I have pain and swelling on the joint at the base of my pinky. The pain is point specific to the palm side. It hurts to bend or straighten. Grasping (steering wheel, ski pole) hurts a lot, seemingly more from contact than bending.

TRAINING AND performance experts agree: warming up before you climb will help keep you healthy and climbing your best.

Gear Guy discusses the safety aspects of clipping a carabiner to align the gate away from the direction of climbing.

Three fatalities on this one route alone underscore the seriousness of jugging fixed ropes. Though seemingly simple and safe, this task, like rappelling, is one of climbing’s most insidious killers. The good news is that, as with rappelling, a few simple precautions can minimize the risk.

Lynn Hill and I spent the winter of 1981 in Las Vegas, climbing daily at Red Rocks and plowing through nights at dead-end jobs. After roughly 10 seasons of climbing 300 days a year, my learning curve had flattened and I found myself singing the same old song.

Climbing in the Land That Time Forgot

"Good night, Chuck. We'll shoot the gun and throw the hatchet after coffee tomorrow morning," BJ Tilden speaks these last words as everyone around the campfire nods, and retires to tents and sleeping bags. Lander, Wyoming, is cowboy country, where people still varnish holsters, chew tobacco and use horses as transportation, and where unsung climbing talents like BJ Tilden are hard at work sending the climbing projects of the last decade.

Joe Josephson phoned with an interesting proposal: Fred Beckey had come to town for a reunion of Montana's Dirty Sox Club, a guild of Montana climbers from the 1960s through the 1980s.

If anyone has earned an honorary membership in a group named Dirty Sox it is Washington's Fred Beckey, sovereign of American DirtBag Climbers.

Mammut Champ Pants field test report by Rock and Ice magazine.