Ice climbing is a strange sport. The notion of climbing several hundred feet up a cliff with a rope tied to you as your partner huddles shivering below, waiting as you slowly pick your way up a creaking, brittle ice cube is absurd. The requirements for being an ice climber are varied since physical suffering and tolerance for mental anguish are a fun part of the sport. If you've been thinking of taking up winter climbing, it's important to know some of the basics of the sport and not get off on the wrong foot.
Number 1----Strap a number of very sharp objects to your body.
Crampons are sharp ice creepers that project outward and are snapped onto large, cumbersome boots. These have 12 points and are used for walking on and up ice. The front points are kicked into the ice for a foothold on the vertical stuff. They are also good for ripping pants while walking. Ice screws are tubular metal safety screws. They usually have four points on the end and are screwed into the ice to which the safety rope is clipped using a metal snaplink. Very dubious as safety gear but they sound cool when they clank together. Good climbers like to talk about how unsafe the last one they put in was. Ice tools or hammers. These generally only have one point but it's a big one and resembling medieval battle weapon - thus adding to the warrior theme. Large mittens. They're not sharp but make it virtually impossible to handle any of these things in a safe manner.
Number 2--- Learn to tolerate pain and long hours freezing without catching a single fish.
Parts of this sport are like ice fishing without using a fishing pole. You wouldn't do it. Well, that's what it's like for these folks holding the safety rope for a climbing partner. Stand still for an hour moving only the rope, wondering if you're going to catch the flu. When they finally get to move, the blood comes burning back into fingers with excruciating pain. That's OK, though, because once you begin climbing, your fingers go numb again. When swinging ice tools into the ice, smash knuckles is a prerequisite. Bruised and battered knuckles. At least you can't feel them. Big dinner plates of ice fall from the climbing partner who is swinging tools overhead. These chunks are aerodynamic and steer toward the colorful helmet of the "ice-fishing" partner.
Number 3 --- Ice judging skills need to be gained from long years of many, uh... learning incidents.
Good climbers can spot all the various ice conditions in a second. Let's see...there's:
Rotten ice -this is unsafe and fractures off in huge chunks. Hollow ice - won't hold safety gear and generally fractures off in big chunks. Soft ice- fun to climb, becomes mushy and won't hold safety gear. Falls away beneath feet. Brittle ice - comes from sub-zero, cold spells. Very scary because it breaks off in large chunks. Good ice - lesser degrees of bad ice.
Number 4 --- Interpretation of named ice climbs and their difficulty ratings from guide books.
Each climb is given a name by the first people to climb it and it's very important to know how stable these folks were.
Climbs at northern Vermont's fear-instilling Mt. Pisgah area feature names such as Mindbender (5+), Reign of Terror(5), and China Shop(5+). Difficulty ratings generally run from 1 through 5 and seem to be determined by the average number of fingers on each hand that were injured during the first ascent.
Number 5 --- Honed fear management skills.
Corporate skills come into play here. Who said this is a dumb sport? Ice climbing at a difficult level is about managing fear. Big fear, like when you're out of morning coffee in the conference room. Decisions must be made to deal with it. Questions come up, such as when to put in another piece of bad gear or climb the short section of bad ice. Placing gear makes your arms very tired and more likely to fall hundreds of feet. after all, the gear is no good anyway. Some enthusiasts add fun to the sport by climbing without a safety rope.
Number 6----More fear management skills.
Fear comes in different forms. Huge pillars of ice fracture across in front of your face, threatening to fall, ringing hollow notes of doom as you climb them. Rotten and aerated ice won't hold the safety screws but that's cool because you can talk about how BAD it was later. Sunny days are the best but is important to remember that it undermines the ice and big scary chunks fall down the climb, usually landing on some body part. With all this in mind, I'm sure you can't wait to get started in this exciting sport. There are people called guides who will teach you the finer points of the sport. They are responsible for weaning prospective ice climbers from the poor tendencies and mistakes of the beginners who bring along hot chocolate, a warm down coat, and heat packets for fingers. which all result in a warm, safe, fuzzy experience. Clearly, these new folks don't know how to enjoy themselves.
(c)Alden Pellett 1998