If you climb ice long enough and often enough, it’s inevitable that you will, at some point, be out on a day where the ice is bulletproof, tools bounce off the ice like you’ve hit a rock, and dinner plates are a fact of life.  The sounds in those conditions are unmistakeable, ice fragments sound like broken wine glasses and fine china falling down, and tools and crampons squeak like nails on a chalk board.  Still, there are a few things I’ve learned that make life a lot easier and can at least make a cold day out tolerable.

Brian Bottan enjoying steep ice on a cold day - find the sun, climb the wet, tread lightly.

1. Sharpen Up! – I see this every season, and I’m still occasionally guilty of it myself, but keep all your pointy bits sharp!  Properly sharpened picks (the profile restored to that of a brand new one, or properly tuned if you know how) make a huge difference in how easily you’ll get a good tool placement in cold ice.  Accept that your picks are replaceable for a reason – they wear out from time to time, and stop trying to save a few bucks by avoiding sharpening them when they need it – strive for that “new pick” feeling.  Don’t forget to work on the top of the pick as it gets shorter to keep the front profile true to stock.  Remember to swap out those T-rated drytooling picks for thinner B-picks if you have them.  If you find your picks “sticky”, tune them to release properly – nothing like cold ice to really get your tool stuck.  Ditto for your crampons – dull points will have you climbing like you’re driving a Flintsone car on the expressway, no matter how good you use your feet. You shouldn’t have to kick more than once or twice to get a secure foot.  Finally, don’t forget your screws.  Nothing will increase your confidence more than starting an ice screw quickly when you need it most, and only razor sharp screws will do in very cold weather.  If you’re lucky enough to find a wet line (see below), any screw can be a nightmare to start in dense ice with a wet surface.  Sharp screws help here, as do the most recent screws from major manufacturers which seem to deal better with this stuff than older versions.
2. Swing lightly – if your ice technique is lacking (i.e. you’re a lumberjack), it will become even more apparent in cold weather.  Heavy-handed swinging is not only more fatiguing, but will result in more dinner plating; and on more difficult climbs, it may break off features you would prefer remained in place.  Practice climbs at your limit in these conditions while on top rope, and you may be surprised and how much better a lighter touch seems – and how much more efficient it will be in the long run.  The trick is to find the balance between a secure placement and minimal effort and ice displacement.  On difficult ice with fragile features, I often “drill” my tool placements with a few lighter taps, displacing minimal ice but getting a deeper, more secure hole to hook.  If the hooking gives you the willies, a slightly harder tap at the end sets the pick in the ice more securely.
3. Happy Hooking – take advantage of natural features or, on beat out routes, old pick holes, wherever possible.  No swinging usually means no dinner plates.
4. Dealing with Dinner Plates – A lighter swing will go a long way to minimizing the number and size of dinner plate chunks of ice you knock loose.  At these temps though, they are a fact of life for even experienced climbers.  Climbs with fresh or undisturbed, smooth ice (in addition to being pumpy or real calf-burners depending on the angle) will be the most challenging in this regard.  When you do knock a plate loose, try to avoid sending it down the climb intact to your belayer (or your face).  Lightly break it into smaller pieces first, working from the top down so as to minimize the chance it goes all at once.  Dodging (or getting hit by) smaller chunks is always preferable.  It doesn’t take a large piece of ice to do serious damage when it hits a person.  Some plates may be best left in place, as long as there is no danger of them coming loose later and hitting someone.  Also, sometimes clearing the surface ice with a large dinner plate can reveal more cooperative ice underneath – I’ve found the ice below often seems to be under less tension and easier to get a good stick into, or the plate may reveal ice features underneath that are more aerated and better accept the displacement of a pick.  A properly worn and adjusted helmet (so that the forehead is protected – not tilted back) helps a ton – use your helmet to deflect ice debris from your face.  A regular partner of mine has a visor on his, usually worn flipped up, for added protection from this hazard.
   

   Wes with his trusty helmet visor.

