New climbers, and even some experienced climbers, can improve both efficiency and safety by learning how to tie a high-quality figure eight retrace knot regardless of changing rope diameters. The full video provides a step-by-step process to get a knot that meets all the best-practice criteria, a breakdown of those criteria so we understand why they are important, and a walkthrough of a final knot check we should perform every time we tie in.

When we are out climbing, hiking, or backpacking in the backcountry, there can come times when we want to estimate how much time we have before the sun dips behind the horizon. Here's a quick way to make that estimate without any equipment.

When I am out climbing, there are times when I might choose to lower a first climber down a pitch rather than have the climber rappel. The full video gets into five circumstances that I have faced, personally, and discusses the tradeoffs of choosing to lower in those circumstances.

Avalanches are more likely to occur on slopes between 30 and 45 degrees. We can quickly check the angle of a slope in the field by employing some geometry and two matching pieces of equipment like trekking poles or snow pickets. Here's how.

Context is key. The systems we choose to employ on our climbs will be more or less effective depending upon the specific circumstances we face. So, I am hesitant to use the words "always" and "never" when it comes to climbing techniques. The full video, as an example, gives four exceptions to the notion that we always belay a leader from the harness and a follower from the anchor.

There are times where the terrain looks easily passable but one new variable, like loose rock or exposure, may make a rope and harness the sensible choice. Well, we need to have our harness on, already, because it may be too difficult to put it on once you really need it.

A video can introduce concepts and even provide tutorials, but it cannot cover all of the variable situations and context of outdoor environments. Learn about something here, but then seek qualified instruction to master it.

One of the strong women in my climbing community, Jane, passed along this tip about using chemical hand warmers on our wrists to help avoid the cold hands that ice climbing can so easily cause.

We have a lot of climbers in our family, and therefore a lot of ice axes and ice tools. We want to be able to keep our sharpened picks in good condition and also want to keep those picks from damaging other gear while in transit. So, we make our own pick guards. We find this solution to be more cost effective and provide better protection than the commercially available solutions.

When we get to higher altitudes, the thinner air means less diffusion of UV rays, and the bright snow below us means those UV rays bounce back at us from below. It is as if we are walking in a radiating dish. So, we need to be careful about sun protection and exposed skin. Here are a few pieces of equipment I use to help guard what my other clothing cannot: my face.

Speed is safety in the mountains. We want to maintain current security, but not at the price of future security. So, if we have opportunities to have our climbing team work and make progress simultaneously we will make that happen if the risks aren’t too high. Efficiently getting through a rappel transition is one example, and it can be the little things that make the difference - like giving slack to the following climber on rappel as soon as safely possible.

When winter sets in, the cold, the gloves, and the snow and ice all make tying and - particularly - untying weighted climbing knots more difficult. So, easier-to-knots to untie can make transitions in and out of systems faster. The full video details three ways that I start using a bowline on a bight when wet, winter weather shows up in the mountains.

Climbers will sometimes use a tether, or a Personal Anchor System (PAS), to clip into an anchor and will sometimes use the rope. Let's briefly go through some pros and cons.

While the "backside clove hitch" method of connecting to the anchor is getting more and more popular for ascending routes, we can extend that same thinking to a multi-pitch rappel. The method was developed to address the problem with managing knots in the ends of our rope, as we need to remove them to pull the rope but need to add back for the next rappel, which creates opportunities for mistakes. The full video goes step-by-step and gets into pros and cons.

While a climbing lanyard is not my first choice for connecting to an anchor, there are times I use one. How I choose to rack the lanyard on my harness depends upon the type of lanyard I am using.

Like the old "choose your own adventure" books, each climb we make presents many choices, big and small. The full video looks at two different transitions, moving from climbing to rappelling in a team of two, to see how our choices impact the various risks we can both avoid and bring into play by those choices.

@HowNOT2 makes outstanding gear testing videos and have opened a highly responsive and well stocked gear shop. You should check it out. One of their major video themes is testing soft goods when configured in anchor configurations. While knowing how a specific configuration will rate in strength is important, understanding why can help you make dynamic choices in the field.

Counterbalanced simul-rappelling is something expert climbers will do in unusual circumstances, and this gives the impression of relative safety. But in nominal climbing circumstances, what benefit are we really gaining? The full video breaks down the time-savings benefits so that we can weigh the costs.

When we can anticipate the fixed hardware at the anchor stations of a climb, or if we have flexibility in placing good ice screws as we see fit, it is possible to pre-rig our anchor material and use it at the anchors as we move up the route. For vertically staggered anchors, the banshee belay is a good option. Here is how we can make and employ one.

On a recent climbing trip, I forgot my harness, used up gear making an improvised harness, and was confronted with a cascading series of risk assessments and mitigations as a result. The full video is a case study of a climbing day when things went fine but imperfectly, as many days climbing end up being.