UKC

Can anyone provide some words in usage (within the climbing world) that can be used to describe ice falls and ice features found ice climbing.

One that particularly interests me is a word to describe big, wide, sheet ice that forms from seepage and not as a direct result of running water... the term ice fall is becoming a little boring and non-specific.

Also how would one describe large, splaying cracked features of powdery or crystalline snow with intermittent internal ice layers? So far all I can come up with is 'Some freaky shit!'

So far my list and definitions include:

Ice falls - Generic, iced up waterfall.
Verglas - Thin ice smears on a surface.
Pillar - Generic, stonking great big pillars of ice, free standing or not.
Chandeliers - Lots of dangling needles/ icicles.
Cauliflower ice - Well cause it looks like a figgin' cauliflower..?

If anyone can please add some, or provide insight into how cauliflower ice forms or a decent word for the aptly named freaky shit, it would be most appreciated.

In reply to GrendeI:

"The instrument of your impending demise" perhaps

Is cauliflower ice the one that is formed by freezing spray near waterfalls, leading to a very complex internal structure with virtually no strength or am I thinking of something else?

In reply to davidbeynon:

I like!

As for the cauliflower ice, what I've seen so far suggests it's a mix of snow and ice that builds up from some kind of inconsistent spray/dripping that isn't enough to form long icicles or bulges.

Though I may well be very wrong, I would love to hear the ice gods view on how these features form.

In reply to GrendeI:

frazzled: stuff either forming or breaking down, just solid, affected by ambient air temp
bleached: stuff bleached white and soft from UV
blue: blue, shiny, thick
bullet-proof: stuff that just dinner-plates like a windscreen
cascading: series of stepped pillars
wedding cake: looks like one
hana-mizu: japanese for nose-water - looks like dribbled snot
pond: the flat top of often chewy ice
laminate or facade: ice thats separated from the rock
slab: similar to rock
flows: smooth ice formed from water lapping over rather than running down
trickle: little flows of ice from out of pockets of melted snow
sugar: grainy ice thats well into decay
chewy: good 'first stick' stuff

not 100% sure how cauliflower forms, suffice to say its where water drips or lands as spray, bottom of water falls, man made etc.

hope that helps.

In reply to GrendeI:


surely you mean an icefall? An ice fall would be an ice climber having a really bad day.



I reckon pillars have to touch down, otherwise it's a dagger/icicle. Or by non-free standing do you mean touching the rock behind? In which case, yeah, although I'd call anything climbable a pillar - doesn't have to be big.



Its wind shaped normally I think. I live in a rather unwindy country (in the trees normally) and we get very little cauliflower ice. Climbing Norway I've noticed how many more foot ledges you get with more funky ice!

Where I climb most of the icefalls are merely seepage in summer, trickles at best. So an icefall isn't just a frozen waterfall, because we get plenty of icefalls without them being waterfalls in summer - merely wet gunky rock faces.

In reply to GrendeI:

Light coating of frost = full winter nick.

In reply to GrendeI:

Dinner plates.

In reply to Paul F: Anyone else seen the work by Grenoble university
eg
http://www.grenoble-univ.fr/jsp/fiche_actualite.jsp?CODE=1275321282915&...

In reply to TobyA:


I just type what spell checker tells me


Indeed, I meant those that are either attached to a rock or that bridge a gap between an overhang and the ground, but I agree anything left hanging would be a dagger.


I agree too, but was hoping to try and distinguish between the two slightly.

In reply to GrendeI:

Technically, in glaciology, an icefall is a section of a glacier that is flowing really fast down a steep section of terrain, resulting in a massively fractured and unstable surface.

I always catch myself before calling a frozen waterfall an 'icefall' and end up calling it 'cascade ice' or something. Oh well.

In reply to GrendeI:

Curtain

In reply to Fredt: Ahh yes! I had forgotten that one, and it reminds me of veil too!

Though is it the norm to call something a bridal veil, when there's a fall already named that?

In reply to GrendeI:
Umbrellas, wierd brolly like formations that look like fungi growing off a tree trunk. I think they form when its been really dry before the free and then it rains? They hurt when they land on ya anyway.

In reply to GrendeI:

Throatballs:
When you are so scared your testicles retract so far they are in your throat.

In reply to GrendeI:

Flutings.

In reply to GrendeI:

Plastic

styrofoam - self explanatory
Mushroom ice - like the stuff on the inside of your freezer but much scarier (so I'm told)
booming - hollow