Ice climbing is what sport
To say that ice climbing developed from the sport of rock climbing is actually not accurate. It doesn't seem accurate to say that ice climbing has developed independently from mountaineering to the present. The most obvious difference between ice climbing and rock climbing, in addition to the difference between rock and ice, should lie in the equipment used for ice climbing.
The history of ice climbing is not long, and the emergence of modern ice climbing in the true sense began with the production of the first technical ice axe by the founder of the outdoor company Patagonia, Yvonne Joynard. Until then, ice axes had been a common shape —T-shaped, wooden straight handles, like an axe.
This ancient ice axe is now known as a "B-type pickaxe", and B stands for Basic in English, which means "basic, basic". These ice axes usually have a long straight handle that can be inserted into the snow to assist balance, and are also commonly used for hiking, glacier walking and snow slope walking, which is why it is also called walking pickaxe and long ice axe.
Other ice axes are basically classified as "T-pickaxes", and T is the abbreviation of "Technical: Technical, Professional". It is typically characterized by a curved handle and a downward curved pickaxe tip, which makes it easier to grip in a direction parallel to the handle, easier to pick up into the ice, and less likely to fall off when forced perpendicular to the ice wall. Therefore, it is mostly used to climb steep or even vertical ice walls, and is also designed to look different according to its use to adapt to more application scenarios such as ice climbing or Arboriganic mountaineering.
▲The ice axe designed to cope with different terrains, the steeper the terrain that needs to be dealt with, the more exaggerated the arc of the ice axe.
In 1967, Yvonne Joynard realized the weaknesses of traditional ice axes in his long practice and made an improved version himself, smaller and lighter, with a slightly curved pickaxe handle. This ice axe is the prototype of the modern technology ice axe.
▲ The left is the B pickaxe of the same period, and the right is the improved ice pickaxe made by Joeynard Equipment Company.
The appearance of crampons can be traced back to the 16th century, when hunters and shepherds in the Alps made a device with four nails on the soles of their feet for walking on the ice, which is the prototype of crampons.
In 1908, an engineer named Oscar Eckerenstein and climbing enthusiast designed a 10-tooth crampon; in 1913, Lieutenant Trémeau gave the 10-tooth crampon the ability to adjust its length; in 1929 (and 1932), Laurent Grivel added two front teeth to the 10-tooth crampon, giving it the ability to cope with steep ice surfaces. Formed the 12-tooth crampon used today.
▲ Ancient 10-tooth crampons.
The 12-tooth crampon, also known as the full-tooth crampon, is the standard equipment for modern ice climbing. Today, 11-tooth crampons with single front teeth have been developed, which provide greater precision and flexibility for 11-tooth crampons, and are therefore suitable for more specific techniques. The advent of 12-tooth crampons has spawned a new ice climbing technique.
▲ 12 tooth crampons.
▲ Single front tooth crampon, more suitable for dry climbing or mixed climbing.
In the age of 10-tooth crampons, mountaineers often used French techniques. The essential of the French technique is to hold the pickaxe side by side with both hands against the ice wall, two points fixed, one point moving. This technique is only suitable for gentler ice slopes, and once the angle exceeds 40 degrees, it is difficult for climbers to stand on steep ice due to the lack of front teeth.
▲French technology.
With the advent of the fore teeth, German techniques came into being. German techniques are the ones used by most ice climbers today, holding an ice axe in each hand, facing the ice wall, kicking the front teeth into the ice to fix, fixing at three points, and moving a little. The advent of German techniques has helped climbers overcome steeper ice walls and push mountaineering into a faster, steeper era.
To say that the most significant difference between ice climbing and rock climbing, these two pieces of equipment should be the most obvious features. In addition, most of the human equipment used for rock climbing and ice climbing is basically the same. Another difference is the tools used to set up protection for ice climbing.