5. Obey the Basic Rules – If we’ve been spoiled with a long spell of soft ice and warm temps, we often get used to bending the “rules” of tool placements – getting sticks in fragile features or on top of bulges.  Look for the holes, gaps and depressions, you’ll displace less ice that way.  Avoid the crests of bulges and cauliflowers, and the outsides of narrow columns.
6. Seek out the Water – 16 years of ice climbing, and I’m still amazed that I can find flowing or seeping water at -30C. Following that wet line can make a cold climb much easier, and mean the difference between struggling like you’re chopping a cord of wood and cruising up some plastic.  Be careful about swinging too hard again though, and pay attention to icing on gloves and tool handles if you’re going leashless.
7. Climb the “Crap” – I’ve often managed to make quick work of an imposing route in colder weather by climbing the rougher-looking ice that I’d avoid in warmer conditions.  Snowy patches on the ice can sometimes make for an easier stick (I suspect the aerated surface ice-snow interface helps here) – watch for onion skins and other surprises though.  Similarly, sun-rotted ice, especially if it’s just the inch or two on the surface (yielding good ice and protection below) will often be more aerated and less prone to fracturing – it’s a fine line though between total crap and easier overall climbing.  I also use this to advantage topping out on vertical routes – sometimes the sunny side of a bulge offers an easier time during the trickiest part of a climb.  Be especially wary though of very cold ice that has only recently had the sun on it, there can be a lot of tension there and consequent surprises when you try to get a stick.
8. Dagger Intentions – Now is NOT the time to be getting on those free-hanging daggers or free-standing columns.  They will be under a LOT of tension and sometimes a sneeze will be all it takes to snap them.  Save those for warmer spells (they’re hard enough as it is!).  As Wes notes, it’s a good idea to pay attention to temps in the days leading up to an ascent of a free-stander, sometimes if it’s a tad cool, but with consistent temperatures, it might be okay.  Me, I’m a chicken and if it’s cold I stay off them unless they’re super fat.
9. Beware Big Swings – even if the daytime high is forecast to be tolerable, or you’ve found that sunny climb out of the wind, pay attention to changing temperatures.  These put the ice under a lot of tension, particularly if temps are dropping or rising quickly (most climbers have heard climbs cracking during a sudden drop in temperature), and your tools can seemingly explode from the ice.
10. Free Your Wrists – And your circulation will follow.  Using leashes can be of benefit in colder weather (particularly when using thicker gloves) and provide an additional margin of security, but they prevent natural circulation to your hands and make it easier to get in over your head (by being able to do more with semi-frozen hands).  Climbing unleashed will keep you moving your hands about more, make it easier to drop them to restore circulation, and also keep you more realistic about just how cold you’re hands are getting, making you more likely to turn around while you still can.  Be proactive and shake blood into your hands frequently while climbing to avoid the barfies.
11. Protect the Belayer – if you can set up the belay in a cave or anywhere out of ice fall range, do so.  Icefall is even less avoidable now than when it’s warm.  On single pitch routes, avoid ground anchors unless absolutely necessary and choose climbs where the belayer has ample room to dodge icefall.
12. Dress Appropriately – Goes without saying, but come prepared.  Consider a change of socks after longer approaches, and a spare undershirt.  In addition to your big puffy jacket, a nice set of puffy pants can make all the difference at a long belay.  My friend once produced a sleeping bag you could walk in, leaving me comfortable belaying in -36C weather while he drilled and cleaned a new sport mixed pitch for 3 hours.  Thankfully our heated batteries still died prematurely and ended that sufferfest.  Ditto for your hands – a good pair of expedition mitts for the belay session can stave off the inevitable barfies.  All this can add up to more “stuff”, but sharing one set between partners can keep the packs smaller and lighter. And now is the time for those super-warm double boots that you only wear once or twice a season.  Keep them laced looser to permit adequate circulation to your feet, and lace them tighter when needed while standing in them (always a good idea, regardless of temp – the shape of your foot changes when weighted vs. not).
13. Eat and Drink – It took me years to understand just how important this was in cold weather.  I tend not to eat much at all most days out climbing, and in cold weather I drink even less.  Having hot drinks available, and plenty of them, makes this more appealing, as does some fatty foods.  Drinking adequately during the day will help with recovery later as well.
    

    Bryce Brown fueling up with a light snack on a road trip. Remember to stoke the furnace!

