Making my ice axe into a technical tool

[suge]

Being a cheap bastard, I thought that rather than spring for an ice tool, I'd simply convert my mountain axe into one by putting a strategic bend into it. Besides being cheap, I'm also clever. So, rather than taking the axe to a machine shop I instead got three budding climbers to rig up a Z-pulley system (other than being cheap and clever, I'm also lazy). My axe got plunged to the pick into the hard snow of Paradise and acted as a re-direct for a rope, so that the rope made a 90 degree bend around it. One of the benders went over a steep snow bank on the other side of the rope, the other two rigged a Z-pulley, and I kept my food on the top of the axe. Crank, crank, crank, and presto, a new technical tool:

 

 

 

If you look carefully enough, you'll detect that my plan was not executed quite to my liking. Rather than giving up and buying an actual tool, I will instead develop a new mode of ice climbing adapted to axes with sideways bends. I will then solo the Emperor Face of Robson in 8 hours in January using this new technique.

[catbirdseat]

Nice work. You just ruined a perfectly good ice axe. What makes you think the shaft needs to be bent? People climbed hard ice for many years with straight shafts.

 

You can put a technical edge on the pick using a file. I've done this myself, but you can't call the result an "ice tool".

[Hendershot]

Wow. You mean you this ax was INTENTIONALLY warped?

[counterfeitfake]

Come on you bozos, he is joking.

[fenderfour]

It wasn't a troll, but it did.

[Kevin_Matlock]

Wow. You mean you this ax was INTENTIONALLY warped?

i think i noted the tone of sarcasm with his post (I hope).

[Weekend_Climberz]

Nice work. You just ruined a perfectly good ice axe. What makes you think the shaft needs to be bent? People climbed hard ice for many years with straight shafts.

 

You can put a technical edge on the pick using a file. I've done this myself, but you can't call the result an "ice tool".

 

Hey CBS, you know they removed the word "gullible" from the dictionary. Seriously, LINKY

[Snide]

Catbird's literalism has just fueled my good humor for another day.

[counterfeitfake]

Hey suge! Did you realize you just ruined a perfectly good ice axe?? Way to go. It was better when it was straight!

[Toast]

Notice the little B (not little T) stamped into the head.

[catbirdseat]

It goes to show how much force two or three burly dudes can exert using a three-to-one tackle. You can not only bend ice axes, but you can hurt the person you are trying to raise if you act blindly.

[Weekend_Climberz]

I remember hearing of a case where a crevasse extraction went wrong when the rescuers setup a z-pulley on an overhanging lip. While trying to pull the fallen climber up, they got stuck where the rope cut into the crevasse. The rescuers continued pulling not realizing what they were doing, and eventually they broke the harness of the rescuee and they plunged into the crevasse never to be heard from again.

[suge]

I can't believe anyone took that post seriously. To clarify matters, I'm not actually going to solo the Emperor Face of Robson in January in 8 hours. Rather, I'm heading to Nepal to solo the south face of Lhotse in a one day push.

 

The axe got bent up during crevasse rescue practice. Because space was tight, in order to stretch the rope out we had to make a sharp bend in the rope and my axe was being used to keep the victim from swinging around. After the third time, I pulled my axe out to find the bend in it.