Climbing guidebooks as a tool for studying rockfall activity

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Messages 1 - 7 of total 7 in this topic
gstock

climber
Yosemite Valley
Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 20, 2016 - 05:56pm PT
Interesting review of a study that utilized climbing guidebooks for the Swiss Alps, spanning 146 years, to examine temporal changes in rockfall activity:

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2016/06/18/climbing-guides-1/
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jun 20, 2016 - 09:37pm PT
interesting study...
thebravecowboy

climber
The Good Places
Jun 20, 2016 - 09:43pm PT
The Kelman guide for Veed describes two chockstones of great import for the climbing of the route Baalbek.

There is only one chockstone in place today.


Yikes.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jun 21, 2016 - 12:21am PT
Sandias.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Jun 21, 2016 - 11:09am PT
Interesting idea, Greg. If we start with Roper's 1964 Guide, at least the following are either gone or significantly altered:

Psyche Flake
Undercling Pitch
Gong Flake
Sentinel Spire
Rixon's Pinnacle West Face
Robbins Traverse

not to mention much of the left and right portions of the Apron, parts of the Higher Spire, Ahwiyha Point, the southeast side of Three Brothers and a great many post-1964 routes (large chunks of Route Of All Evil and the North Face of West Quarter Dome, plus those routes around Mirror Lake such as Werner's Crack come to mind). Even though we don't think of Yosemite Valley as having the same danger of stonefall as, say Alpine routes, those walls remain quite geologically acitve.

John
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
Jun 21, 2016 - 11:49am PT
Look at Roper's Guide for the main route on the Rostrum. At least an entire chimney pitch had fallen off when we got there in 1968. The Finger crack above the big ledge was new at that time. We had been wondering where all the fresh rocks at the base had come from. Above that to the left was a new dihedral I nailed. There was a vertical 2" crack in its left wall that rocks were falling down through as I nailed. That was a bit moving! I think I have looked for that 2" crack in current Rostrum photos and it seems like it is gone now.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Jun 21, 2016 - 12:03pm PT
I'd forgotten about the Rostrum, but you're right. I remember the discussion about how that route changed. Also the left side of Goodrich Pinnacle, where the move onto the main Glacier Point Apron got much harder after a flake fell.

John
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