14. Focus on staying warm – Everything just takes a bit longer and bit more effort on colder days.  Accept this, and think about keeping warm.  Proactively warming cold toes and hands makes you more useful as a belayer and safer while climbing – do your best to avoid the barfies.  Shine those lips up with good balm, and cover your nose and ears if it’s windy.  Keep an eye on your partner for signs of frost nip or worse.
15. Climb the Classics – Getting on a popular route often means the route will be hacked out, and this can be a plus in cold weather since you’re hooking more and swinging less, and expending less effort.  If the route is busy, be first (though see next tip).  Climbing under another team on vertical routes with no steps is a bad idea on any day, it’s even worse in colder weather when even more ice will be raining down the route.  If you get scooped, go elsewhere, or head to the coffee shop and talk about how rad you would have been if you had been first.
16. Sleep In – Getting a later start is often a good idea.  Pick a lower-commitment objective and, if there’s any chance of things warming a bit, give the day time to do so.  It’s amazing how even a few degrees can make a big difference in your mood on a given day.
17. Consequence – Remember, cold weather always makes any accident or injury, however minor, a lot more serious.  Any situation resulting in immobility carries with it a serious risk of hypothermia or other cold injury, and administering first aid or coordinating even a simple self-rescue quickly becomes more challenging – plan accordingly.  Now is a good time for lower-commitment objectives.
18. Be Ready to Bail – That’s why you’ll-be-backin-offs (aka Abalakovs, aka v-threads) were invented.  As with any ice climbing, if it ain’t happening, accept it and get out of there.  No shame in turning around, I do often (then again, I do get shamed for it…).
19. Think of Your Pet – Unless you’ve got a Yukon sled dog as your companion (and one that’s habituated to the cold, not a couch dog), leave your canine buddy at home.  Common sense prevails here!
20. Stay Home – This is always an option, after all, ice climbing is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?  I know a lot of folks that just stay home on the colder days, which makes good sense to me.  There’s always that -15 rule – if it’s colder than that, technical climbing gets a lot more challenging and down right sucks in most cases.  Of course, we still sometimes go (hence this post), but the folks that do it often are also the same guys that believe slamming your fingers in a car door is a good way to train for ice climbing.  And fight that ever present “this is my day off and I’m doing it no matter what” syndrome that gets us all into trouble on occasion.

Even with all of this, climbing when the temps are in the negative double digits is most often Type II fun, sort of like WI6 on an ideal day.  Perhaps it’s more like repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall – it feels good when you stop.

Well, now that summer’s long since over and I’m thinking about ice, I ought to get this blog moving again.  A couple of summer updates are in order…I know, it’s already November and I owe a lot of people some pictures…been busy, what can I say?

 This summer marked the Alpine Club of Canada’s 105^th(!) General Mountaineering Camp (GMC).  To my knowledge, this is the longest-running camp of this style in the world, and probably one of (if not THE) only annual camp of its type today.  It’s an event loaded with history, and in fact many of the early first ascents of major peaks in the Canadian Rockies happened as a result of this camp at the turn of the century.  Though it seems hard to believe now, climbing these peaks back then was a totally different, and far more involved, undertaking.  The “capital” of western Canada at the time was Winnipeg (and in fact, that’s where the ACC was inaugurated in 1906), and so any endeavours in the Rockies required quite the resources.

After its near-demise in the 1980s, the GMC has become an annual highlight for the club.  From my perspective as an amateur leader, I find it extremely rewarding and worthwhile despite the occasional challenges of leading others in the mountains. Volunteering alongside professional mountain guides and other leaders with vast amounts of mountaineering experience, it’s both an opportunity for some serious fun in the mountains with a wide variety of personalities, as well as a great opportunity to keep those mountaineering skills sharp.  I learn something every year, and to date I’ve only had one helmet fire that I’ll admit to!

This summer’s camp was located on the bench below Mount Somervell and basecamp afforded wonderful views of Mounts Tsar, Shackleton and others; at least when the weather cooperated.  To say this year’s camp was not without challenging weather would be an understatement.  I was there for Week 4 of the six-week long camp in the last week of July, and we dealt with everything from winter snow at higher elevations (and the concomitant avalanche concerns at times), to rain resembling falling pitchforks, to thigh-deep post-holing, soft crevasse bridges, whiteout navigation and unfrozen snow and “ice”.

I’ve often heard it said that the Inuit have a number of different words for snow; I’d say we encountered most varieties and I’ll also note that mountain guides have quite a few different words for bad snow…most of which I probably shouldn’t repeat here.

Despite the at-times horrendous weather though, we did manage to climb something on all but one of our seven possible climbing days (and we got to watch a lightning show to remember from our tents that day).  Most days I got really efficient at putting on my rain jacket only to take it off moments later.  Other days I just stayed wet from the moment I left camp.  Unfortunately, the heavy amounts of winter snow still falling at higher elevations left the bigger peaks out of condition with double-corniced ridges and treacherous snow slopes to negotiate, so Shackleton, Somervell and Tsar remained unclimbed during my stay.  Mount Tsar was the only one of the big prizes to be climbed this year, once during Week 1 and again during Week 5 (just my luck…) – congratulations to those parties, looked like a fantastic outing!

I had a great time, as always, having the chance to again see some old friends and mentors, hone my own skills, and make many new friends.  I also had the immense satisfaction of seeing a lot of smiling faces as many folks bagged their first peaks.

