Farrgo

Anybody got these??

Grivel makes a tool that is a v-threader, ice-corer and has a serated edge to cut tat... very handy.

Pretty evident that these we're um... let's say inspired by the G14. Very similar design. I've used both and think that these perform as well as the G14. Two +'s for the Cyborgs are the rake points and cheap front points. Grivels run $40 for replacement front points, BD $10-15. These are both semi-rigid crampons so approaches are fine.

maybe twice?

Forgot about this shot I took climbing it in full-on conditions a few years ago.

I had one of these a couple years ago in S. America. Freaking hated it. Total pain. If you are going to be in the field below snow line for long, you will be filtering everything. Maybe 3-4L per person per day. I'd much rather pump. Not like I'm bitter or anything.

I heard that too! Yeah... only BD is making it and it's called "cobra" Petzl never seems to make the simple mods that would improve their tools, i.e., still no upper grip on the Petzl Quark.

Depending on your route, I think it is actually pretty possible to do this in poor avy conditions. Better to follow your nose than my advice. Unless its changed, the walk is just as long as it used to be. You walk from the gate and if there is some low snow, mtn. bikes won't help.

There is a good chimney at Horsetheif Butte. From parking area it is located at basically the right corner on the parking lot side (i.e., walk to base of wall and go around the right to the corner). Maybe 5.6? Runout lead, but easy to drop a top rope.

If you are going to carry screws only for making v-threads just get yourself a titanium screw. They are usually ~17cm light and cheap.

There is stuff out there but from a cost/benefit analysis, by the time you drive there you might as well keep on going to Bozeman or Canadian Rockies.

Disagree on this one. You need 2 different size allen keys to change the petzl pick (one for the bolts one for the head weight)... takes much longer IMO x2. I needed a hammer, a beer and a half an hour to change out the picks on my old quarks. Maybe the nomics are easier? I always felt that the universal pick attachment (and it ease) was something that BD had going for them. Good review Dane. I'd love to get some imput from someone who has had these on ice.

I think that is going to offer resistance when you swing and especially when you clear your tool.

Bears in Heat... hands down.

