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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Dec 27, 2008 - 07:09pm PT
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Steve: Thank you for the awesome line-up of old ice-screws you posted. I have not figured out the trick of posting photos here, but the Warthog I asked about is all but identical to the Salewa Warthog in your last photo.
However it is clearly embossed Chouinard USA on one side and Wart Hog on the other. One is currently in a group of Chouinard screws on E-BAy. Auction # is 160306090912.
Yes they are mine. Fritz
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2008 - 11:35am PT
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If your Warthog has a bronze finish on it rather than black then you likely have a third generation which is even more prop worthy!
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Clu
Social climber
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Dec 29, 2008 - 06:30pm PT
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I along with several from Mt. Traders in Berkeley signed up for Yvon's 3 day clinic on ice near Mt. Dana. Rick Sylvester was assisting, $85 (?!) for a 3 day clinic. Yvon had just come out with the N. Wall hammer and cute "Climaxe", the first short tools. Still have my 70cm bamboo and recently picked up a N Wall hammer. Would love to complete the set with a Climaxe.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2008 - 06:42pm PT
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Who wouldn't want to tidy things up that way! LOL
I have an original Piolet and a Zero Northwall Hammer. The Climaxe is pretty spiffy but always seemed like a great way to puncture fabric or flesh at the time. First came out in 1972.
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jimknight
Trad climber
Orem, Utah
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Dec 30, 2008 - 04:00pm PT
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Anyone remember the Nestor Ice Screw? It made a fair dagger. I'll dig one out and make a scan to post, just for grins of course.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Dec 30, 2008 - 04:26pm PT
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A Climaxe would make a good collector's item, for sure, but they weren't so, uh, "hot" for climbing. Not enough heft, so they kinda wobbled and dinked around.
The hammer, though -- now that was a tool. My first one was hand forged from a Yo hammer, with a pick about half as big in all dimensions. Shorter, thinner, more delicate, but with the same force behind it. Talk about penetration. Eventually it broke, so I could see why he beefed up the production models.
YC had a Climaxe at his beach shack that came out at low tide and was all scruffy from digging in the sand. He called it the Clam-axe.
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jimknight
Trad climber
Orem, Utah
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Dec 30, 2008 - 05:17pm PT
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Classic story Doug! The Climaxe was too light. I wrapped solder around the head of mine and taped it in place to get the weight up. Okay as a 3rd tool. I climbed with a guy from Lander (Wes Kraus?) who had refit his Climaxe with a longer, framing hammer handle. It worked even better.
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east side underground
Trad climber
Hilton crk,ca
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Dec 30, 2008 - 05:25pm PT
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was that at YC's nice little multi-million dollar "shack" overlooking rights and lefts ? Wish I had a "shack"!!!!!!
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F10
Trad climber
e350
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Dec 30, 2008 - 07:40pm PT
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Actually my Climaxe comes in pretty handy on some alpine routes where you don't need an axe but need to travel a small bit of snow. When you don't need it, tuck it away and it is out of sight but not out of mind.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2008 - 07:44pm PT
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Aesthetics aside, the need for close quarters step cutting capability or palm support on a hammer length tool never convinced me that I had to have one. I lusted after a fiberglass LAS Hummingbird hammer instead.
Classic old school Lee Vining canyon ice shot
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dec 30, 2008 - 08:23pm PT
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Fiberglas Hummingbird hammer?
The white handled jobber...
Nah, the tubular pick flexed too much and all those short tools were knuckle bangers.
After all of that with tube picks and the hammers,
I liked the Big Bird with an Alpine pick (or the reverse curve banana pick) best.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Dec 30, 2008 - 08:29pm PT
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I still have one of those original fiberglass, tinker toy -like, hummingbirds, "The EB of Ice Climbing!"
-I have too much scar tissue to see my knuckles....
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dec 30, 2008 - 08:37pm PT
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fuk fuk fuk and:
What am I really saying here.
I am a rock climber fer chrissakes!
It is time I talk to somebody, a professional maybe, about this... I have nerdish inclinations, issues even.
Oh well, it would be cool to have an original Pterodactyl (Terrordactyl?)
Or an old-school Mountain Technology 60 cm axe.
Yes that would be nice.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dec 30, 2008 - 08:39pm PT
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Or anything made by Hamish McInnes
'Cuz: if it's not Scottish it's crap!!!
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F10
Trad climber
e350
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Dec 30, 2008 - 09:50pm PT
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'Cuz: if it's not Scottish it's crap!!!
Do Millar mitts count
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2008 - 11:07pm PT
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A little schnice on the ruckle......
