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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Nov 20, 2011 - 10:34pm PT
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Mike M!
Indeed!
You did pound Warthogs straight into the ice!
A little "prep-work:" to create a somewhat smooth & un-fractured ice platform about 12" x 12", was considered good.
It was very satisfying, if----the ice wasn't too cold and brittle.
Then, the ice would "dinner-plate" and fracture into chunks that rained down on those below.
Of course if the ice was thin, the Warthog would "bottom-out" and either break, or fracture the ice above it.
Sometime in the late 1970's: Mountain Magazine ran an extensive test report on "ice-pitons & screws." Warthogs sucked bad in the tests.
As I recall: the Chouinard USA tubular screws had some bad reviews too.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 20, 2011 - 11:18pm PT
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Pounding in a Wart Hog somehow never gave you that reasuring feel that you got from driving a chromoly steel piton into a perfect granite crack.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Nov 20, 2011 - 11:41pm PT
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Jim: Perhaps it was the lack of the "rising pitch" of the well placed pin.
I'm trying to recreate the sound of a "well-placed" Warthog??
Was it: "Clunk, clunk, clunk??"
Damn, they went in quick though, vs screwing in those fluccking Salewa screws,------and then discovering the screws would not insert again, until you melted the ice out of the core.
I really never believed that Scottish BS, about putting ice screws down your shirt to melt the cores---------until the fateful afternoon in 1974 on Cascade Couloir by Baniff. After that: the trickle of ice-water down my chest, from melting ice-screw cores, was just part of the significant suffering, that some called fun, during alpine or waterfall climbing.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 20, 2011 - 11:45pm PT
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Exactly.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2011 - 07:17pm PT
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The aforemetioned link is:
bozemanicefestival.com
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2012 - 08:38pm PT
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As well as bumping some memorable Jack Roberts material I have to pump up the Bozeman Ice Festival!!!
This year's 40th Anniversary of Ice Climbing in Hyalite event was amazing with perfect weather, good ice and great entertainment every night!
Three cheers for Joe Josephson and the Bozeman guides for putting on a first rate event indoors and out! Big thanks to the ongoing sponsors and supporters of this gathering!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Bumping the best of the best. This isn't a Thread it's an encyclopedia.
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Hannes
Ice climber
London, UK
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Does anyone happen to know when Chouinard/Camp stopped making the blue fibreglass shafted axes? I happened to find two of them in the university climbing club's gear locker, sadly they are pretty beaten up. A 60 and 55 cm, should have taken a photo.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2012 - 07:14pm PT
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Those blue glass axes weren't in production for more than a few years because they broke with ease.
The ice tool collectors can likely give you a timeline from catalogs. I can't do so for that particular catalog set.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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I used a blue shaft Chouinard Zero (my first decent axe for ice climbing) and the X-tools for years...dented the hammer is all, never an issue with busted tools other than that, and, I've never seen a busted blue shaft Zero or Piolet. They seemed pretty burly to me.
As near as I can figure, they came out with the blue shaft Zero around 79/80. Replaced by the X-tool versions in 83 or so.
Blue shaft Piolet from around the 83 timeframe through around 87.
X-tools bumped by the X-15 in 1990 or so? Made by Chouinard in blue, then black, then by Black Diamond. Blue shafted X-15 marked as Chouinard not super common.
I've always found the blue shafted Zeros and Piolets to be fairly stout tools. YMMV.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Just a little bump for a good cause :)
Ice last week.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 5, 2012 - 10:31am PT
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That's the stuff!
Nice ice Dane! Location?
I never broke my blue glass piolet but several friends had their axes snap just below the head anchoring plug at the first solid to cavity transition.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Hey Steve, it is Carlsberg in Field BC..just out of Lake Louise. The consumate WI5 in the Canadian Rockies @ soft 3+ conditions last week.
Now that I think about it this needs a link here for a little "back then and now" :)
http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2012/03/then-and-now.html
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2012 - 03:03pm PT
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Done that tall cold one...just didn't recognize it!
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Dane
Good to see you not just remembering the old climbs, but doing them!
Rick
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Rick! You have a very good point about Dane still climbing some difficult ice, rather than just remembering past glories.
He has hardly changed since the 1970's.
We were (cluelessly) off to our Hayes Range adventure on Deborah & Hess.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Fritz-
Love that picture of the young Dane. It reminds me of this terrible, out of focus shot of Mike Graham,in the Gare de Lyon in Paris, taken the same year, 1976, with much the same gear.
We were on our way to Chamonix and we were surprised to meet another American climber headed there , the guy behind Mike. Anyone recognize him?
Rick
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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"In the Gare de Lyon in Paris". The same memories and pictures for 1978 as well. Part of the pilgramage back then. And even sweeter last winter going back because of the first trip. Thanks for the reminder Rick.
Hey Fritz! :) Haven't changed? Don't we all wish?! Rick knows better having met him for the first time at Jeff's BD party last Fall. It was a week after my neck disection and just prior to chemo and radiation. Now 50 pounds lighter, climbing the old classics again is a LOT easier!
But speaking of the old days...what studs these guys were!
Envers des Aiguille 1963, John Harlin, Tom Frost, Gary Hemming, Stewart Fulton.
"The heyday of the "wild ones" in the sixties. This group was credited with putting up many new routes in the Alps during that time, most significantly the first ascent of the south face of the Aiguille Du Fou (with John Harlin, Tom Frost and Gary Hemming) a smooth wall of sheer rock long deemed to be unclimbable."
And watching Jesse ratchet it up on the Dru again decades later brings real joy to my heart.
http://www.alpineexposures.com/blogs/chamonix-conditions/5916109-dru-north-couloir-direct
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Wow...fantastic shots!
Hey, isn't that Jesse guy climbing with BD's Stinger crampons? Uhh...aren't they stainless?
Ha ha...
Cheers, and, keep those photo's coming!
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