The "self-tending" prusik using a belay device to capture progress on a climbing haul system, often used for crevasse rescue, has become more complicated due to modern ropes. The thinner diameter of these ropes means tighter wraps on the prusik, which - in turn - means those wraps are small enough to get stuck in the device and break the capture system.

Maybe you want to keep crampon straps longer, either because - like my kids - your feet are still growing, or you have both small and large boots that need different strap lengths, or you want to be able to lend out the crampons to anyone with feet bigger than yours. Regardless of reason, here is a solution to keep those straps out of the way if you do decide to keep a little extra length.

As the seasons change in the alpine, so do our climbing equipment needs. Maybe an overlooked item that works slightly less well in extreme cold are standard locking carabiners. By swapping out a few standard lockers for double-gate carabiners, I can have a few carabiners that will prove more resistant to freezing.

Thin and light, modern climbing slings and cord can be very difficult to untie when taking on heavy loads or becoming wet. Here's how using a particular type of carabiner can help solve that problem in the right circumstances.

My go-to "catastrophe" knot, the knot that is my safety backup, when ascending a climbing rope is the clove hitch. Here's why.

Note: It does weaken the sling, but not to the point that it cannot take the loads we produce in climbing scenarios. We can never perfectly equalize our anchor points when making a climbing anchor, but sometimes we will want to make an adjustment to the length of one leg of an anchor to fix an obvious lack of equalization. Here's a quick way to do it that requires no more material than you've already put into the anchor.

There are a pair of gloves that alpinists are turning to for their mountain ascents and ice climbs. Can you believe they are a third to a fifth of the cost of other climbing gloves!? Here they are, and here is what I love about them.

Last week we made a simple “bucket seat belay” on a snow climb. If we want additional security, we may also wish to construct a back anchor for the belay. However, there are a few elements to that anchor we want to incorporate in order to avoid a few potential problems.