Ok, so I have to rant here a bit. At the Front Porch cliff at the Narrows, there was this cool bonsai tree living in a nook near the start of two routes. Fortunately, the tree wasn’t blocking any important holds, it was just chilling there, doing it’s tree thing, probably all zenned out or something, contemplating the sick view across the valley. We had climbed these routes many times (which share a start) and the tree was fine.

The other day I go to the cliff and immediately notice the tree is gone! Pulled out by it’s root! My first assumption is that someone did this intentionally, and if so that really pisses me off. This just shows a complete lack of respect. That little tree was a cool part of the cliff and those routes, and now it’s sitting at the base of the wall dying. I hope the tool who yanked it could finally send those pitches after the tree was gone, since it must have been such a hindrance to have it there.

Perhaps it was an accident and I’m overreacting, and in that case there’s a lesson to be learned about grabbing small trees when you are gripped. But if someone intentionally yanked this thing out, then that’s just sad.

A local paper, the Post Independent, has an article today about the new Rifle Mountain Park & Western Colorado Rock Climbs guidebook. It focuses on Dave Pegg, the motivating force behind the guide and the founder of Wolverine Publishing. Definitely worth a quick read.

In other news, NPS officials are starting to confiscate stashed pads in Rocky Mountain Park. This seems to be somewhat of a controversial issue for some, but if you’re too lazy to carry crash pad a couple miles, then maybe you shouldn’t be back there.

Also, the Climbing Narc is giving away some DVD’s and Pimpin and Crimpin has an entertaining interview with Climbing Mag Editor in Chief Matt Samet.

Here at SplitterChoss.com headquarters we’ve got some more reviews coming down the pipe, as well as some interviews with local climbers, and a whole lot more.

There’s a mini-thread going on over at MountainProject.com concerning the use of plaques in the desert. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a common practice in the Creek to leave record of your ascent by inscribing the name and grade of the route on a thin slab of sandstone. It’s been the traditional, low key way to leave record of your ascent for those that come after, and the practice started long before there were guidebooks or the internet to spread information around. Back then you hiked up to a splitter, if it had anchors and a plaque, it had been climbed, if not, game on! I think it’s really cool to see the old plaques that have survived over the years, a storied part of our climbing history.

Back to the topic on MountainProject, one zealous poster goes so far as to describe the practice as a “disgusting tradition” and “vile.” Seems a bit overblown to me. Killing babies is vile. Plaques in the desert? Come on, get over yourself.

So what do folks think? Are plaques cool? Are they trash? Does anyone really care? Personally, I think they are an interesting part of the desert climbing experience, and it’s sad to hear about people going around breaking these things in a feeble attempt to boost their own fragile egos.

Comments are on.

My friend Mike has a good post over at ChossMonkey.com today. He’s launching a new column about how to get the most out of the gear you already have, versus just buying the newest gadgets and gizmo’s because they are 3.5 oz lighter with recycled vegan parts that will bring about world peace if we all buy one in each color. I completely agree with the gist of what he is saying.

So much of the outdoor industry pretends to be green while at the same time their very existence is founded upon the notion that you need to buy more new stuff. Now granted, there are times when you do need new gear, and I think that is ok. But the big joke about this whole “green” movement is that people think you can save the world by buying more stuff. The Black Diamond Icon I reviewed yesterday has a rechargeable battery that lasts a long time. I don’t suggest you go out and buy one of these to replace your already working and still good headlamp. But if you are in the market for a new headlamp, it’s one to consider.

Mike states he doesn’t want to do gear reviews because it contributes to the whole consumer driven bullshit society we live in. And I do agree to a point, but I will continue to post gear reviews on here because I like to promote things that work well and hold up to abuse, which in turn means you wont have to keep buying new things to replace it. So much of what we buy ends up in the trash, it’s nice to know what gear you can buy that will last for years (like all my Patagonia clothes, bomber!)

In today’s post, he’s talking about using rechargeable batteries for all the electronic goodies that we all use. This is a great idea, and if you couple it with the use of a solar panel, you can power all your small stuff straight from the sun, and stop sucking energy from the grid. Very cool.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that all of us recreationalists impact the environment quite a lot, from driving places to the gear we buy (you think those fancy metals just pop out of the ground?) But this also allows us to interact with the planet up close and personal, and in turn gives us a great respect for it. As long as we are all striving to do what we can to minimize our impact, I think that’s the best anyone can hope for.

Ok, time for a short rant, this is something that’s been bothering me for awhile now. Is anyone else sick of all the catalogs and emails that Mountain Gear sends out? I mean, I feel like we are getting almost one a week. In an industry that pretends to be as green as possible, this is definitely not helping things. So what if it’s printed on recycled paper, you’re still wasting resources. What ever happened to one catalog per season? Especially with so many people shopping online, a printed catalog every two weeks is just a joke.

And I’m pretty sure I get at least one email a week from them. Sure, sometimes there’s a cool sale I like to know about. But for the most part, I’m just like, what? another email from Mountain Gear? Delete. I might have to start marking those messages as spam. Or maybe I should start spamming them back.

Of course, I can opt-out of their email list and tell them to stop sending me catalogs, but that wont fix the problem. Who’s in charge over there anyway?