September 29, 2008: Falls Fall

[glatt]

My sister has done frozen waterfall climbing. They have these really cool screws they use to drive into the ice as they climb instead of hammering a small piton into the ice. Piton wouldn't hold and would tend to chip off the ice.

The screws are basically hollow pipe with coarse threads, and the tip of the screw is toothed, like a hole saw. So as the screw cuts its way into the ice, the hollow center of the screw allows the waste ice a place to exit, so the screw doesn't tend to split the ice and weaken it. Ice is not a strong material, so climbing it is a challenge.

A climber needs a whole set of screws of different lengths in order to do an ice climb, but the screws are really expensive. You can easily have $1000 worth of screws for one climb. Not a sport you can easily just try out.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by glatt

My sister has done frozen waterfall climbing. They have these really cool screws they use to drive into the ice as they climb instead of hammering a small piton into the ice. Piton wouldn't hold and would tend to chip off the ice.

The screws are basically hollow pipe with coarse threads, and the tip of the screw is toothed, like a hole saw. So as the screw cuts its way into the ice, the hollow center of the screw allows the waste ice a place to exit, so the screw doesn't tend to split the ice and weaken it. Ice is not a strong material, so climbing it is a challenge.

A climber needs a whole set of screws of different lengths in order to do an ice climb, but the screws are really expensive. You can easily have $1000 worth of screws for one climb. Not a sport you can easily just try out.

So what I've gleened from this is your sister gives $1,000.00 screws on ice. That about right?