Protecting Ice
Today the most common protection for ice climbing is an ice screw. Ice screws are hollow tubes with sharp teeth on the front end, a hanger eye at the back to clip into, and threading around the tube. They are screwed into the ice and can provide very strong protection in solid ice. However, because of the variable nature of ice, the strength of ice screw placements can vary greatly.
Ice climbers also use the ice itself as protection. The two most common of such techniques are the V-Thread (also known as the "Abalokov" anchor, named after a Russian climber who popularised the technique) and the ice bollard. In a V-thread two intersecting tunnels are bored into the ice to form a "V" shaped tunnel. A sling or cordelette is then threaded through the V and tied in a loop. The rope is passed through the sling, which remains left behind after use.
In an ice bollard ice is chipped away to create a teardrop shaped "bollard". A sling is placed around it, and the rope through the sling, which again is left behind. When ice conditions permit the sling may be dispensed with.
Natural formations, ice hooks, and ice pitons are also used as protection anchors by ice climbers.
Read more about this topic: Ice Climbing
Famous quotes containing the words protecting and/or ice:
“The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn . . .
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet. . . .
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones’ should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)