I wake up feeling like I have sand in my eyes.  Lack of sleep has left me confused and disoriented.  My first thought is a bit of snow blindness from the bright sun on the glacier, I really should have been more attentive to wearing my sunglasses.

A few more moments pass and a bit more clarity ensues – that can’t be it, it was only a dream.  I’ve not been anywhere near a glacier, or anything climbable, in quite some time.  Far too long in fact.  Confusion sets in again as I try to suss out my surroundings and recall where I am this week.  The sort of confusion that arises from not having slept in my own bed for more than a few nights since early May.  My eyes hurt because they’re full of dust and smoke from the arid clearcut I was working in yesterday.  Another moment passes and I realize where I am and how I got there.  A second or two later I’m nearly launched into orbit when my all-too-crass travel alarm startles me at the advent of another work day.

A hasty breakfast and morning routine, followed by a seemingly endless drive along a bumpy bushroad (who knew these things had kilometre markers in excess of 180?) lands my partner and I at another site we are to assess in the name of forest research.  This work has by now become tiresome and repetitive, like any good forest survey, and I’m crashing through the young jack pine stand on autopilot.  A loud bellow of obscenities ensues as a pin cherry branch whips my face in protest of my careless passage.

While measuring another plot, my mind wanders to places where, and people with whom, I’d rather be – anywhere but here, again.  Looking down at the lichens I notice my tattered nylon pants, grabbed by a thousand pieces of slash, prickly roses and jack pine branches,  I think of how many summers I’ve done similar damage to similar pants.  You know, the same kind of pants preferred by climbers the world over.  Quick drying, stretchy, synthetics – great for bush work as well.  Except those summers were the kind I live for – endless roadtrips, one lasting three months in the Rockies where I wore out three pairs of pants learning to read topos and thrutch up cold, scalloped limestone chimneys.

Somehow I manage to measure several more plots, another hour ticks by and I don’t even remember recording the data.  A look at the field computer confirms it’s there though.  Instead, my mind was on the climbs I’ve  done and the people I’ve done them with.  I chew on the last of my too-small lunch, and it’s only 10 am.  Figures.  I commence my next plot thinking of my wife and how little I’ve seen her this summer.  Indeed, I’ve yet to sleep more than four nights in my own bed this summer.  Thinking of her brings a smile to my face and the next few plots go better.

The sound of a water bomber overhead actioning a nearby fire transports me to another daydream, this one to Alaska and the sound of the aircraft landing on the snow at Kahiltna International Airport.  I still feel cheated by an unexpected illness on that trip, cheated out of an opportunity to try a big route with some great and patient friends, as well as to test myself on one of the most awe-inspiring peaks I’ve ever seen.    I resolve to get back there come hell or high water, and soon, to try again and this resolve carries me through my next hour of work with fervour.

Finishing up the survey late in the day, it’s time for the endless march back.  This particular road has been actively reclaimed by the forestry company, and traveling down it is difficult.  Thirty minutes later I’m walking on autopilot, switching between the road and the adjacent forest, trying to decide which is easier.  My mind again wanders to climbing, and my latest long-term dream climb.  I’ve had a lot of those lately and they’ve changed as often as the places I’ve slept this summer, I haven’t found one yet that grabs me the way they once did though and I worry about losing my commitment to climbing.  Perhaps that’s not it.  It’s more likely that I miss the commitment that hard climbing demands of me.  Being away from climbing for so long leaves me wanting.

On the drive home, my enthusiastic partner convinces me to stop and try a few casts in a promising river and we manage a couple of plump walleye to bring home.  Standing on the rocks below the fragrant branches of an overhanging cedar, I see my reflection in the calm surface of the eddy.  Wow, I look tired.  Landing another fish I think about what’s next – I need something to get me through this season.  A glance at my watch and I realize the date – in another week’s time I’ll be heading to the Rockies and leaving this work behind for another season.  I’ll spend a week being challenged by leading others and sharing in their joy of discovering the many secrets of my favorite mountain range.  Immediately after that, I’ll be able to introduce my wife to one of my all time favorite parts of the range, and spend time in the mountains with my favorite climbing partner.

There’s still another thirty or so plots between me and that light at the end of the tunnel though.  Not surprisingly, I don’t remember doing those either.

Seriously…I’ve gotten out climbing TWICE this rock season!  What’s up with that?  By this point in the season I should be starting to slow down as the nagging injuries flare up and my fingers swell to the size of Octoberfest sausages.   Instead I can barely remember how to climb!

Advice to homeowner-climbers – don’t ever trade ice tools for power tools at the end of the winter.  Also, it’s best to avoid jobs that keep you miles away from the nearest climbing during the best parts of the rock season.

