kheegster wrote:I'm planning some Cascade alpine climbs (Baker NR, Kautz on Rainier) with belayed or at least simulclimbing pitches of AI2-3 that would require glacier crossings at some point.
Now I see where you are coming from -- did the Kautz in July 2006. We each brought one regular length ice axe and one 50cm ice tool.
There is ~9000' of glacier slogging so the ice axe definitely comes in handy in cane position for walking in balance, rest-stepping, etc. There are only two technical pitches, and when we went the first one was just hard snow (40-ish degrees), and the second was ice. It wasn't water ice either, basically just exposed glacier ice, highly featured. Maybe 50-ish degrees max.
We soloed the first pitch and I led the second pitch with a 66cm air tech evo in one hand and a petzl aztar in the other. It was fine. There were other parties who probably did it with one ice axe each, but hey, we brought the stuff up, we might as well use it
I'd had some previous experience with the air tech evo on alpine ice, and it was ok. The head is better on that stuff than say, a BD raven pro, but I would imagine you could get by with one of those too if you already have one. I don't think I even used the aztar the whole trip except for that one pitch.