Gear Guy

Master ice climber Will Gadd gives practical tips for better, safer and more efficient ice tool and crampon placement.

How do I heal cracked fingertips? How do I prevent them from cracking in the first place?

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

My brother and I were rappelling the nearly vertical face of Prince of Darkness at Red Rocks. When we pulled the ropes they sailed past us and we hear...

You come to a rappel station and upon inspecting the webbing notice that there are no cuts or wear marks, and that the nylon feels soft, almost like me...

I was looking for a way to I.D. the Wallnuts I just added to my rack, and found some Grip Dip by Homax Products, Inc. I've used this type of product f...

Shear loading, such as you'd get on a less-than-vert wall, tests the bolt shaft's breaking (shear) strength. Tension loading, such as you'd get with a bolt placed in a roof, tests its pull-out strength.

I know that ugly toes are the honor badge of a hardened rock monkey, but I'd like to avoid pain. Will the Gear Guy speak?

I have a great climbing partner, but whenever we go climbing we just seem to end up arguing and pissed off. I don't want another partner, because the one I have is solid and knows exactly how to feed me rope. What can I do?

I recently saw an experienced climber clip both of his ropes to one ice screw. I thought that you were never supposed to clip double ropes into the sa...

I'm a 32-year and have climbed for 20 years. I send 5.14, V11 and can do about anything in the gym. But I can't find a woman.

Last April I took a trip to Alaska and rented an RV for the month.  We stored our gear in the shower, which one day back-flushed.  My rope g...