Will Gadd has an excellent, excellent post on this subject that I wish as many new ice climbers as possible would read and take to heart.

If it feels like things are moving too fast or your really scared, and have only just started ice climbing, I’d say much of this could apply to you.

Thanks to Will for such an excellent post.  And really I’m glad the fellow in the video that was the catalyst for his post is (relatively) okay.

For leaders, the first rule of ice climbing is:  Don’t Fall.  Ever.

What scares me most is some newer climbers who have fallen and gotten off lucky.  I personally know of about a dozen that haven’t.

To my mind, the second rule should be to have some sort of advanced level of wilderness medical training.  Sacrifice a weekend or two, and some $ (think how much you spend on that gear, it pales in comparison!) and learn how to respond to a situation like this.  Since taking WFR training a couple years ago I’ve been really thankful for that knowledge five times now, four of them while out climbing and encountering other parties in trouble.  And I shudder to think about how unprepared I was before (and actually how much more I’d like to know and be able to do now).

Take your time and let your ability mature – it seems these days that it’s a process slower than the growth of one’s ego for many ice climbers.

Be safe.

Back when I started climbing (really not that long ago), the choices for “good” ice gear were fairly limited and among my (small) circle of partners, folks generally fell into one of three camps – they were either Black Diamond, Grivel, or Charlet-Moser (now Petzl) disciples.  Not surprisingly, different tools from the same company generally swung similarly (not so these days), and each brand had a certain type of feel to the correct swing for that tool that folks got used to and quickly came to prefer.  Not surprisingly, this probably had as much to do with what brand of tool they first used and learned to swing with than it did individual preferences.

For the first dozen or so years of my climbing career, I was exclusively a Black Diamond guy.  I started out with a set of Black Prophets the year after they came out and they suited my style very well.  I’m definitely not a slightly-built sport climber type, and neither were my regular partners.  Climbing seemed as much about sending ice down as it did about getting up the ice that was left.  My lack of finesse was not a function of the tools but how I used them, and the “natural” swing (for lack of a better term) and significant head-weight of BD’s earlier tools suited me well.  Not surprisingly, I stuck with BD for a long time and upgraded with each new generation of tools.  As soon as I could afford them, I got a set of the first-generation cobras and stuck with those, and my same brutish swing, for a number of years.  With the long cold seasons we have here, I was long-convinced that a heavy tool was necessary to punch into the bullet proof ice I climb for much of the season.

In the Ghost, Canadian Rockies, in the dark ages before I opened my mind to leashless climbing with 1st-gen BD Vipers and Bionic crampons. Reid Carter photo.

This trend started to change a bit for me as leashless tools began to catch on, and despite initially being a skeptic, I eventually saw the light (“free your wrists and your mind will follow”, right?) – and eventually, my perception of a tool’s balance and how it should swing changed (but just a little).  I went from throwing a heavy weight with a leash on to swinging more precisely and finding slightly less head weight was better.  Still, I stuck with BD and have owned nearly all of their premier tools over the past few years.  Their last few tools changed a fair bit though, with the tools starting to ship with smaller hammers (which I typically immediately switched out for that standard hammer to get the weight I liked back up top).  With the exception of the first-generation fusions, I was stuck in the past in that regard.

My ideas about this started to change even more when I met James Loveridge – tool tweaker extraordinaire (don’t take that the wrong way James…).  As I was leaping through the grades climbing with James and his friends, I started to get more obsessive about what I liked in an ice tool.  James took this to the extreme, and was busy taking state of the art tools and cutting them apart, inserting offset handles and generally trying to build a better weapon for the cold war.  Thanks to him I got to try all sorts of concepts and new tools, and my ideas about balance and swing shifted a bit more.

James Loveridge using the new BD Cobras and Sabretooths to do what he does best, on another new route in Orient Bay.

When Petzl introduced the Nomic, my ideas about ice tools both coalesced and changed forever, and I felt I’d found perfection.  I spent a season learning how to really use these tools to their potential, and quickly became a convert.  All I longed for was hammer on them for the occasional piton I’d place here and there.

Climbing as much as I do, and on the variety of terrain that I do, I do recognize the odd limitations on these.  They are spectacular on steep ice and mixed, but to me they are not an “all-day” tool on lower-angle or broken alpine terrain (though many would disagree!), and if you have to pound a lot of iron in on your route they aren’t my first choice despite the availability of two different hammer options for them on the second-generation tools.  I’m hoping to scrape some cash together to try a set of these hammers on my first-gen tools (haven’t made the leap to the new ones yet).  Also, potentially annoying to me, is the apparent change Petzl made on their latest picks, increasing the pick angle slightly.  I haven’t tried them yet, but I suspect this will make them less suitable for low-angle terrain (at least for me).  Guess I’ll find out when my new ones come in.

