Missing the points
Peter Macfarlane needed old skills when new gear reached its limits
With their low weight and easy walking, lightweight flexible crampons initially felt radical in the winter, but I soon found their practical limits on more difficult slopes.
After a camp on the Grey Corries ridge, I tackled a snow arête without incident, but was immediately stopped by a very long and steep snow slope. It wasn’t a climb as such, but it was steep enough for me to turn face-in and think carefully about my foot and axe placements.
The first few steps down were fine and I could feel the points of my crampons bite into the firmer snow under the top layer of powder to take my weight, until suddenly they didn’t and I began sliding. I scrambled to try to regain traction with my feet, but it was a well-practised self-arrest ice axe manoeuvre that stopped me securely a little distance down the slope, with both hands on the axe, my nose in the snow and my feet in the air.
Once safe on a ledge I made by kicking in, I cut a series of steps with my axe to take a sideways line off of the steepest part of the slope and I continued downhill on easier ground.
I had been so used to the security and longer points of traditional crampons that I had expected something of the same performance with the lightweights, because the layout of the shorter points was similar. However, a standard B2/C2 crampon and boot combination is very different in practice. This setup gives you a solid weight bearing platform with stiffsoled boots and firmly attached stiff crampons that will allow you to use your front points reliably and tackle steep slopes. With the movement inherent in a lightweight crampon and flexible-soled boot combo your body weight has much more effect on the security of point placement, especially on the front points. This doesn’t mean that lightweight is bad or unsafe, but I have learned that it requires a different set of techniques and a little more thought put into your route choice.
I now regularly switch between traditional and lightweight approaches depending on location and activity, and I can maintain both my safety and my enjoyment whatever I choose.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
My slide was a reminder that gear is only part of the equation. Knowledge, skills and experience are vital if you want to use that gear in the right way at the right time. I was very aware that without an ice axe selfarrest I would have slid another 100 metres onto rocks. It was sobering, but the experience also added to my knowledge and when using lightweight crampons now I take traverses around steeper sections, I even zigzag up slopes and I definitely take more care on descents.