sandpainting

Type of art practiced among the Navajo and Pueblo Indians and among Tibetan Buddhists. Sandpaintings are stylized, symbolic pictures (in Tibet, mandalas) prepared by trickling small quantities of crushed, coloured sandstone, charcoal, or pollen on a background of clean smoothed sand. The pictures may include representations of deities, cosmic worlds, animals, lightning, rainbows, plants, and other symbols described in chants that accompany various religious and healing rites.

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Flat-bottomed depression that is periodically covered by water. Playas occur in interior desert basins and adjacent to coasts in arid and semiarid regions. The water that periodically covers the playa slowly filters into the groundwater system or evaporates into the atmosphere, causing the deposition of salt, sand, and mud along the bottom and around the edges of the depression.

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Dry tooling is controversial among many climbers. Some favor it as a new and exciting kind of climbing, while others dislike it for its nontraditional methods and the long-lasting damage it inherently causes to rock faces.

Dry tooling has recently attracted wider attention following its emphasis in an issue of The Scottish Mountaineer, produced by The Mountaineering Council of Scotland. This invited both strong praise and criticism from readers.

Indoor walls intended for dry tooling also exist in some sports centres, and what was claimed to be the "World's First Indoor Dry Tooling Competition" was held in Glasgow, Scotland in March, 2003. Drytooling is practiced in areas such as Vail Colorado which is also the birthplace of modern mixed ice climbing.

External links

• m9entertainment - - Mixed Ice Climbing Media & Podcasts
• Scott Muir. Dry-Tooling - What's it all About? The Scottish Mountaineer, issue 20.
• Dry Tooling UK, an information and community site for dry tooling in the United Kingdom.