steve shea
climber
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 10:14am PT
|
I'm going ice climbing in Teton Canyon tommorow. I'm using all my old stuff. I bet it still works after collecting dust since the mid nineties. I'll probably look into new boots though. But it'll be fun...terrors are what I'm used to. I think my last new tool was something made by BD. I did buy a new coated rope. Maybe I'll do a TR on geriatric ice climbing SS
|
|
Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 01:43pm PT
|
Speaking of Chouinard & ice-climbing: back up-thread I had shared photos of Chouinard's U.S. made Wart-Hog and asked for background information. RDB & Doug Robinson, among others, shared some good information.
I finally found the page that has this Warthog, and Chouinard's US made screws: in the Chouinard/Great Pacific Ironworks 1975 catalog. Those products replaced the Salewa Wart-hog and screws, Chouinard had previously sold.
|
|
perswig
climber
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 02:46pm PT
|
Maybe I'll do a TR on geriatric ice climbing
Please do. Our early flirt with ice ended abruptly and conditions are less than favorable at the moment here in the NE.
Dale
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2011 - 04:40pm PT
|
Those Warthogs still look like some kind of sci-fi murder weapon...LOL
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 04:43pm PT
|
In 1970 a friend of mine took a 120 ft. fall on the Italian Route on Ben Nevis. His Wart Hog came out part way and bent in half but held the fall. My friend walked away with a few scratches.
|
|
mike m
Trad climber
black hills
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 06:29pm PT
|
What the hell did you do with those things? Do you pound one straight into the ice(how satisfying)? Are the treads for getting them out?
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2011 - 07:31pm PT
|
Pound in and screw out...or take a screamer! LOL
|
|
Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 07:34pm PT
|
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.
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 08:18pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 08:41pm PT
|
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.
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 08:45pm PT
|
Exactly.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2011 - 04:17pm PT
|
The aforemetioned link is:
bozemanicefestival.com
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2012 - 05:38pm PT
|
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!
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
Bumping the best of the best. This isn't a Thread it's an encyclopedia.
|
|
Hannes
Ice climber
London, UK
|
|
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.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2012 - 04:14pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
|
|
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.
|
|
RDB
Social climber
wa
|
|
Just a little bump for a good cause :)
Ice last week.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 5, 2012 - 07:31am PT
|
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.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!