Came across this picture of me and Jon Jones’ on Glenmore Lodge’s Facebook page. It seems to crop up every now and then in various publications.

Was working at Ratho last night and had a boulder with a pair of http://www.schmoolz.com/.

Good fun!

Andrew, Lee and I climbed “Grooved Rib” in Corie an t’Snechda yesterday. It follows the buttress between the Runnel and Crotched Gully. I gave a really nice ice cllimb on very good ice and neve with good rock gear and even ice screws!

We were in the “white room” all day – the corrie seemed very quiet and many teams seemed to be walking out as we were walking in – problems finding routes? It snowed all day – freezing level was about 700m or so, but the snow was very damp and sticky. A cold and damp day which tested my soft-shell clothing -verdict: not very good for damp Scottish conditions!

Some thoughts on adapting Aztar axes for leashless climbing.

Aztar with Grivel slider bolted on.

Since this was taken I’ve managed to move them further down - using a longer bolt helps this.

 This solution chokes the swing slightly and doesn’t work if you’ve big gloves or big hands! However I’ve climbed with these for two seasons now and they work very well and leave the spike clear.

Petzl Charlet grip rests. To fit these you need to cut some rubber away and drill a hole.

Only a small amount of rubber needs to be cut away – Before and after for comparison. The griprest fits perfectly into the spike at the bottom.

Now the hard bit. The spike is made of tempered steel and very hard to drill through!

The instructions for the griprests say to use a 5mm drill bit. I measured the bolt to be 4.8mm thick – the problem is with a 5mm hole you’re not leaving a lot of spike.

I started trying to drill with a 2mm titanium drill bit as a pilot hole. I made a slight dent. My father-in-law took it to a workshop and used a tower drill. It made a slightly larger dent. It is really, really hard to drill, and I needed my axes so I gave up and re-attached the grivel sliders but lower down the handle!

It is possible to attach the griprests – I know two other folk who have drilled, and other people who have filled in the spike hole and attached through that.

There are a few web posts that I found useful:

Cascade Cilmbers Forum

Another solution which looks interesting, but I’m not convinced the griprest won’t lever off when plunging in snow:

Link posted on UKClimbing.com

I tried this, but my thoughts were correct – it just levers off very easily, so I wouldn’t reccomend it as a robust solution.

Jim Rigg sent me these photos of his conversion and said: “The job’s not perfect.  If you look closely at one of the pictures you will see that the drilled hole breaks the edge of the spike.  However, the job is mechanically sound – the diameter of the bolt is greater than the width of the gap.  The steel is incredibly tough and difficult to drill – we broke two ‘normal’ drill bits before moving on to something more specialised. A key point is to ensure that secure clamping is achieved.”

Aztar with grip cut away ready for drilling

Drilling in progress -note well clamped

Dirlling complete -

Ready to climb.

Any thoughts, please comment!