[pct-l] My Experience with Crampons

[kgdavis970 at earthlink.net (Ken Davis)]

On Saturday I climbed Ruth Mountain up here in the North Cascades.  At 7100 ft tall, there was plenty of compacted snow and ice to traverse on the way up.  It turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to work with a pair of crampons.  I have to admit that after my experience, I've fallen in love with them.  Up until the point where I put them on, I was struggling mightily to kick-step my way up the slope.  My light weight hikers just didn't have a rigid enough sole to be successful with this approach.  Others in my party had hard plastic boots designed for ice climbing and they were having much better success with the kick-step approach than I was.  Instead, I was getting sore feet and feeling much more insecure with every step taken.  Another note is that I was post holing in the soft stuff deeper than the others.  I couldn't figure that one out at first, but believe I have an answer to that as well (and it's not that I'm a lot heavier than the others). ; )

Needless to say, I'm not jumping onto the plastic boot band wagon.  I have to admit though, that the benefits of full crampons in combination with a soft soled, light hiking boot are hard to deny when working in compact snow and ice.  Another positive side effect beyond the excellent traction provided was that I stopped post holing as deep as the others.  I didn't expect this added benefit, but was happy to see it.  I suspect that the crampons served as a "spine" to stiffen up the sole of my boot.  This added stiffness kept my toes straight when sinking down into soft snow.  The result was that the base of my boot with crampons provided greater surface area when stepping down in soft snow, so I didn't sink in as much.  

I really started to enjoy the climb after putting those crampons on.  I suspect the experience in the High Sierras will be much the same.  That along with the fact that with crampons I have more versatility as to when I can cross over passes, makes it an easy decision for me.  I now have full crampons on my list of equipment for the High Sierras.      


Ken Davis
kgdavis970@earthlink.net
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