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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 27, 2010 - 10:47pm PT
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A classic pictorial of an ice axe being fabricated from Summit August 1960.
Gerard Moser, left, and Jermarn Charlet are proud partners of a small factory in Camonix that makes ice axes and other climbing gear. Ira Spring photo.
Sweet selection of tools!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 27, 2010 - 11:46pm PT
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Classic!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 28, 2010 - 12:09am PT
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That may give BD some retro ideas. :-)
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MeatBomb
Gym climber
Boise, I dee Hoe
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Aug 28, 2010 - 01:29am PT
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A+ for those gents.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 28, 2010 - 01:57am PT
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I did almost all of my best snow mountain climbs with a Charlet Moser of that vintage!
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Aug 28, 2010 - 09:54am PT
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Bought my first "Chuck Moser" in 76 I think.
50 cm, right hand tool on my first trip up Carlsberg.
Still have it and use it as well as a newer 65 for general utility.
I love the sturdy heft, it's a classic.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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I bought my first ice axe, a Charlet-Moser, from REI in Seattle in about 1962 when REI was still just a loft in a warehouse. It was a long axe, and I twice cut it down to shorter lengths. I still have a scar on my hand from an incautious move with the grinder in my ship's engine room where I was reshaping the shaft. That axe was later used as a prop in a movie and 'disappeared' from my possession. I've often wondered what happened to it and wished to have it back.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2010 - 10:40am PT
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Time for ST personals---Guys seeking to reconnect with old lost equipment. Older equipment seeking younger user...hammer handling skills a plus! LOL
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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Sweet equipment in that shop !
I remember those axes with the crescent shaped cutout in the pick. I seem to recall that the intent was to be able to lock two axes together, head to head as some kind of ladder to get over a steep spot. [?!]
I had one of their piton hammers for years. It was made of some tough stuff as it never showed any wear
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 12:25pm PT
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A couple of shots of their horizontals from this period.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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My first ice axe from the early 1950s was a Mischabel (sp?), then later a C-M.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 11:20pm PT
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Can anyone make out what the pile of hardware is right of the two carabiners? Looks like some kind of hard snow/ soft ice channel ring piton or etrier steps.
Anyone have a long channel angle or steel carabiners like the ones shown on the last page of the OP?
Where is that Universal?
Still have the axe, John?
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Anyone have a long channel angle or steel carabiners like the ones shown on the last page of the OP?
Cheers!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 11:24am PT
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Hazard a guess at the mystery widgets?
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Looks like some kind of snow/ice pro.
There's a photo of Ghastly in Neige et Roc aiding his way up overhanging glacier ice, but, looks like he's placing those channel pitons (!).
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 01:02pm PT
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Got a Universal?
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Not a C-M, I don't think. CAMP, Stubai, Kong, etc.
Left one on a local limestone route here a couple years back. A friend plucked it with his fingers...hmmm...should get that thing back (orange color Kong, methinks)...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 02:02pm PT
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I have a couple somewhere. They had to make the head big enough to accomodate the gear stamp used on the horizontals shown above so you end up with an Eraserhead shape! LOL
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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Steve, that top hammer in the picture looks just like the one I had that Jim Baldwin dropped on me from the Harding route on GPA. It was a great hammer. I could have laid out a similar photo with my hammer, ice axe and pitons. Their equipment was all a work of art. Their pitons were plated; as they were designed to be left fixed. The eye accommodates two carabiners, so you could stand in aiders on one and clip the belay rope to the other. They didn't stand up well to reuse. I had a whole rack of their pitons before Chouinard started selling me some of his first hand-forged items. My axe had that crescent cutout in the pick and a small scoop in the adz for placing one axe on top of another; but I didn't ever figure out a situation to use it that way. You are supposed to stack axes as a ladder and then the scoop was supposed to let you reach down and retrieve the lower axe.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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The pins may be what were called channel pitons. One variant had teeth along the edges of the channels, for use in ice.
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