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My friend had knee surgery done on one of here knees in February of 2010. She was a avid rock climber but never got a chance to get into ice climbing. When I started out ice climbing I did bash my knees allot learning the foot work as I suspect most people do until you gain more experience. Spite doing better her knee still hurts after using it for a long time or hitting it. She isn't taking no for a answer on going out climbing so what could we do to help protect her knee at least a bit from impacts until she gets it?

Anyone use any knee pads while ice climbing? or suggest ones that could help?

I'm not sure what you're doing to bash your knee so much when ice climbing. I've suffered lots of bashed knuckles, a bloody nose from a falling ice shard but, as someone having had one of my knees rebuilt twice, I don't recall any knee bashing, or at least nothing big enough for me to remember afterward.

If it's that big of a concern, maybe a neoprene sleeve might help. Have her wear snowboarding pants maybe (since some have padded knees)? Personally, depending on where you climb, it sounds like the approaches might be a bigger issue with her knee. Advil/naproxen and some good conditioning to strengthen the joint will help lots there.

I also dunno what you could do to bash the knees. And I am a beginner myself. Are you climbing Ice off-widths? hehe You could suggest her to order same kind of knee pads that some rock climbers who climb a lot of chimneys and OWs get, if she also has that problem.

Go to the big box hardware store and buy knee pads with plastic armor. I had a pair when I worked construction and also wore them aid climbing. They were pretty cheap, much cheaper than the nearly identical ones marketed for tele skiing.

I bashed my knee pretty good once while doing really thin mixed climb on a top rope. The anchor was quite high so the 60 m rope was nearly all out.

When my feet blew out, I took a good drop as the rope stretched and I slammed my knee into the ice below.