This is from an old mixed/leashless climbing mag that seems to have been mostly pulled off the internet. The formatting is completely jacked, but the monster is certainly um, well, covered. “Monster is not an ice axe…” So states the information sheet included with each and every Monster. Indeed, if I had to draw a line between when ice tools stopped being ice tools and became whatever it is they are now becoming I would chalk a line between Monster and all that has gone before. Now, it has been several years since tools expressly designed for leashless climbing appeared, what then makes Monster unique? Any number of features, really… To begin with when my set of Monsters arrived they came shrunk-wrapped to a piece of cardboard (recycled cardboard, those earth-friendly Italians think of everything) replete with several instruction sheets, a Grivel sticker and two plastic “hand protectors” that could be affixed to the Monster to fabricate customized grips for the hand on the Monster’s shaft (ladies, please! No sniggering!). Once I liberated Monster from the cardboard I was struck by one overwhelming fact. The Monster is flat That is correct. The add-on Monster plastic handles does not that accompany employ a Monster are tubular shown here in shaft, as various do all configurations. other tools. In fact, Monster does not NEED a tubular Each Monster comes shaft! with two, but you can What get more from Grivel does North America. Monster have instead? Monster has a flat, spring-steel shaft, done up in any number of tres chic color schemes. The pair I received (yes, Monsters of my very own) where a tasteful wood pattern on one side and manic “coffee bean” on the other. (Monster, good!) Why? You might ask? Well I’ll tell you… “He’s going to tell! He’s going to tell!” Surely it occurred to the lads in Coumayeur that working with a material like tubular aluminum has limitations, you can only bend or crimp the stuff so much within the constraints of a tool whose overall length is but 50cm (ladies, I am not going to warn you again!). Spring steel being flat can be laser-cut in any bizarre configuration you wish, a fact the Italian lads devoutly took to heart. I can just see these guys out on the deck during lunch, penciling out ideas amid the prosciutto, moldy mountain cheese and tumblers of red wine, Mont Blanc and the Arête de Peuterey brooding in the background (Aaaahh, yes! This curve here looks just like my wife’s ass!). Such are the things great ideas are whelped from, suckled from the proverbial she-wolf of necessity. But I digress (nothing new there), by working in spring steel a series of “features” could be instilled into the handle of Monster This changes the emphasis of the tool from swinging to grasping, (That’s it! All you gals out! Out!) no longer an ice tool, now is it a portable hold. So what about the rest of the tool? The grip as it were is essentially the same tri-laminate design as the Racing, the spring steel handle is overlaid on each side with a flat rubber dampening layer and then a molded plastic cheek piece, there are dents for the fingers and an end hook to rest the pinky on. There is a serrated ring in the end of the tool intended for a keeper clip to add to the confusion, but this also assists the tool to sit tight in ice holes. The pick is where things really get weird… Monster in effect is a headless tool, the blade bolts directly to the spring steel shaft via a formed fitting, three bolts hold the blade in place. “The bolts which fix the blade are made to be immovable, they are not for unscrewing.” So admonishes the Monster fact sheet. Indeed the bolt ends are expanded to impede removal of the locknuts, pick wear on Monster is a one-way ride. The bolts are for assembly, they do not appear to permit a change-out of worn blades (although I can’t see why this could not be achieved). Granted, the blade is a robust hot-forged affair elegantly laden with all manner of teeth along the upper and lower edges. At first glance the dentition of Monster is a bit off- putting, what are all the teeth for? Herein lies the rub, Monster is intended for “competition climbing, bouldering, extreme dry-tooling (and) total dry,” no one ever said Monster was an ice tool Grivel manufactures other leashless ice tools, Monster is not intended to go toe to toe with these other designs. If you wish to climb Weeping Pillar or Beyond Good and Evil leashless Monster might not be the best choice. So what is Monster all about, anyway? Now don’t think I haven’t heard all those rumblings when I mentioned “bouldering” above, is Monster for defacing the beloved boulders and crags, to be wielded in defense against hoards of irate pony-tailed, ganja-toking, Phishlistening, Boulderites incensed that “their” hangouts are to be invaded by wide-eyed, livefish- crunching, cave-dwelling Gollums Hell-bent on “tooling” Right-Hand Eliminator? No, not really, no… Among the various other admonitions is “…not use the Monster to climb on establish (sic) rock climbing routes.” So there! Clearly then Monster is intended for dry-tool specific crags where Monster could shine, but all of this is hand-waving when one considers a salient feature of the economics of Monster, the cost per tool. This year Monster retails for around $125. That’s right, a pair of Monsters would set you back less than the price of one Racing, Ergo Quark, or Fusion. Monster is not merely an industrial art concept run amok, the attractive price should appeal to those interested in delving into the world of leashless climbing who balk at dropping in excess of half a grand to tool up. After all, many rock routes are predominantly rock, what ice there is often holed from previous climbers. Why not design a tool with features suited to this challenge? After all, many climbers already own ice tools, given this fact an inexpensive dry-tool specific tool seems to make enormous sense. So, how does Monster climb? Pretty darn well, actually, and for a tool costing $125, these things are outstanding. To begin with I have used Monster on plastic as well as on genuine article mixed routes. In the gym Monster is a blast, because the teeth on the hot-forged blade are rounded rather than sharp Monster does not gouge holds the way blades on conventional tools do. Because the spring steel handle flexes somewhat during use the tool has a lively feel, without feeling flimsy, plus the groovy graphics offset the seriousness of the thing. In short your local gym owner might be a lot more inclined to let you tool around with Monster than with those other scary tools. Still, is this not a mixed climbing newsletter? So it is! Scoping the yoga-lingerie set at the local plastic spa while you yard on yer’ Monsters might be okay for weeknights but what about the real deal? A tool that can’t send is about as much use as tits on a boar so I set off, Monsters-all, up some mixed routes to see what Monster could really do. Simply Monster licious. Taking Monster for a stroll. (choss) stuff too lousy for regular toe and finger work. Dry tool comps are another venue My initial impressions were that the handle was somewhat uncomfortable to hang onto, the rubber dampener layers protrude somewhat, probably to keep the hand off the (cold) metal, these protruding layers are sharp and bite into the hand. Switching grips was the next obstacle, the tool “jumped” ominously in an ice hole when I matched on the big in-cut grip in the spring steel shaft, the bare metal was both sharp and slippery. On the plus side the immense clearance of Monster permitted Godzilla-sized bites of stone, the tool is exceedingly stable once it latches on. Yes, it flexes, noticeably so. Yet it did not “sproing” off of anything and manages smallish holds with panache. In fact, when applying modest torque in a small hold to make a big reach the handle flexed just enough to conserve purchase in the hold, my friend’s conventional tool ground ominously in the fragile pocket, then popped out. The real surprise came in the ice, Monster not only swung easily, it sticks tenaciously with as little as the first tooth imbedded in hard ice. There seems to be sufficient striking mass in the head to penetrate easily (Hey! Who let the girls back in!?! Knock it off!) After my initial run with the “naked” Monster (Here we go again…) I decided to follow the suggestion made by Mark Twight of Grivel North America and clothe my Monsters in rubber splicing tape. For those of you dispossessed of a rubber fetish, this remarkable material is available at the hardware store for $2-3 a roll, just like it says this is self- adhering rubber tape, there is a blue backing applied to the tape which must be removed, the tape is then wound on under tension to fashion whatever grip you have in mind. The first thing I did was to improve the deep secondary grip in the shaft, so in went one of those yellow plastic handles. The best way to attach these things I found was to drop them in a pot of hot water for a couple minutes, they were then soft enough to pop right onto the spring steel shaft. Once maneuvered into place it was time for the rubber (Ooohh! I love it when you talk dirty!) er…, tape. Working in a warm space, remove the backing and keeping tension on the tape wind at least a double layer over the plastic handle covering the handle top to bottom. You can weld the stuff to it-self by scoring it with a dull metal edge like the back of a scissor blade. Once I saw how trick this was I promptly wrapped the handle top to bottom in this stuff. This sorted out the sharpness of the naked grip and is easier to hold on to as the plastic cheeks tend to get hard and slick in the cold. The addition of the yellow plastic handle not only made for a more substantial hold up there, the rather sensuous curve of the inserted plastic handle changed the geometry of this secondary grip bringing it more in line with the main grip. This alleviated the instability of the tool when matching, not entirely but to a very great extent, pretty dope actually. Herein lies a central theme of Monster, “…All power to imagination!” Monster is intended as a template upon which you can personalize your climbing experience. You can add or subtract handles as you wish to suit your mood. There’s more. Grivel makes a Trigger that can be installed on the Monster handle, this is the accessory I am most interested in looking at as I tend to not to fit the dents of the lower part of the grip very well. There is also a Slider that can be mounted to the handle to create a saber-type grip, just bolt these items on and layer on the rubber tape. Another cheap way to add a “trigger” was to simply use hockey tape, twist the tape until it formed cords then superimpose several of these onto the handle wherever you want the trigger then cover with more rubber tape (My hair!). So what about all those teeth? (Billions and Billions of them). Again, the hot-forged technology permits an elegant, featured blade, the teeth on the upper part of the blade are forward-facing to engage the rock in a Stein-pull configuration. In the very peak of the blade there is a deep notch, ostensibly to stack the other tool in or for (gasp!) a spur. Other teeth closer to the cutting tip offer purchase in rock crevasses but the emphasis is on rock, this is not an ice tool, remember? I for one want to see other manufacturers develop similar dry-tool specific tools, dry- tooling needs good tools if it is to continue to develop as a climbing discipline here in the USA. I give Monster the prestigious “Frozen Award” for unbridled innovation, and devotion to dry tooling above and beyond the call of duty! Anything that climbs this well at such an affordable price is utterly swell by me, at 99 Euros each there is really no reason not to own a pair of these tools. Lastly I would like to express special thanks to Betta Gobbi of Grivel Mont Blanc for so generously providing Monster for this review. I also wish to thank Mark Twight of Grivel North America for relaying these tools to me, and for his tips on the care and feeding of Monster including the rubber splicing tape suggestion. The otherwise orphaned A AA FROZEN WORLD newsletter seems to have found a home at NEIce you may download older issue from the Archives there. A big thank-you(!) must go out to Doug Millen for posting A AA FROZEN WORLD on his site.

