What is your definition of technical mountaineering? One man's definition of technical is another man's walk up. Without knowing what grade you are planning at, it's hard to say what tool is for what. Quark will climb WI5, Nomic makes it just a little easier.

Alpine rock climbing doesn't require any technical tools unless you are talking about getting to the base of the climb, if it's flat, use trekking poles.

what is technical mountaineering? hmm good question.
well i guess i would call it everything except easy angled slopes climbing- ice couloirs , mixed terrain of ice,snow and rock. sound reasonable?
what grade am i talking about? does it make a difference? i think if you buy a good tool it will serve you from PD to ABO am i wrong?

KeithN wrote:Pay no attention to all that gibberish about plunging and self arrest. If the snow is soft enough to plunge a tool, any will do and if the snow's too firm then you're just using the spike for balance. Self arrest - well, it's for pansies. You should take your medicine if you fall on snow.

Also be wary of taking advice from folks who have never done the type of climbing you are intending.

ExcitableBoy wrote:

KeithN wrote:Pay no attention to all that gibberish about plunging and self arrest. If the snow is soft enough to plunge a tool, any will do and if the snow's too firm then you're just using the spike for balance. Self arrest - well, it's for pansies. You should take your medicine if you fall on snow.

Also be wary of taking advice from folks who have never done the type of climbing you are intending.

Har! Indeed.

I think it's dangerous to use a shaped technical tool that doesn't plunge well on a route that requires a few hundred meters of self-belayed steep snow climbing. I'll use the old Black Diamond Prophets on those routes just for the shaft, and the Nomics are reserved mostly for water ice climbs. Self-belay is a real concept, not superseded by modern ice/mixed/whatever.

In fact a friend of mine who brought very technical tools on a north face climb agreed with me so much that he bought some new model of Black Diamond tool that had a reverse curved pick, but a straight shaft...that is pretty ideal for alpine ice.

im sorry for my poor English skills , but what do you mean when you say self belaying ? you mean plunging the tool deep into the snow and using it as a protection?

Strider wrote:im sorry for my poor English skills , but what do you mean when you say self belaying ? you mean plunging the tool deep into the snow and using it as a protection?

Yes. The idea is that there is some snow terrain where a fall couldn't necessarily be arrested, so a self-belay means that the shaft of the tool is plunged in well enough that it would hold if you grip it suddenly because your foot or feet slipped. A technical tool is often very curved, which blunts the effectiveness of the belay. Even worse are things like a large rand around the spike or a pinky grip/guard for leashless climbing.

Of course, you will do water ice climbs with technical tools and top out in wallowing snow, wishing for a straight shaft but of course it's more important to have technical tools for the ice. I'm just saying I wouldn't climb long alpine ice routes with overly severe technical tools because you are bound to have long stretches of steep snow of various consistencies. The Black Diamond Venom tool with the reverse pick is useful for this, though maybe it's not "technical" enough for some routes. The Petzl Quark is a technical tool with a removable griprest to penetrate the snow in self-belay (piolet-canne) mode.