In the case of sport climbing, the protection point of climbing is usually a permanent protection point in the rock with expansion screws, as long as the screws and hanging pieces are not rusted or subjected to artificial destruction, there is almost no need to consider the possibility of failure. Ice, on the other hand, is not a stable medium, and as temperatures rise, the ice melts, so ice picks that set protection points on the ice require ice climbers to carry with them and set them up along the way.
▲ In order to cope with different thicknesses of ice walls, ice picks often have different lengths to choose from.
In addition, due to the physical properties of ice, it is difficult to withstand long-distance rushing, when leading a section of ice that no one has climbed, the climber needs to set protection along the road, and when the climber falls off at a position higher than the protection point, it will first experience a period of free fall, and the pull from the rope will be felt below the protection point, so it will fall a distance.
Long-distance crashes greatly increase the risk of protection point failure, and ice climbing is therefore more dangerous than rock climbing. A big part of the fun of ice climbing lies in judging the ice conditions and the risk factor, in short, mental games.
Although it looks highly similar to rock climbing, the sporty experience of ice climbing is very different from rock climbing.
In the process of climbing, the touch of fingertips and toes is the information that the brain mainly needs to judge, different shapes of fulcrums, friction of different rocks, different layouts and actions make rock climbing more emphasis on the ability of the body, that is, the control and application of the body.
The touch of ice climbing comes from the pickaxe tip and claw tip, whether the pickaxe tip is deep into the ice surface, whether it is stable, climbers need to judge whether their current situation is safe through the vibration of the ice pickaxe and the crampon and the feedback of the force. And the action of climbing ice is slightly singler than climbing, and the ice axe can help climbers artificially create grip points on the ice, while crampons create a solid foothold.
This is not to say that ice climbing is technically and physically simpler and less demanding than climbing, perhaps you have heard the saying that the physical ability required to climb WI5-WI6 corresponds to about 5.10 of climbing. There is some truth in this, but it is not strict, the "Figure 4" and "Figure 9" in ice climbing to cope with the elevation terrain require extremely strong arm strength, and sometimes even one-arm pull-ups, and the 5.10 climbing route rarely even needs to pull up.
Ice climbing has its own set of technical system and knowledge system. How to swing the pickaxe can make the pickaxe tip more efficiently penetrate the ice surface, how to kick the ice can make the claw tip more stable in the ice, all require repeated training and polishing.
▲Figure 4。
Figure 9, look closely, do you know where the difference is?
Dry climbing with mixed climbing
But since rock climbing is so similar to ice climbing, why not combine them?
Dry Tooling was born, it looks like ice climbing, but it is carried out on the rock wall, simply put, it is to use an ice axe instead of hand contact with the rock, and does not need to be picked into the stone, but fully uses the natural structure of the rock such as cracks, holes or raised edges, using hooks and twists and other techniques to climb.
This technique is widely used in today's Arborigan mountaineering, where climbers will choose to use dry climbing techniques to cope with rocky terrain when dealing with steep vertical terrain for a long time and unable to wear and remove crampons.
In ice climbing, people often use "WI + number" or "AI + number" to indicate their climbing difficulty, WI is the abbreviation of English Water Ice (water ice), AI stands for Alpine Ice (alpine ice), the larger the number, the higher the difficulty of the line.
The dry climbing difficulty level system is represented by the initial D of Dry Tooling, and the current maximum difficulty is D16, a route called "Storm Giant".
Storm Giant D16.
Although it is carried out on the rock wall, dry climbing cannot be carried out on the climbing route, and the dry climbing route needs to be developed separately. This is due to the fact that the pickaxe tip and claw tip will cause some damage to the rock wall, and if it is carried out on the climbing route for a long time, it will change the structure of the rock wall, so the opening line and climbing guidelines of the dry climbing state that it cannot be mixed with the climbing route.
Dry climbing is widely used in today's Arabic mountaineering, when climbers suddenly enter rocky terrain after facing a continuous ice surface, climbers often use dry climbing techniques to cope with rocky terrain due to the pursuit of efficient or simple inability to wear and remove crampons. In the complex environment of high mountains, ice and rock often mix and alternate, which has given rise to another new concept - Mix Climbing.