No M6 on either of those climbs. Just climb a bunch a let the rest work itself out. Grey Beard is a spring climb by the way.

A lot of sick 12- multipitch in N.A. Looks rad... what else needs to be said? Nice work Nate!!!

BD Speed Pack $60 -40L version. This is a great lightweight climbing pack. Used on three climbs only. In mint condition for all intents and purposes. Books: Face Climbing by John Long $5 Better Bouldering by John Sherman $5 Ice & Mixed by John Long $15

x2

Dustin told me that a loose rock got knocked off revealing that little pocket. Without that pocket it is a harder route. Wow never thought I'd hear Kevbone complaining about having bolts. Maybe we can split the difference take out two bolts and bang in some #1 KBs? J.K.

Monos are better for mixed cragging for sure. I'm not sure they are much of an advantage for real mountain mixed climbing. I like duals on ice but that's more about stability. The real answer is that when you learn better technique you'll kick less and place more. That will reduce plating the most.

Had a look at the N side of Hood yesterday. Hopefully a lot will change with this storm cycle but it was dry out there. Observations: There are three ice climbs formed off Cooper Spur. All climbs appeared Wi4/4+ give-or-take a half grade. Nothing in N Face gullies Elliot Glacier Headwall is bare There is a water ice line formed off right of the Elliot Glacier headwall, appeared Wi3 Coe Icefall is currently in difficult condition. It is a serac maze with mandatory Wi5 N Face. Water ice line visible off to center right. Coe Icefall and Elliot Glacier Headwall

x2. My civic made it up yesterday without bottoming-out or taking an hour.

Easy... Index actually has good rock