Enjoying with crampons
It's Saturday, I'm in Scotland, so I went hillwalking. The usual walking kru1 were all uncontactable, or ill, or out of the country, so I went to Ben A'an with my friend Katie. Ben A'an's a pretty trivial hill at only 460-odd metres, but we had a good view of Ben Venue and Loch Katrine from the top, and it was a nice leg-stretch to ease me out of the sloth of the Christmas period (over which I did almost no exercise, and gained nearly five pounds :-( ).
Better than that, there was snow on the ground, and so I got the chance to try out my Christmas present2. I'd never used crampons before, but a day walking in snow with and without them has made me an instant fan. Without them, I was constantly slipping on loosely-packed, wet snow; with them, I was gripping solidly. Much less tiring and much better for morale, and in an environment where $scary_statistic percent of fatal accidents are caused by the now-legendary simple slip3, they seem like an excellent investment to me. Owing to a combination of weird feet and idiocy on my part, my boots aren't technically rated for crampons, but they're pretty stiff and the guys in the shop told me I'd be OK on reasonably-angled slopes but would be unable to front-point. But actually, I was able to walk on my toes up some fairly steep stuff when I tried: presumably, doing this fatigues the central bar and is generally a bad idea (elvum? mrpjantarctica?). I was also seriously impressed by how easy they were to put on and take off with mittens on: part of the standard test suite for all mountaineering gear should be "plunge your hands into ice water for a minute, then take them out and put on a pair of wet oven gloves. Can you still operate the item in question successfully?". Anyway, I'm looking forward to annoying Philipp by putting crampons on at the first sign of snow next time we go walking together4.
A couple of downsides: the snow wasn't always thick enough, and I kept hearing the nasty sound of crampon points scraping on rock underneath the snow. The paint got scratched off the tips, but they looked OK: I hope I haven't damaged them on their first time out :-( And I tore a hole in my waterproof trousers, but it's only an inch or so across, so hopefully it can be repaired.
1 Massif?
2 wormwood_pearl informs me that owning crampons makes me at least 10% manlier.
3 Nobody ever quotes the statistic that's actually relevant, namely what percentage of simple slips lead to a fatal accident. But the oft-quoted way round does give one a better feel for one's own mortality, and that can be a useful thing to have.
4 Philipp is Swiss, and thus feels that crampons (or, come to that, all safety precautions and emergency gear) are overkill on any mountain smaller than the Eiger. I am a scaredy-cat Brit, and feel that if I have to die young, I'd much rather it's not from something as embarrassing as an easily-preventable mountaineering accident. These differing attitudes are the cause of a certain amount of tension in the party :-)
Better than that, there was snow on the ground, and so I got the chance to try out my Christmas present2. I'd never used crampons before, but a day walking in snow with and without them has made me an instant fan. Without them, I was constantly slipping on loosely-packed, wet snow; with them, I was gripping solidly. Much less tiring and much better for morale, and in an environment where $scary_statistic percent of fatal accidents are caused by the now-legendary simple slip3, they seem like an excellent investment to me. Owing to a combination of weird feet and idiocy on my part, my boots aren't technically rated for crampons, but they're pretty stiff and the guys in the shop told me I'd be OK on reasonably-angled slopes but would be unable to front-point. But actually, I was able to walk on my toes up some fairly steep stuff when I tried: presumably, doing this fatigues the central bar and is generally a bad idea (elvum? mrpjantarctica?). I was also seriously impressed by how easy they were to put on and take off with mittens on: part of the standard test suite for all mountaineering gear should be "plunge your hands into ice water for a minute, then take them out and put on a pair of wet oven gloves. Can you still operate the item in question successfully?". Anyway, I'm looking forward to annoying Philipp by putting crampons on at the first sign of snow next time we go walking together4.
A couple of downsides: the snow wasn't always thick enough, and I kept hearing the nasty sound of crampon points scraping on rock underneath the snow. The paint got scratched off the tips, but they looked OK: I hope I haven't damaged them on their first time out :-( And I tore a hole in my waterproof trousers, but it's only an inch or so across, so hopefully it can be repaired.
1 Massif?
2 wormwood_pearl informs me that owning crampons makes me at least 10% manlier.
3 Nobody ever quotes the statistic that's actually relevant, namely what percentage of simple slips lead to a fatal accident. But the oft-quoted way round does give one a better feel for one's own mortality, and that can be a useful thing to have.
4 Philipp is Swiss, and thus feels that crampons (or, come to that, all safety precautions and emergency gear) are overkill on any mountain smaller than the Eiger. I am a scaredy-cat Brit, and feel that if I have to die young, I'd much rather it's not from something as embarrassing as an easily-preventable mountaineering accident. These differing attitudes are the cause of a certain amount of tension in the party :-)