New Screws vs. Old Screws

[Figger_Eight]

These are pics from my completely unscientific test at the FF Gear night.

 

First pic - a bunch of modern ice screws in a block of ice. They can be placed relatively close to each other with no fracturing. Of course you wouldn't put them that close to each other if yer gonna load them, duh.

 

Second and third pic - a screw from the "museum" which was auger style. Complete fracturing around the placement and, as I kept screwing it in, it nearly busted the ice block in half. I never got it all the way in.

 

to those you used to climb with these.

 

 

 

[Weekend_Climberz]

Looks like the gear fests back in the mid-seventies required much more ice to be fun. Seriously though, the ice blocks are pretty cool

[OlympicMtnBoy]

I have some of those old coat hanger screws that I inherited from a friend who used them "back in the day". I took them out once and placed some near the ground. Basically it was that same effect on the hard pure ice, but they actually did ok on wetter more plastic stuff. I bounced the crap out of one and it held (although watching it flex was entertaining). Not that I'd ever want to climb on one or place it on lead. Ice blocks are fun though, made some in my freezer when I got my first real screws just for the heck of it. I just wanted to screw something. ;-)

[Dr_Flush_Amazing]

Hey! Thanks for the beer luge! That ice block rawked!

 

 

For all you nerds to read and argue about this weekend:

Ice Screw Testing Results

[still_climbin]

I also have some of those old coat hanger screws. I used them. They had a habit of breaking off at the beginning of the threads. They never would support the kind of ice routes being climbed today.

[Don_Serl]

 

 

nice. makes placing Abalakovs pretty easy, having the ice translucent like that.

 

to those you used to climb with these.

 

fact is, they placed OK in glacial ice and alpine neve (sn'ice). even in warmish waterfall ice. but they wouldn't go in at all in cold, hard waterice. and they broke under pretty low loads.

 

and you're right, there's no way 'modern' ice climbs could be done with this style of gear ('cept by doing without the protection) - or even the Salewa tubes and subsequent original Chouinard tubes that followed them.

 

thank heavens for modern screws. works fine for me...

 

cheers, don

[Off_White]

I remember upgrading from coathangers to Salewas, they were so advanced!

 

 

And ooh, a short axe and a Chouinard alpine hammer? That was the ticket.

 

[G-spotter]

what about ice pitons?

[Hendershot]

Hey Dr. Flush Amazing,

 

Thanks for posting the ice screw report. While everyone's subjective experience is valid, it's assuring to see objective material here.

[Mark_Husbands]

i did a quick read of that report and it seemed that "bad" ice was good, and "good" ice was bad.

 

in addition to the important stuff about loading rate. and the perpendicular placement thing.

[Off_White]

what about ice pitons?

 

Aren't Warthogs collectors items now, sought after as ideal pieces for frozen moss and dirt? Snargs were the cutting edge drive in and screw out pro for awhile back there, I don't think there's been anything hammer driven since then.

[G-spotter]

I was thinking of the stuff that made Snargs and Warthogs seem modern. The stuff they had in the 40s and 50s. Basically a long-thin Lost Arrow with notches in the sides?

 

From Grivel NA website:

 

During the first ascent of the Northwest face of the Weisbachhorn in the eastern Aps in 1924 Willo Welzenbach and Fritz Riegle first used (solid) ice pitons as protection. The leader hammered them into the ice and the second chopped them out. Fourteen years later the tubular ice piton was invented (in Germany). In 1960, a Swiss mountain rescue specialist named erich Friedli invented the first ice screw (that was actually twisted into the ice).