straight shafts on steep ice

[David Trippett]

I picked up some straight shaft black prophets recently ....are they ok for steep ice? What say ye masses?

[Dru]

I'm certain a really good climber could climb steep waterfall ice with a frickin' Neolithic flint axe on a wooden shaft. That doesn't mean its easy. Straight shafts suck

[J_Fisher]

Are they OK, sure. Are they good? Not really. The biggest issue is clearance. Steep ice often tends to be highly irregular--blobby, cauliflowered, etc.--especially if it gets high traffic. Without the fashionable bend at the top the shaft you have to use a really exagerated and somewhat tiring elbow-high swing to get good sticks over bulges. That being said, with a little practice you can make them work.

[David Trippett]

Do you know any good climbers Dru?

Edited October 12, 2005 by avitripp

[Dru]

I have belayed them on occasion.

[David Trippett]

I saw a photo of one once...

[sobo]

I must be one of the "oldest skewl" people on this board, and I still climb WI-4 ice with straight shaft tools. I learned with them 20 years ago, and have used straight shaft tools ever since. I have no problems that hinder my climbing (other than I'm fatter now and this forces me to climb less hard lines). Once I bashed my knuckles a few times, I learned how not to bash them (much) anymore.

 

It's all a matter of good technique and what you learned with. I don't think, if I ran right out and bought a pair of swanky curved shaft tools, that I would climb any better than I do with my BDs right now. Of course, YMMV.

[JackY]

 

I like all this "old skewl" stuff, like climbing WI5 with bare fingernails. But, if your like me and you're lucky to get out

once a week, very lucky, it's awful nice to have a little

help from modern gear.

[Alex]

in my experience

 

1) straight shafts are not nearly as comfortable, so you dont have as nice an experience on steep ice (bashed knuckles, hands greasing off the shaft, pumping out easier) and comfort makes a difference for confidence, which makes a difference for leading on ice alot!

 

2) the people who can climb really hard can climb really hard on pretty much any tools. So don't imagine that by going to the Quark Ergo your lead grade will suddenly be WI5.

 

3) straight shafts still really nice for snow climbing in the alpine

[rhyang]

A digression - I was discussing crampons with one of my ice partners in the car recently (it's alpine ice season down here) and the subject of whether or not crampons are aid came up. "Well of course they are" he said, and went on to surmise that there were probably "bouldering mutants who can just campus up the ice". Made me laugh

[Janez_Ales]

Bashed knuckles are most often a consequence of swinging your tools with what I call a "hammer swing" - straight into the ice, think of the fact that what you have in your hand is not a hammer, but a hook, so insted of whacking your wrist into the wall, the wrist actually only rotates and at the end pulls slightly down at the point of strike. Having "spikes", "fangs", or home made hooks for your pinky helps also, when you do mess up your swing... They would help on a straight shaft also, but to be stable on the ice they need some metal teeth on ice contact surface like the BD Fang. Grade 4 is rearly very featured (unles you look at Wicked Wanda and alike so straight shafts with some hooks will be just fine for that level, you will also be able to hang on your shaft better, hence you can release the leash a bit so you will get more circulation and be therefore warmer. with a good clip leash you can even shake out and combine the advantages of leashless climbing with the saftey of a leash.

[Don_Serl]

I must be one of the "oldest skewl" people on this board, and I still climb WI-4 ice with straight shaft tools. I learned with them 20 years ago, and have used straight shaft tools ever since. I have no problems that hinder my climbing (other than I'm fatter now and this forces me to climb less hard lines). Once I bashed my knuckles a few times, I learned how not to bash them (much) anymore.

 

It's all a matter of good technique and what you learned with. I don't think, if I ran right out and bought a pair of swanky curved shaft tools, that I would climb any better than I do with my BDs right now. Of course, YMMV.

 

we could get into a great session of "when I was a kid..." here, but suffice to say that i can claim to be pretty "old skewl" too. my favorite cameras are 20 and 30 year-old Olympuses; i still wear Helly Hansen pile from time to time when i want to be REALLY warm in REALLY crappy weather; my favorite crampons all-time are/were Chouinard Rigids (altho i finally gave them up 2 years ago when i suffered frame breakage). BUT...

 

ice climbing is as much about application of technology to solving the problem as it is about technique, strength, experience, and mental focus. while it's certainly true that one CAN climb very hard ice with straight shafted tools (Jeff Marshall and Larry Ostrander climbed Riptide with Stubai Tyrols, etc, etc...), it is also absolutely undeniable that it is easier, faster, more secure, safer, warmer, and less energy-consuming to do the same routes with modern curved-shafted tools.

 

a short story - maybe 15 years or so ago i had the pleasure of spending a day climbing at Squamish with a visitor, a delightful gentleman named Stuart Rich, from Eugene Oregon. Stuart was then in his early 70s. he told me he could lead 5.7 or 5.8, and follow 5.9. we climbed Diedre, but i did the direct start, a full runout at 5.9/5.10a, which he followed IN ROBBINS BOOTS (stiff-soled klettershoes, for those of you too young to know), totally nailed to the rock, in perfect body position the entire time and without a single slip. he was obviously a superb climber, and i urged him to get out and buy some "modern" climbing shoes, with the assurance he'd be flashing 5.10s. i heard back from him about 3 months later - he'd taken the advice, and sure enough, he was firing off 5.10s with ease.