The solution there was a second set of tools to cover off this aspect of my climbing, and I went with a pair of the new Cobras (BTW, they also climb steep terrain very well, I just like the Nomic a tad better there – on steep ground I just prefer an offset handle).  Still, old habits die hard and I immediately switched out the micro-hammers for the old full-sized ones…and then proceeded to have a few mini-epics on “easy” routes when I found I was not dialled into swinging them at all anymore (okay, maybe it was just because I suck but my ego likes to blame the gear, so we’ll go with that).  For the past 3 or 4 seasons, I’ve climbed on nothing but Nomics, and they are a different beast.  This despite the new Cobras being comparable in swing to the earlier BD designs, at least when they’re equipped with the big hammers.  On crap ice, where I need to swing multiple times, I actually find them fatiguing to swing quickly to clear a placement, and with that weight in the head, I all-too-easily slip back to my old style of “lumberjack” climbing, over-driving and attacking my belayer with falling ice.

The 2nd gen BD Cobra, shown with micro-hammer and with the standard hammer option above. Utilizing the tool with the micro hammer lightens the weight overall and also places the majority of the mass at the end of the tool forward of the head, making for what I've come to appreciate as a better and more efficient swing. An even better example of this is the Petzl Nomic with the pick weights on, very efficient design IMHO.

Still, stubbornness persisted and it wasn’t until I started paying attention to my close friend and climbing partner Wes Bender’s opinion on tools.  He is a rare guy around here – loves climbing on a pair of Simond Naja Cups, and I’ve climbed with him enough to know that he’s the local ice master, which I think is saying something.  He definitely prefers a very light tool with a neutral balance (very little head weight).

Wes Bender cruising a proud line on Reflection Wall, Orient Bay, with his beloved Simonds.

This week I switched out those big heavy hammers and put the micro-hammers back in (BD is shipping them that way for a reason, idiot).  And wow – love these things and find them super well-balanced and easy to swing, and very easy for me to switch between them and the Nomics.  Sure, they pound iron better with the big hammers but I was surprised at just how well the little hammers worked as long as I paid attention to my aim.  So now I’m psyched, I have two pairs of tools which for me cover all the bases on two-tool, technical terrain and I can use both well, and they both suit my preferred style of swing.

It’s funny how I’ve often thought that folks have agonized WAY too much about some aspects of ice tool design, and I was often a skeptic reading some of the posts on the EXCELLENT Cold Thistle blog.  I mean really…the latest offerings from the major manufacturers are pretty damn good, right?  But between this experience, rereading some of those posts, and Wes’ most recent adventures in building tools from scratch out of completely new materials (see below), I’ve come to realize that pursuing tweaks and small changes to your favourite tools can be very worthwhile.

Wes’ first and second-generation “Denim 311” tools. Yup, you read that right, they’re made out of DENIM, like your Levi's. They have some flex (especially when my 225 lb. self starts yarding on them!), but that was much improved on the second generation and they climb really nice. Wes set out to create his optimal ice tool, and he wanted to use a completely original material. I’d say he definitely succeeded. These aren’t the first excellent home-built rigs I’ve seen over the years, but they’re among the best for sure and I’d venture they compete with many of the high-end tools available today. Wes certainly seems to be able to put them to good use! Wes Bender photo.

Moral of the story here is, don’t be afraid to tinker with your gear to get what you want.  Closing my mind to certain aspects of tool design and swing style was limiting me.  Open your mind to change and you might be surprised.  Duh.  Next thing you know I’ll start to re-evaluate my other sacred cow – crampons!  I suppose that’s half the reason to be an ice climber – to provide another avenue for exercising the gear fetish.  Modern tools have LOTS of options for tweaking balance and weight distribution (Petzl definitely have a slight edge here) in addition to offering different pick options.  If you’re still not happy, don’t be afraid to start doing mods (and voiding warranties…and assuming your own risks, etc.).

Wes putting his denim ice tools to good use in Orient Bay last weekend.

What’s the best way to get back in shape for climbing?  Don’t let yourself get out of shape in the first place. – unknown

A few years ago, I went on an ill-fated (for me) trip to AK to have a go at one of my dream routes with two very experienced friends (who were kind enough to invite me despite my lacklustre alpine climbing resume).  Unfortunately for me, I managed to catch a nasty viral infection a couple of weeks prior to the trip that pretty much wrecked it for me.  My patient friends did well indeed without me, climbing three great routes while I just did my best to stay out of the way and offer moral support from basecamp.  I will go back soon, but that’s another story.

