UKC

How do you screw in an ice screw when you're hanging from one axe for dear life, your arms are completely pumped and you feel like if you pushed against the screw too hard your axe would pop out?

Things I've tried:
- Screwing from the hip (ooo er)
- Putting more screws in further down so that I'm not left desperate
- de-pumping my arms, releasing the thumb, all that stuff.

However, sometimes you just get yourself in that situation.

Any other tips welcomed.

In reply to edunn:

Clip into your axes and/or whack in a bulldog to give yourself some breathing room, use a short (10cm, say) screw.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Very nice. Never thought of a bulldog (or even knew what thy were for really). Thanks

In reply to edunn:

My plan is this (it usually works - the times when it doesn't are seared into the back of my brain).

Split the climbing up into climbing zones and protection zones. The latter are places where it looks from below like you'll have a better chance of placing a screw. Don't piss about in climbing zones thinking about gear, just crack on and get to the next protection zone, with that clear target in mind. As you get into your protection zone, pick a likely ice screw placement, place a little dink in it with an axe and climb past so that it's at the same level as your elbow when your arm's down (sort of lower rib height). Sort your feet, and place one axe so that it's aligned with your new centre of balance, for the hand that's not going to place the screw, but not too high - sort of a comfortable reach away. If it's not in the right place you'll be resisting a barn-door, which will just get worse when you apply pressure to place the screw, and stress you out physically and mentally

Place the other axe somewhere useful. Then place your screw in the dink, and make sure that you don't trap a leash when you clip it. Then, look for your next protection zone, and climb to it, purposefully.

If it's all going wrong, have a sling/cow's tail with a fifi hook or small krab, that will fit through the spike (or over the pommel of a leashless axe if necessary) ready-fitted to your harness. Clip in, sit down, and have a stern word with yourself. Or hammer in a bulldog and do the same, but if you've got enough left to get a bulldog off your harness and place it maybe the wheels aren't all that wobbly yet, but better safe than sorry.

In reply to edunn:

What nniff says is exactly what I try to do, although I only climb set up to clip in to my axes if I'm on something hard (for me!). In addition to that, I read somewhere (maybe in Will Gadd's ice and mixed climbing technique book) that not hanging on for grim death and getting pumped senseless is as much a part of your safety margin as ice screws. I've tried to train stamina and get lots of miles in to improve technique and as a result I climb safer and have more fun too!

In reply to nniff:

It's taken me three trips of euro-ice before I finally worked this out last week! That and not pushing yourself too far too quick make it all a lot more enjoyable.

I'd add that, depending on the grade, thinking about different length/easy to place screws at different levels of rest is also worth the small amount of time it takes. If like me, you've got some really stubby and quick screws to place, and some pigs which are a work-out to get in, but seem to never loosen or melt out, think about putting the former where you need one, but it's not ideal, and the latter where you're almost resting whilst placing.

Also, if you're one for over-gripping when you're scared, getting some grivel speedy, or similar screws with captive quickdraws can be helpful to stop you pumping yourself to death (get it in enough that you could potentially sit on it, then clip it, have an arm swap and shake out, and then get it in the rest of the way).

In reply to edunn:

Keep your screws sharp (wee chainsaw files are useful for this).
Up to IV/V, the majority of the time you should be able to spot rests/footholds from below, before embarking on steeper ground, where you can place screws in balance,ish, without having to do it in a 100% front pointing position.
Not sure about bulldogs personally. Unless they are going in a hole/step, which may not be a great placement, placing a sharp stubby screw should not be any harder, and will be more secure.
If you are really struggling, rather than clipping into an axe, you may be able to just loop one of your ropes over the axe head. Not ideal though.

In reply to nniff:

Nice one. Have only really started 'proper' ice climbing (routes that take only ice screws) this past year or so, so think I've probably skipped a bit of the 'spot a safe place to stop' stuff, which is probably a bit easier in trad and mixed (as there's more available . . . most of the time).