Tom Patey leading on the Alladin Buttress, Cairngorms. John Cleare photo.
More ruckle less schnice!
Jimmy Marshall on Parallel B Gully, Graham Tiso photo. Both photos from Climbing Ice, YC, 1978.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Dec 31, 2008 - 02:49pm PT
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Well, you guys are dredging a lot of memories here, from a guy who barely climbs ice anymore. I mean, it's scary! (not the recollections...)
That's me and YC on the cover of Mountain. Don't remember ever seeing that issue. I belayed short, after he pestered me with "save some for me." Funhogs, jeez. That's the FA of the Lee Vining icefalls. Any of em. Wish I could recall what prompted us to go there. I might have glimpsed it, for all I know now. We went to take pictures for Climbing Ice, brought our photographer. I always liked the way this series of shots was laid out tall and skinny on the back cover. And I really like the mixed climbing close-up taken the same day across the canyon.
No, we're not talking about Yvon's "big house" right on the point-break side of Pitas Point, itself the next major break south of Rincon -- that was later. The shack was half a mile further down the coast, sandwiched between the old Coast Highway and another good break. Boards in the rafters, and you could see right through cracks in the wall. The waves broke 50 feet away, except at high tide when they were closer. I spent a lot of time sitting up against the seawall writing. Yvon let me stay in the back room months at a time. When Malinda moved in, I retired to the basement of the "Martian Movers" building, under the GPIW store with Tex Bossier.
Tar, you is a sick puppy. But we'll be gentle with your obsessions here even as we deconstruct...
Reality therapy: The old McInnes tool -- the "Terror" -- was a blunderbuss. Bashed the ice into submission -- it wasn't pretty. Way too fat and blunt and shapeless to ever stick a swing, you were reduced to excavating a hole in the ice and then hooking the thing into it to hang on. Brutish.
Still, Don Jensen had one in the Palisades as his only tool, and I've always been amazed at what he did with it. Not water ice -- given the equipage he wisely stayed away from that -- but with nothing more for purchase than that 50 cm shaft plunged in, he down-soloed the FA of the V-Notch in snow conditions. No one for miles around if he got in trouble. It had a hammer face for rock, and he wore it in a holster on his belt.
I always liked the Hummingbirds. Amazing sticking them in brittle ice, with what the pick displaced neatly stovepiping up the inside. Seemed to shatter a lot less. Even the springiness felt good. And knuckle-bashing? That was just normal. The fat wool mittens were armor for that, right? I mean, once they got snow in the palms they damn sure weren't for grip... When my knuckles got too sore, I would sometimes swing a hammer held with just thumb and forefinger on either side of the handle. 'Bout then it was time for the bar.
McInnes: "Ice is for pouring whiskey on."
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dec 31, 2008 - 03:11pm PT
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Yes quite,
Accurate deconstruction too.. (not that you would do otherwise)
I don't actually hope to USE such a thing as the Terror.
Then there was the "Roosterhead":
Built like a Terror, may have been the first tool to have a little point facing forward to protect the knuckles?
I couldn't make that sharply drooped shortish stuff work well either; some said they were just hooking tools and never suited to fat ice which makes a little sense.
The tube picks for the Big Bird were a little beefier and therefore inspired more confidence, but I still felt too specialized and limiting in other ways (don't ask me exactly what ways...).
But I still think any of the tools Hamish made would be nice to have under glass!
(I would at the least, enjoy seeing some pictures of various things he crafted, besides the Terror)
Somewhere back there in the pile of magazines, there is an article on the craftsmanship end of the McInnis obsession.
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Dec 31, 2008 - 05:51pm PT
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Remember the Forrest hammers ?
http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff98/trundlebum/old_gear/?action=view¤t=OldIceTools.jpg
I just tried successfully to get that alpine pick unscrewed and dislodged. A good dose of 'Liquid Wrench' did the trick. I was amazed as that pick had been in there about 30 years if not more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was just back east for X-mass, while there I took a trudge through my dad's basement. I had a pair of crampons that worked great but couldn't remember the brand. I found the front, right portion of one of them... Simond. They were hinged but with stiff boots descent at pretty steep stuff. What made them work well was that the first set of down points were actually at about a 60 degree rake. That made it so on less than vert stuff you could kick back on the four points instead of just the two front. A lot less strenuous.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2009 - 11:40am PT
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Here is a shot of Hamish MacInnes, the Fox of Glencoe in his shop from Mountains by John Cleare, 1975.
I'm not sure whether the Terror was in his head or in his hands! LOL
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