There is no essential difference between mixed climbing and dry climbing, except that dry climbing deals with pure rock terrain, while mixed climbing deals with more complex terrain: pure ice, pure rock, ice rock mix, snow rock mix. Mixed climbing terrain is usually more common in rocky alpine environments, so the grade factor "M" of mixed climbing is more common in the difficulty grading of hiking routes than in a rock field on the outskirts of the city.
Ice Climbing World Cup
In today's increasing popularity of competitive rock climbing, many people may have heard of the Climbing World Cup, but how many people know that ice climbing also has a World Cup?
The ice climbing World Cup is similar to the format of the Climbing World Cup, and every year there are sub-stations around the world, which are applied to the International Climbing Federation UIAA by the host place, and can only be held after the qualification conditions for the event are reviewed by the UIAA. The ice climbing World Cup competition can be divided into two events, pioneer climbing and speed climbing.
Although it is called the Ice Climbing World Cup, the pioneer ice climbing competition is in the form of dry climbing, so some people simply call it the Dry Climbing World Cup.
If you see the ice climbing World Cup venue, you may feel a little trance for a moment. Didn't I come to see the ice climber? How did it feel like entering the climbing arena? What about those big hanging boxes?
At this time, please do not fall into constant self-doubt, this is the ice climbing World Cup competition venue, the ice climbing competition uses a venue very similar to competitive rock climbing, artificial polymer walls, artificial fulcrums, artificial routes.
Ice climbing competitions use special fulcrums, neither climbing nor carved ice surfaces. The fulcrum used in the ice climbing competition is harder than the rock point and is cleverly set up, and the pickaxe tip will be unhooked if there is a slight change in the direction of the force.
And ice climbing has a special design in the shape design - gondola, which can usually be rotated and swinged, which can be used to increase the difficulty of the line, and can also be used as a connection between the far fulcrums.
In the course of the competition, the player can kick the crampon under the foot on the wall arbitrarily to stabilize the center of gravity, but the ice pickaxe can only fall on the prescribed fulcrum, which requires the athlete to climb the line according to the design of the lineman, and also requires the athlete to be able to control the body to make the required movements. However, unlike natural ice wall climbing, athletes do not need to swing a pickaxe, but only need to hook and hook.
But the other competition is really played on the ice, which is speed climbing. Maybe you think that such a sport is not comparable to speed, and it is not much faster.
However, the athletes' results will surprise you, and in the SPEED RACE OF THE UIAA, the track height is usually 12-15 meters, and the winner in a group of two advances. At such heights, high-level male players can complete the climb in 7-10 seconds.
▲I really didn't put it fast.
Speed skating uses a chronograph system that is consistent with speed climbing, and the contestant will perform a top rope climb, step on the pressure receptor at the start, and end with an ice axe or hand slap timer at the end, and the shortest time wins. The ice wall to climb is usually artificially poured ice, so often after a few rounds, the ice wall will become potholed.
Although there is a race called "Bouldering" in the official UIAA manual, similar to the climbing event in the rock climbing competition, in fact this event is very rare, similar to the climbing rules, and the players will compete for victory and defeat through the completion rate of several different routes.
Why didn't ice climbing get into Austria?
In 2018, UIAA said it would work to make ice climbing a competition for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, but it is clear that they did not succeed.
As for why ice climbing has not yet become an Olympic sport, there is no clear answer from the official, but from the sport and its practitioners themselves, we can speculate one or two.
1. Niche
Like the rock climbing community, the ice climbing group has been a subcultural group for the past few decades, with a small part of the group crossing between the two sports, and to a niche degree, ice climbing is even worse than climbing.