Having a bulldog and/or fifi hook seems like a good shout, if only to sooth the nerves. Like you say, if I can bash one in, I can probably get a screw in, but knowing it's an option will probably chill me out a bit.

Think another thing I've forgotten is to sharpen my screws!! - expending effort and time trying to get them to bite is just getting me more flapped and therefore more pumped.

Do you guys shrapen screws with your own file, or take it to a shop, something else?

Cheers.

In reply to DH3631:

Thank you! Just seen that.

In reply to DH3631:


Better might be to loop the rope over the lower rest of a well-placed axe. Still not great, but less likely to damage the rope.

In reply to edunn:

Sort your feet out

In reply to edunn:

Clip into your axe rather than run the rope over it and sit in the rope. The Pulley effect nearly doubles the force on the axe. Clipping the axe directly with a sling from your harness or similar is only your own weight. It does count with a thin axe placement. Razor sharp screws go in with the minimum of force. The petzl gizmo for sharpening screws works really well, more especially on petzl screws.

In reply to barry donovan:


That's interesting, I have found it SORT OF works.

If you sharpen your screws, it is very useful to have a vice, trying to do it hand held is a recipe for disaster.

In reply to edunn:

To be honest I much prefer a double bed.

In reply to edunn:

If you keep your axes and screws sharp, it'll feel a grade easier. If you let them get blunt, it'll feel a grade harder and you'll get more pumped!

In reply to barry donovan:


Good point. Also this way your axe is still attached to you if it rips.

In reply to edunn:

Personally, I think the bulldog idea is rubbish. There is no way placing one on ice is easier than placing a screw. They are great in turf or rock cracks but they are not much use on ice.

For a big security gain, the unfashionable answer is wrist loops!

In reply to Simon4:

It does take some getting used to, but I sharpen all my screws by hand with no vice and they are super sharp and go in at least as well as new if not slightly better ( as I've actually made the teeth slightly longer and pointier).

In reply to edunn:

Get stronger.

In reply to edunn:

petzl sell the lim ice a sort of file / jig that sharpens most screws very well and maintains screw alignment. it's easy to use which is handy as I'm crap at that sort of thing.

some shops have machines to do the second job needle sports for example.

I wouldn't take a file to mine myself but some in here do.

In reply to edunn:

Wide feet, hips in to the ice, relaxed-straight-armed hang from upper axe, relax knees, squeeze butt cheeks and take deep long breaths.

And remember the breathing part.

13/16 cm screws can be your workhorses, leave anything longer in the car or hidden on your rack for belays.

Screw quickly and efficiently, sharp screws don't need a starting indent unless the ice is absolutely solid.

Use quickdraws with the biggest / widest gate opening you can find. There's nothing worse than getting gloves stuck in a carabiner when you're feeling desperate. Also makes clipping ropes a doddle and easy to clove hitch into when you finally accept you f*cked up.

Mmm that's about it, otherwise it's just getting over complicated...

Oh and remember to breathe

In reply to TobyA:


Depends on the circumstances. In hooked out ice which is pretty common in Scotland I've found them very useful indeed, nor is it true that just because you can place a bulldog you can necessarily place a screw.

In reply to george mc:

There is no getting away from it good old pull ups and lock offs come into their own on steep ice - working out with a couple of rope loops doubled over a pull up bar using just your grip on vertical rope does the trick. When you know you can do this in a gym the transfer onto ice is practically identical - the mental effect makes you relaxed because you wont be fighting fading arms while fiddling with gear. Also it means you will stop and protect when it's steep and not plough on getting further from the last good protection.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Yes, fair enough, I guess in very hooked out or very funky ice you could just sort of hook it over a lip, although I suppose you can do similar with a tool too? I think in Finland I just got used to climbing untouched ice and although the ice falls there are generally short, they also tend to be very uniform and smooth so finding hooking placements for your tools rather than needing few swings is rare. Same for your feet. I've climbed steep ice in Norway which was easier because the amount of feature caused by the sheer mass of ice meant you could find bulges that you could flat foot on to and the like.