 

sobo, we don't know each other, and it's a bit presumptuous to give others advice, but i gotta say that from the sound of it you've got a LOT more in you than your "old skewl" tools are revealing. i have to disagree with the statement that it's "all about good technique", etc - in ice climbing, the tools really do come with limitations. get out there and buy "swanky curved shaft tools" - they won't make you a "better" climber, but you'll climb harder stuff all the same. and enjoy it doing it more!

 

p.s. my estimation of myself as an ice climber seems to indicate that while better tools themselves won't make you a "better" climber, they allow and encourage better, more advanced, more adventurous technique, and you end up "better" as a result. not all change is progress, but LACK of change is a frequent underlying factor in lack of progress...

 

enjoy your winter.

 

cheers, don

[glassgowkiss]

climbing since 1980 makes me also quite old skool. but i get the newest ice gear as i can. the technology changed. new technology makes you suffer less, you can stay warmer, climb faster and with more ease, so you can get up on harder routes.

btw sobo, anyone can climb WI4 with straight tools, try to get on some WI6 or 6+ and see if how you do

[Cobra_Commander]

I guarantee changing from BD prophets/shrikes/x15 to CM quarks/BD cobras/etc will make you feel like you are in a different sport. The difference is huge.

 

Also if you have the misfortune of climbing pick lines (such as high-season Professor's, etc) a pair of straight-shafted tools are miserable, rattling around in modern-tool picked out trash. Then again you can start up a new line, sometimes.

[Alex]

I guarantee changing from BD prophets to BD cobras ...

 

Is this why you now go by Cobra-Commander, because you made the switch??

 

Go Joe!

[Dru]

climbing since 1980 makes me also quite old skool. but i get the newest ice gear as i can. the technology changed. new technology makes you suffer less, you can stay warmer, climb faster and with more ease, so you can get up on harder routes.

btw sobo, anyone can climb WI4 with straight tools, try to get on some WI6 or 6+ and see if how you do

 

 

see revised thread title

[Fuggedaboudit]

Now a bunch of Kiwis are going to post. I had a pair of the old Black Prophets, the ones with the rubber covering the entire shaft that I started climbing waterfall ice with. Not only are they much heavier than my Quarks but the picks on those old things were shit as well. Get yourself a pair of used modern tools like I did. You really will feel a huge difference. Not only are they going to allow you to climb better (seriously) but you will enjoy it more. You just cant "finesse" a stick with those old tools.

[dbb]

I guarantee changing from BD prophets/shrikes/x15 to CM quarks/BD cobras/etc will make you feel like you are in a different sport. The difference is huge.

 

That's what I did, and you're right.

 

(however, comparing my quarks to carbon fiber prophets, I think the CFBPs would still get swung.)

[PaulB]

I guarantee changing from BD prophets/shrikes/x15 to CM quarks/BD cobras/etc will make you feel like you are in a different sport. The difference is huge.

Unfortunately, for the half dozen or so days of ice climbing I manage to get in each season, there's no way I can justify the $400-$600 this upgrade would require, so I'll continue to climb with my bent shaft Prophets. Leading grade 4 is plenty fun, and 5 is a good challenge. I don't think I'll ever need to worry about grade 6, no matter what tools I might have.

[Alex]

I had a pair of the old Black Prophets, ... here I compare them to my Quarks

 

Comparing Prophets to Quarks is about as apples to oranges as you can get. BD tools like the Prophet or Cobra are an entirely different ballpark than CM tools like the Quark, the weight is different, swing is different, everything is different. If you like your Quarks better, thats awesome(!) but its not because the Prophet was a bad tool, just a bad tool for you. I personally find the Quark way too light and rattly for my liking, Id rather swing a heavy tool once at bullet proof ice than hack away for 10 min with a light tool like a Quark or Axar.

[David Trippett]

leashless sporks are the next thing. mark my words.

[layton]

leashless sporks are the next thing. mark my words.

 

I have a titanium leashless 7-11 "shovel straw" for slurpee conditions.

[pope]

Funny how bent shafts and big price tags are endorsed by nearly everybody here for their ability to make hard climbs easy, but the real "tough guys" in the sport are all excited about the "leashless ethic" because of its tendency to make climbs more challenging. Also amusing that leashless climbing has earned "ethical status" when many proponents of this "ethic" endorse bolt trails in the mountains. But I digress.

 

Save your money. Pick up some tools on e-bay second hand. Stick some leashes on them. Read the avalanche report, then go have a good time. If your're talented, old gear won't slow you down all that much. If you're not, you can blame your gear for the lack of progess. Either way, the point is to get up high and a little scared and to find climbs that challenge you personally. If you really NEED to spend hundreds on gear to get up the hardest climbs, then is it the climber or is it the gear?

 

I climbed for years on Chouinard X-tools, with the slippery, staight, blue-fiberglass covered carbon handles. I used slippery wool mittens. Maybe that shit slowed me down, maybe not. Who cares? I enjoyed getting solid self-belays in the snow slopes above the steep ice and I enjoyed owning tools that were versatile enough for any kind of terrain.

[glassgowkiss]

climbing without leashes is better, faster, more covinient. after climbing for the past 2 seasons leashless i am not going back. as the matter of fact on the most of the harder pitches i did on mushrooms they save a lot of energy, since you can switch hands and you don't have to do extra swings.

yet again poop your opinion sucks donkiey dick.

[RuMR]

....amusing that leashless climbing has earned "ethical status" when many proponents of this "ethic" endorse bolt trails in the mountains. But I digress.

You?? Shocking!!!