In preparing for that trip, I trained like I never have in my life.  Funny how intense desire and the sense of an impending once-in-a-lifetime shot at a dream climb can motivate oneself.  Once we committed to going (several months in advance), I pulled up all the info I had ever gathered on training for the mountains and came up with a plan that made sense to me.  In addition to a significant amount of time spent developing a good cardio base, I wanted to address two other significant personal issues – one being my general strength and fitness in a broad sense (my ability to perform high-output movements like pushing through a tough crux or grunting up a steeper slope with a heavy pack), and the other being my ability to recover quickly from an effort like that, or more importantly, several efforts over a couple of days.  To those ends, I spent an 11-week period deeply immersed in following Crossfit workouts on the main site – basically it was the power-endurance phase of my training cycle for that trip.

Back then, doing so was difficult.  A lot of the exercises were unfamiliar and difficult to do at my regular gym.  And the intensity of the workouts, as well as the nature of some of the exercises, seemed to cause an issue with some of the other members.  Regardless, I persevered and after much suffering got some serious results from the program.  That I was fit was an understatement, and despite being a bit of a hack I got surprising results.  All that was missing was the test of a big climb.

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Flash ahead to now (and a comparatively unfit me), and over the past couple of months my motivation for trying another big trip is starting to build and so I’ve again been immersed in the annals of training literature.  The internal suffermachine has been getting hungry again.  I’ve got a few short-term personal goals, and tentative plans for a big trip well over a year from now.  A few other things have come together lately that have really got me psyched to train hard again (and this has nothing to do with a New Year’s resolution – I’m not the type).  First and foremost among them is that there is now a Crossfit affiliate gym in Thunder Bay (finally!).

More interestingly, the pros (especially Will Gadd) have been posting and discussing a lot of really good stuff pertaining to Crossfit and training for climbing as of late.  Check this, this, this and this out.  In fact, if you’re a web savvy climber interested in training and been living under a rock somewhere, check out Will Gadd’s blog – lots of very interesting stuff on there about training for mountain sports and a lot of discussion about Crossfit.

It’s not necessarily without its detractors either – Will has noted some issues he has in his posts, and this comes from a respected author in climbing training.

“Hybrid” training is also being taken seriously by more elite climbers (Gym Jones, Mountain Athlete), taking a high-intensity approach to training but moving it to the specialized fitness required – Crossfit is unfocused and aimed at more general fitness and physical preparedness.

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For now, I’m psyched on this program, partly because I have a need for a type of fitness that goes beyond my climbing goals.  And, I just plain like these workouts, they suit me.  Whatever the pros say, one thing I am realizing is that I grow when I commit to finishing those workouts.  In small ways, they do similar things for my inner self as have my biggest climbs.  And, getting “good” at Crossfit feels like a worthy end in and of itself for now.

Walking into CFSZ in the morning, I feel much the same way I do before a serious climb – I have a healthy respect for what I’m about to undertake, and sometimes I’m even a little scared.  It’s nice to walk into a facility like that – no mirrors or machines, just a simple space for hard work.  Moreover, there is someone in there that cares enough to train me properly.  Coach Bobby is awesome and takes his work seriously – and his reach clearly extends beyond the walls of that box.  I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere in terms of learning about training more seriously instead of wasting my time.  Over the next few months, this program is going to be an integral part of my training regimen.

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A few quick thoughts on the plice.  Plain and simple, it works.  My forearm endurance is rapidly coming back to its former levels, and when the next warm spell arrives I’m planning to push it out a bit on some more of the local ice testpieces.  $47 and 27 minutes to build, 5 minutes to strap it to the tree with Jenn’s help (and a confused neighbour supervising).  45 minutes to an hour 2 or 3 days a week.  Up and down. Wow.

I’ve set mine up in a way that I can easily change the angle of it (just loosen or tighten the top strap bracing it against the tree), which allows me to vary the session between a slow endurance fest to a steeper wall for more power-endurance type stuff.

I definitely owe Wes a long belay for turning me onto this thing.  I can’t believe I didn’t jump on it sooner.  Back in my university days I built a system wall to train for rock climbing, and I reaped some awesome results from that.  This thing is essentially a system wall for ice tools – can’t believe I resisted trying it for so long!

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Some worthwhile reading, while we’re on the subject – one of my favourite pieces ever on talent and training:  The Talent Myth and short follow-on:  The Talent Myth, Part II.