In foreign countries, climbing areas such as the Alps and Alaska are not as numerous as rock climbers. In China, the development of ice climbing is still in its infancy, not only is it difficult to search for ice climbing related content on the Internet, but it is even rare to see people engaged in ice climbing in life. Most of the people on the ice rink are new people who use rental equipment to learn to wield pickaxes and kick the ice, and there are very few people who come and go freely on the ice wall.
The niche in ice climbing has a variety of reasons, the first of which is its risk as a sport. Also as an extreme sport of rock climbing, a large part of its enthusiasts can not accept the risk of ice climbing sports - sharp tools, the law of strictly prohibiting falling, these words all stimulate people's sensitive nerves. It can be said that ice climbing is a real brave sport.
Among the requirements of the International Olympic Committee for the selection of sports, one of them is that the sport itself needs to have a certain base of engaged personnel and audience groups, competitive rock climbing is still only barely entering the Olympic Games, the audience group is smaller to climb the ice, how easy is the road to the Olympic Games.
2. Competition Format
The competition format of ice climbing can become a controversial topic.
Although the events held by the UIAA are called the "Ice Climbing World Cup" and are also held in the ice and snowy areas and seasons, the form of the pioneer climbing competition is very different from the traditional ice climbing, and climbers do not need to wave a pickaxe into the ice, nor do they need to judge the quality and safety of the ice surface, which are the main features of ice climbing.
In both of the ice climbing competitions, speed skating needs to be carried out on the ice, so artificial ice needs to be poured in the winter environment. However, among climbers, whether it is rock climbing or ice climbing, the speed project itself is extremely controversial.
▲Speed climbing. Image source: IFSC
At the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, the combination of speed racing with difficulty and climbing has caused strong dissatisfaction among many athletes, and many well-known climbers believe that this is a spoiled climbing sport, and climbing that has lost the athletes' own judgment of the route and problem solving has been separated from the essence of climbing.
If you leave the speed project, the pioneer climbing project can actually get rid of the ice surface and the cold environment because it is mainly carried out on artificial materials. The dry climbing sport itself is not limited by the seasons and weather, and since it is not a winter limited event, why do you have to enter the Winter Olympics?
3. Competitiveness
In terms of the competitiveness of the sport itself, it makes sense that the Ice Climbing World Cup chose the form of dry climbing.
On the one hand, it is convenient for the event organizers to quantify the standard of the track, on the other hand, because the dry climbing cannot fix the ice axe to the wall very well, it requires that the direction of the ice axe is highly accurate, which also requires athletes to have enough physical ability to apply the corresponding movements and skills. Therefore, as a sport, dry climbing is more suitable as a competition than ice climbing.
If the competition of ice climbing itself is slightly worse, the skills of ice climbing are mainly reflected in the basic technology such as picking and kicking ice, and if it is really carried out on the ice wall, the previous player completes the line with a pickaxe kick ice, and the holes and traces left on the ice wall just provide hook space for the next player, which leads to the same set of action sequences, the two are facing different ice conditions and skills, this difficult to quantify feature also makes ice climbing one of the difficult to hold events.
Moreover, in ice climbing, skill and physical ability account for only 1/3 of the comprehensive ability, and experience and judgment and psychological control occupy a large part. Climbers need to know what weather conditions, what kind of ice, what kind of sound it makes is stable and safe; whether the ice surface can withstand a medium-intensity crash; under what circumstances the crash is safe and under what circumstances it is fatal...
Therefore, ice climbing is more like a comprehensive adventure activity, rather than a simple competition of technology and physical fitness, after all, you don't need to worry about whether you will fall to your death when sprinting 100 meters.
However, not entering the Olympic Games does not mean that ice climbing is a bad sport. On the contrary, ice climbing is full of adventure sports, and dancing with nature on the ice walls of the ice is a cool thing to think about.
Now that it is the Winter Olympics, the ice season has also entered the end, since you can't see this charming sport on TV, it is better to go out of the house to embrace the cold winter, seize the opportunity to experience the joy of ice climbing for yourself, and then wait for the next ice season Ha.