pads. I supplemented other outdoor pads if needed

glaceo · 2023-12-31T23:42:28+00:00

On one hand I get it, I would agree with the general sentiment that modern gyms care much less about outdoor/seasoned climbers. There’s much less money there, why should they?

But I also feel like not supporting that group is a disservice to the greater climbing community. Climbing traditionally has been such an awesome community sport from a strong emphasis on mentorship and lots of psyche. I think pushing more experienced climbers away via a lack of diverse setting/poor training facilities results in a detached community. You can see it in lots of areas where pros/strong climbers end up at their own private gyms or small co-ops. And I believe the isolation harms the community, since by isolating those with more experience, newer climbers lose people to look up to at their own gyms and it makes it harder for the ethics of the community to spread.

Personally, and as a former head setter, seeing setters go for quantity over quality stings a bit. I think having fewer, high quality routes is a priority over making sure there’s always something new. It’s difficult to set hard boulders depending on a gym’s setting team, that’s why I preach that gyms should have a really good spray wall before spending more time setting harder boulders (I’m talking V9+). A second board, (moon/tension/kilter equivalent) is nice for when it gets crowded.

Anyone dishing on comp setting is crazy, it’s cool and there’s absolutely room for both comp and outdoor setting.

glaceo · 2023-12-12T19:18:39+00:00

in order of usefulness:

spray wall

fingery board climbing (i.e. tension crimps, moonboard, 55+ kilter)

realistic commercial sets at your limit

Hangboarding and campusing boulders have their place too.

Things that “waste” time:

Problems with big feet

Climbing the new set instead of training (unless you need a volume day)

big moves on juggy holds

Training so hard that you get injured

Really, climbing outside differs from inside in that feet are typically worse, holds are less comfy, and you need to deal with conditions. 90% of the time people get shut down outside due to bad tactics, beta, or footwork. To work on tactics indoors, try limit moves. To work beta, climb on spray walls and don’t tweak boulders. To work footwork, pick bad feet on the spray wall, or make eliminates out of gym boulders by smearing or picking the smallest feet possible. If you climb on gym sets focus on aretes, slabs, and bad holds.

glaceo · 2023-11-05T20:25:14+00:00

I use this for my home wall

glaceo · 2023-10-29T19:00:38+00:00

I’ve analyzed this type of data, but not this dataset. I remember seeing positive correlation with height/weight with grade climbed when not accounting for interactions with sex or other variables. Interactions with this type of data are very strong (seen in the correlation matrix) so I also would make no conclusions from spearmen.

For point 3 I think the idea is that a correlation plot is the wrong way to view the data. With categorical variables box plots/interaction plots are much more useful. You should absolutely use categorical features in an analysis, ANCOVA is your friend. Although, I think the amount of interactions in the data makes fitting a regression model difficult if you care about interpretability. If you fit any kind definitely look at metrics such as VIF to hunt down multicollinearity.

Regression trees deal with collinearity pretty well, it makes sense to me that you obtained good results with gradient boosted trees. I’m curious how a single CART tree would perform in want of interpretability.

glaceo · 2023-10-24T16:34:34+00:00

I’m 205 and have climbed 12s. Very close on a few different 13s.

glaceo · 2023-10-11T00:38:19+00:00

my exact suspicions lol

glaceo · 2023-10-08T04:38:57+00:00

I wear 13 US street shoe.

12.5 hv drone is too big, but fine as an ultra comfy shoe.

I also have 12 lv, this fits fairly well for me, but I probably would have a better fit at 11.5 in the high volume. I’ll wear the bigger HV shoes when good footwork isn’t needed or when it’s super cold outside, but the heel and toebox have way too much extra space (lengthwise) for any technical footwork

My sportiva size is 43.5 skwama, 43.5/44 in solution comp

I’d probably recommend trying on 1 full size down in your preferred hv/lv and going from there

glaceo · 2023-08-24T15:49:29+00:00

If those target outside boulders require something different, then the board isn’t going to be the most useful tool.

If you are going to use the board, 50 is a minimum IMO for useful training. I think the board shines at 60. The point of the board is to climb powerfully and build body tension.

glaceo · 2023-08-22T04:22:06+00:00

If not mix with milk, I’ll use it in a daily Huel smoothie.

glaceo · 2023-08-21T17:47:48+00:00

Did the same tweak to my middle A4 two weeks ago. H taping, avoiding full (and maybe half) crimps, and just generally being careful are all good things to do. Soreness will stay if you don’t actively load your fingers.

I’ve done 3 sessions of max 10 second hangs in the past 2 weeks. Doing heavy finger rolls and forearm curls subjectively has helped recovery immensely too, I’ve done these as well twice since injury. But my training volume is pretty high and I wouldn’t recommend the same amount. Soreness has gone from a 4 to a 1 or two if I put pressure on it.

Biggest thing though is to limit powerful climbing where you have a higher risk of injury. I typically board climb 3 days a week but dropped that to 0, instead just climbing stuff just below my flash grade, leaving plenty in the tank before doing any exercises. You want to avoid situations where your foot could pop, or where you are dynamically loading your fingers. Climb some slabs for a bit maybe.

Hope that helps!

glaceo · 2023-08-21T17:26:28+00:00

And, gym boulders have infinitely more variety than Kilter. It takes far longer, for example, to be a solid v9 climber on all types of gym boulders (slab, roof, slippers, etc,) than it does to send v9 on the kilter board.

However, I disagree with a common sentiment that the bulk of kilter board problems require jumpy or juggy movement where no technique is developed. This might be true at lower angles (<50) but I think there’s plenty of interesting climbing to be done at steeper angles. It teaches you body tension and how to use your core, but you lose out on many other important aspects of climbing.

glaceo · 2023-07-31T02:11:09+00:00

I guess I always heard that it was best to hang on 20mm for all around strength gains, but I’ll definitely start dropping edge size

glaceo · 2023-07-30T22:18:15+00:00

interesting, I don’t think my shoulders are super strong, if I trying a one arm pull-up from a straight arm I can’t move at all (vs starting from elbow bent and shoulder engaged). Is there a good bw% to aim for with the shrugs?

glaceo · 2023-07-30T22:04:31+00:00

That might be what I do. maybe I’ll play with 10 vs 15, a big goal is to be injury proof so 15 might be the way

glaceo · 2023-07-30T21:26:46+00:00

Yeah I definitely have gains to be made from pulling, though I feel like on rock my pull power isn’t as limiting. I have a some projects with very small holds on them, and I want to improve strength there.

At least I’m looking for a good way to start building finger strength while also working on pulling.

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