Ice Climbing

Even the climbers themselves are quick to point out the downside of their sport. They joke about preparing for it by sitting in the fridge or beating themselves around the body with a frozen leg of lamb. Stories abound about the dangers of climbing cliffs that are only temporarily solid. Of ice breaking away and tumbling, or the sphincter-tightening realisation that beneath the frozen waterfall you are scaling there is a very live, wet and active waterfall trying to get out.

Yet ice climbers are often near fanatical in their devotion to what would seem a notably dangerous and uncomfortable sport. In part that's down to the sheer beauty of the element itself. Ice glistens and refracts the light, it comes in many colours from pure whites to green and the startling aquamarines of glaciers. Climbing a frozen waterfall is a fairytale moment, with the sensation that at any time the spell could be broken and the ice will revert to playing water. Plus there's what has been called the 'Spiderman' factor, as you make your way up seemingly glass-like faces thanks to a pair of ice axes tethered to your arms, and the points of your crampon-shod tootsies.

Ice climbing isn't something you can go and try without supervision. Apart from the dangers posed by the ice itself there are plenty that you can come up with all by yourself when you have a razor-sharp axe in each hand and a set of spikes on each foot. It's a common joke that you can pick out an ice climber by the neat adze (the back point of the axe) scars on the forehead from where they've whacked themselves in the face pulling a reluctant axe out of the ice.

Get thee to an ice climbing school and your teachers will a) tell you jokes about fridges and frozen cuts of meat, b) take you to a good spot for beginners, either a small wall of ice (often a frozen waterfall) or else a more gentle gradient on which to get going. From there you are going to have to get used to the viciously sharp bits of hardware that are attached to your body. A common first lesson is using the ice axe to stop yourself sliding off the mountain if you fall over. This will involve a lot of falling over in the snow so if you haven't dressed the part you aren't going to go the distance. When you fall the idea is to roll over onto your front and dig the axe into the ground so it acts as an anchor and stops your slide. The faster you make that move the less speed you build up before braking and the more effective it is, so the idea is that it should become an instant reflex.

Once you've got the hang of that it's time to get vertical and that involves the two principal approaches to placing your feet. Beginners normally start with the 'pied à plat' (flat foot) style of planting the entire sole of the foot against the ice face to get a grip. It makes sense but since your body is parallel, rather than perpendicular, to that ice face the whole process involves some ankle-dislocating moves like a game of Twister, only upright and with added spikes. The alternative is jamming only the front spikes of the toes into the ice face - a move that requires a lot more self-confidence. The idea is to work axes and crampons together so that you are always anchored at three points before you try and place the fourth. In addition to that you have another layer of protection in the form of ice screws, which screw into the ice much as cams are used to protect trad climbers on rock. With the important difference that rock protections are solid and ice protections are, well, dicey.

So why do it? Ask anyone who has made it to the top of even the smallest of ice walls, and sat out of breath and sweaty at the top, looking at the light glancing off the glistening surface. They'll tell you they've never felt happier in their whole life.


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