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An ice axe is a multi-purpose ice and snow tool employed by mountaineers
Mountaineering

Mountaineering is the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains. It is also sometimes known as alpinism, particularly in Europe....
 both ascending and descending routes involving frozen conditions.

ce axe consists of at least five components:

on ice axe accessories include:

axe spike-to-head lengths generally range from 60 to 90 cm (or about 24 to 36 in.).






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Ice Axe
An ice axe is a multi-purpose ice and snow tool employed by mountaineers
Mountaineering

Mountaineering is the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains. It is also sometimes known as alpinism, particularly in Europe....
 both ascending and descending routes involving frozen conditions.

Components

An ice axe consists of at least five components:
  • Head — usually made of steel and featuring a pick and adze
    Adze

    An adze or adz is a tool used for smoothing rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards their feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind....
    . A hole in the center is provided for attaching a wrist leash or carabiner
    Carabiner

    A carabiner or karabiner is a metal loop with a sprung or screwed gate. The loop part opposite the gate is referred to as the spine. It can quickly and reversibly connect components in safety-critical systems....
    .
  • Pick — the toothed pointed end of the head, typically slightly curved (aiding both in ergonomics and self-arrest
    Self-arrest

    Self-arrest is a mountaineering related maneuver in which a climber that has fallen and is sliding down a snow or ice slope arrests the slide by himself without recourse to a rope or other belay system....
    ).
  • Adze — the flat, wide end of the head used for chopping steps in hard snow and ice.
  • Shaft  — straight or slightly angled, typically wider front-to-back than side-to-side, flat on the sides and smoothly rounded on the ends. Traditional shafts were made of wood, but are now almost exclusively of lightweight metals (such as aluminum
    Aluminium

    Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white and ductile member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al; its atomic number is 13....
     or titanium
    Titanium

    Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Sometimes called the ?space age metal?, it has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver colour....
    ) or composite (including fiberglass
    Fiberglass

    Fiberglass, , is material made from extremely fine fibers of glass. It is used as a reinforcing agent for many polymer products; the resulting composite material, properly known as fiber-reinforced polymer or glass-reinforced plastic , is called "fiberglass" in popular usage....
    , Kevlar
    Kevlar

    Kevlar is the registered trademark for a light, strong aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora.Developed at DuPont in 1965 by Stephanie Kwolek it was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires....
     or carbon
    Carbon

    Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
     filament
    Fiber

    Fiber or fibre is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of yarn. They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissue s together....
    ).
  • Spike, or ferrule
    Ferrule

    A ferrule is a name for types of metal objects, generally used for fastening, joining, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings of metal, or less commonly, plastic....
     — a steel point at the base of the shaft used for balance and safety when the axe is held by its head in walking stick fashion.


Accessories

Common ice axe accessories include:
  • Leash — nylon webbing with an adjustable loop for securing the axe to hand. Often secured by a ring constrained to slide a limited distance on the shaft.
  • Leash stop — a rubber keeper preventing the leash from slipping off of the ice axe.
  • Snow basket — similar to baskets on ski pole
    Ski pole

    Ski poles are used by skiing to improve balance, speed and acceleration. They probably evolved from walking sticks carried while traveling, and possibly from spears as well....
    s, temporarily mounted on the shaft close to the spike to keep the shaft from sinking into soft snow.


Size

Ice-axe spike-to-head lengths generally range from 60 to 90 cm (or about 24 to 36 in.). This is too short to be used as a walking stick on level ground (the way its forebearer, the 5-foot (1.5 m) 19th century alpenstock, was), but is ergonomic when ascending steep slopes.

Usage

The ice axe is not only used as an aid to climbing, but also as a self rescue tool to stop an uncontrolled downhill slide.

Rating

The rating system on ice axes is determined by two groups that are shown on the axe as UIAA and/or CE certification.

Ice axes in history

A short-handled ice axe, sometimes referred to as an "ice pick", was used in the assassination of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxism theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin....
 in 1940.

External links

  • at grivel.com, as of 2006-08-27