But if the OP is starting out I guess he is likely to be climbing off from vertical, and slabbier routes can be very uniform.

In reply to barry donovan:
Only if your belayer jumps off..... There is no pulley effect as the ratio is 1:1. you've just split the load 2 ways. Total force is exacty the same.

In reply to CurlyStevo:


You may be more physically adept than me - if not very careful, I tend to end up with shredded hands and wildly distorted ice-screw points that are blunter than when I started.

Agree with the great importance of having everything sharp, certainly on rock-hard, steep, continental ice.

In reply to Barrington:

The pulley effect doubles (not halves) the force on the anchor/gear/protection. If a climber is hanging off the anchor by a rope attached to a belayer, the belayer has to be applying roughly an equal and opposite force .... otherwise the climber will either be coming down... or moving up. If the climber is clipped in directly to a runner, it's only their weight applying a force on the anchor. There's a little bit of an effect from friction, rope drag etc but not significant. It's a very well established engineering principle but poorly understood by climbers.

People don't understand it because it's counter intuitive. But it's very important because the forces are big and are easily enough to make the difference between a comfortable rest and a surprising and rapid trip south!

Establishing my credentials; I'm a Chartered Engineer

In reply to edunn:

You lot are all mad! If the pitch looks like it's going to be thin I just make my mate lead it

In reply to Annabel Tall:


Seems obvious when you think about it, but took me a long moment to twig while sitting comfortably in from of my computer. Don't think I'd fully appreciate it while pumped and fumbling with screws

In reply to edunn:

And don't loop the rope over the top of the axe - 9 times out of 10, the rope will be away from the contact point of the axe with the ice and the axe will come out if you weight the rope. Much the same as guppying an axe is a bad idea. A sling is a better idea if it's going to take the weight - clipped in to the spike, or over the pommel if you must (and only if it's a proper one and not some weedy applique thing).


PS a protection zone is not necessarily a 'safe place to stop' - rather it's somewhere where you expect to be able to get some gear in. Breaking things down like that stops you faffing the whole way up and gives you a series of objectives . That dreadful stuff 'experience' will help you to tell what's a likely spot.

Sharpening ice screws by hand is easy if you a) keep on top of it b) have some small, sharp files and c) don't ever believe that persistence will make an ice screw bite well in rock. The trick is to make it look much the same as a sharp one, and they're not exactly complex shapes.

IF your screws are sharp, there's seldom any doubt when they bottom out.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Well I have just sent 6 ice screws off to Needlesport, total bill £22.50 plus postage.

It will be interesting to see how good a job they do, but I strongly suspect it will be better than I would do if I spent quite a long time, with quite a lot of files, doing it.

In reply to Simon4:
The needle sports grivel machine works by sharpening the near vertical sides (which are sharp anyway). It does not make the grooves deeper. This means it can only make the teeth shorter (and all teeth the same length). This will be particularly detrimental if one of the teeth on your screws is quite blunted (or more) as I found out! Very short but sharp teeth still dont bite very well!

In the end I fixed the problem by hand and my screws are much better now. I would not use their machine again myself, especially on bd screws.

In reply to Simon4:
I use something like a more primitive version of this process, but I don't use a rounded off bastard file, a vice or a ruler etc. All I need is a set of small files including a round one and a bastard file. I often level the teeth as a final step (by sharpening the longer teeth) by standing the screw up on something flat and metal and making sure the screw is upright and doesn't rock on some of the teeth (depending how out of kilter the teeth lengths are with each other)

http://www.adventure-science.com/files/Ice%20Screw%20Sharpening%20Procedure...

In reply to CurlyStevo:
Looks interesting, thanks.

One point, which I have certainly found, is that they DO propose using a vice to sharpen them. Unsurprising really.

In reply to Simon4:
Perhaps surprisingly to you at least - I can do it without a vice (or most the specialist tools) to a high degree of quality. I had no choice but to learn this way really, as I don't have a vice or anywhere to mount it.