Jenn responded to an initial query to help them out, as they wanted to feature rock climbing prominently in the video, and some of our other members, Terry and Monica, were keenly interested in being involved as well.  No one loves doing this sort of stuff more than Frank, and he did an earlier site visit with them to evaluate some potential climbs and settings.  Rounding out the crew was Brian who kindly offered to help belay and manage the crews and climbers where needed.  So it was set, with Jenn and Monica doing the climbing for the cameras, Terry and Brian belaying the climbers or camera crew as needed, and myself sitting back and working as a general set of eyes and safety officer – an easy job given the professionalism of both the climbers and the film crew.

Personally, I got a lot out of the day and everything went off without a hitch, despite cooler temps as we definitely were pushing the end of the rock climbing season.  The piece was filmed right at one of my favourite rock climbs, a short bouldery route called Galaxion at the Bluffs here in town.  The girls climbed (and climbed…and climbed again), and the four-person crew worked furiously all day getting all the shots they needed and showcasing the new Cinevate gear in the process.  It was really cool to watch the film folks working and I learned a lot about what goes into a production like this.

Cooler still was learning a lot about these two local companies in the process.  While I had heard of Apple Wagon Films, Cinevate was an unknown entity to me and I think it’s spectacular that we have a company like this right here in Thunder Bay, designing, manufacturing and distributing state of the art film gear, and highly-respected in the industry.  It was quite evident to me also that the Apple Wagon crew is very talented, and I think their skills are quite evident in the final product.  Even the soundtrack for the video was produced by a local musician.

You can check out the final video here and here.  They did a shorter piece with just the climbers as an ACC “add”, and then the full length piece featuring the equipment (the product is a slider called the Atlas 10).

Wes gets after it during a session on his plice.

This year’s fall season was a bit of a bust for me in terms of training for winter, and while I’m getting by on my base fitness just fine, I definitely did not start the season where I hoped to be in that department.  A combination of work and too many other things going on, and then just getting going on it all only to get a nasty flu virus that took me nearly a month to get over put a dent into my training plans.  I’m making up for it in earnest now, but the season is already underway.

My close friend and climbing partner Wes Bender, is facing similar time constraints this year, primarily due to the fact that he’s now a proud new dad (congratulations buddy!).  His solution was to build a plice.

Plywood ice (hence “plice”) is a specialized ice climbers variation on a simple climbing wall, designed with one purpose – to build sport-specific endurance for ice climbing.  The idea was recently popularized by Will Gadd, a pro climber in Canmore that required it for a marathon ice climbing event he was doing as a charity fundraiser.  This year, it seems to have really caught on if his blog posts are any indication.

Looking at them initially, I was skeptical about how much benefit one could get out of them.  I was interested, but at the same time I thought to myself geez – these things aren’t even overhanging, how is one supposed to get a real burn without doing short little laps on them all day?  What’s the point?  At least, that’s the way I was thinking (I naturally gravitate toward wanting to emphasize power in my training, and a lot of my workouts more closely resemble Crossfit routines with a bit of a climbing twist to them).  I generally find any sort of endurance training for my forearms boring, unless it means just going climbing.  Our local climbing wall is a zoo and I find it hard to train endurance in the bouldering cave without getting bored quickly.

So when Wes finally convinced me to come over and get a session in, I was pleasantly surprised at just how much benefit one could get from one of these.  Wes rattled off the routine of laps and sets he was doing to me, and being cocky, I told him we were gonna be jacking that up a bit.  I ate my words pretty quickly, and a typical ego-driven training session ensued where we did our best to keep one-upping each other, cranking more laps per set than we initially committed to doing.  And at the end of it all, our forearms were delightfully cooked, and I was so pumped I was actually scared of falling off the thing near the end of the session.

On my way home, all I could think about was building one of these rigs for Jenn and I to train on.  With our local ice season now underway, I was thinking I’d wait until next season, but then I reasoned it would still have a place and get serious use this season too.  When I first began taking rock climbing seriously as a student, I mounted a small fingerboard in the kitchen in my apartment and was on that thing at every opportunity.  Every time I walked past it I cranked a couple of pull-ups or a dead hang for a few seconds.  On the way to the shower in the morning; in between moving pots around cooking dinner; at commercials during my favourite TV shows; while I watched the shows instead of sitting; right before bed.  After 6 months I went from climbing 5.9 to hard 5.11.

I plan to use this thing the same way:  on the way to the car for work in the morning, on the way out to walk the dog, on the way back in, right after work, just before bed, when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night – all of it in addition to hitting the gym, skiing and climbing as much as I can.  As soon as I finish another wood-working project in the queue, I’m going use up some scrap lumber and tie one of these things to that tired old tree in our backyard.