If I had a vice I'd use it.

In reply to Annabel Tall:

Its basic applied math tension in a rope stuff.

However I'll correct you somewhat there is quite a lot of effect from friction over the loaded biner that's why a light climber can hold a heavy one. IIRC its something like 2/3 the force of the climbers side on the belayers side.

In reply to edunn:

One thing I miss from now climbing without wrist loops on the axes is the ability to hang (well, remain more or less upright) by the wrist with enough hand left to hold the screw while turning it with the other hand. That said, I'm fundamentally a punter, never done anything above V, so I should really have been able to avoid ever having to do that, as the other posts suggest.

In reply to CurlyStevo:
Well they have now come back, and it seems as if you are in fact right.

They failed to do 3 of them at all, claiming the points are to blunt (what exactly do they think is the point of sending them to be sharpened?), for those 3 that they say the did sharpen, at least 1 seems no different at all, while the other 2 have pronounced burrs that I will need to remove.

So I will now need to follow something like the regime you proposed, NOT a very good recommendation for sending them away to be sharpened!

In reply to Simon4:

My sharpening tool kit includes:

two small diamond files (£1 the pair off a market stall)
one small half round grind stone, small enough to fit comfortably inside the bore - £1 off the same stall
one small steel flat file (out of a Browning .50 gun kit in the 1980's , and so probably older than me)

I have yet to need to recut the teeth completely, as they're all razor sharp and it's really obvious when they bottom out. If I were to need to, I'd go and buy a chain saw file, or get busy on the internet looking for a good 4 inch rat tail file and a 4 inch half-round file.

A vice is not necessary for ordinary sharpening, but two pieces of 2 x 2 with a groove cut in them and bolted/screwed together to hold the screw turns a small object into a larger one that you can sit/stand/kneel on if more work is needed

In reply to TobyA:


Maybe not in untouched ice, but I tend to find a line of pick shaped holes as I'm climbing that bulldogs slip nicely into - a welcome revelation earlier in the year whilst runout, cursing my weedy arms and blunt screws.

Does anyone know if pull tests have been done on bulldogs placed this way, as have been done for abalakovs? It would be nice to be able to judge the placement with more accuracy than the comparison between DMM pick geometry and that of a DMM Bulldog...

In reply to Simon4:

Just get a file and do DIY. You don't need anything beyond a file and a hand. Possibly wear some work glove on your holding hand as I have managed to nick myself a few times. My screws are mainly from the late 90s or 2000. When I lived in Finland until 2014, they got used once or twice a week throughout the winter, often on thin ice, so I would sharpen them all regularly. They are all obviously shorter than when new, but not that much I don't think but most importantly they all still work absolutely fine. They might not be quite as good as brand new screw in biting, but nearly, and some of them after 18 years of regular use. "Instructions" here http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/ice-screw-sharpening.html

In reply to Plungeman:

Bulldogs are notoriously bad for holding falls in ice I'm afraid. Best in turf or partially like a peg in iced up cracks.

In reply to Simon4:
Sorry to hear that.

Using the hand sharpening technique there is (almost) no such thing as too blunt IMO.

I did have it in writing from needlesports that their machine shortens the teeth a bit every time they are sharpened.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Well to be fair to Needlesports, a girl did phone me up to try and address the problem.

Unfortunately the gist of her comment was (and this is my own paraphrase, obviously), "those ice-screws were too blunt and knocked about to sharpen with our machine", to which my response was "well that is why I wanted them sharpened, that is sort of what sharpening machines are meant to deal with, can you only sharpen screws that don't really need it?".

In the end we had to agree to disagree, though to be fair to her again, she did refund the cost. But not a useful route, as far as I found.

In reply to TobyA:

Thanks, will look at that, along with Steve's suggested method, seeing as it is clear I am going to have to do them by hand now, the machine route having failed.

In reply to Simon4:

oh needlesports are great I have no issues there.