Will Gadd – Athlete, Speaker, Guide     Athlete   •   Speaker   •   Guide    
Instagram     Facebook   YouTube

X vs. T: Why the old X technique is inferior

Date: January 31st, 2013

I recently received the following email:

“Dear Will, I read your book, and found it quite inspiring and full of good tips. I just wanted to ask you one question. In your book and videos, you recommend place the ice tools near the same vertical line, one higher than the other, and the moving the feet up. As in: tool, foot, foot. tool, foot, foot. I had a couple of ice climbing lessons, and the instructors always recommend: tool, tool, foot, foot. tool, tool, foot, foot. I just wanted to ask you if know why they say it, and what really is the best why to climb (maybe what you recommend is the best way with the modern tools?) Thanks, and keep inspiring us!”

I replied:
Your instructors are likely teaching the “X” steep ice climbing technique from 20 years ago. I know this technique well; for years I climbed steep  routes with it and wondered why I often felt off-blance and awkward, and climbing them took a long, long time. It was only when Kim Csizmazia and I figured the “T” technique out while training for the X Games (ironic letters there!) that ice climbing suddenly became a lot more secure, fun, and natural feeling, like rock climbing. I’m sympathetic to those stuck in the X style dark ages of ice climbing as I was there too, but it’s 2013, time to update the program and have more fun with a better technique.
Fundamentally the X technique is slower, less secure, more off-balance, etc. If you think about it when you place both tools side by side (tool tool) then naturally you’re in the middle of them when you pull up, or to look at it another way, the tools are off to the sides of your feet…. I’m calling modern technique “T” style for triangles with the tool at the top and the feet out to the side about shoulder width apart. The “X” technique results in a lot of undesirable outcomes, but primarily:
-Tools get stuck a lot. Tools are designed to be ripped out using the cutting surface on top of the pick, not wobbled and beat on with your hand like so many people mistakenly end up doing because they place them side by side. You just can’t take a tool out properly with with the tool at shoulder level. Staggered tools put the handle of the tool to be removed at around waist level. It also requires more strength to hold the lock-off in the X position while wrestling a tool out. It just does not work well.
-Off-balance stance. If you’re in the “middle” of two “holds” then naturally when you take one away you are in the all-too familiar “barn door” feeling that most people think IS ice climbing happens. It’s terrible to watch, and terrible to feel–when you have that tight feeling across your back and into your rear delts you’re in the barn-door, off-balance X position. I can watch the rear deltoid and obliques engage until the opposite foot to the remaining tool blows off when people are in the “barn door” position while ice climbing. And usually those practicing the “X” technique still don’t get their feet level, so the opposite lower foot blows off a lot. I can watch this pattern from a mile away over and over again, it’s again what a lot of aspiring ice climbers think ice climbing should feel like. It shouldn’t! Ice climbing should feel natural, fun, smooth, relaxed, and above all naturally stable and secure. The X position screws all of this up.
-X technique is less secure. Just watch a good climber moving with staggered tools compared to a good climber with “X” technique (what you’re describing). The staggered tool climber will not get stuck tools, will be in a natural good position to make SOLID placements, won’t shatter the ice between his tools, will move around horizontally as well as vertically more effeciently, etc. etc.
-The X technique is  inefficient from a “how much work do I have to do to get up this route?” perspective; the T technique just kicks ass on X. In a 100-foot pitch the average “X” climber will make a first placement roughly every foot. And then another. It’s hard to really stand up properly when you’re trying to wrestle a tool out, so most don’t. So the X climber will make about 200 placements (two per foot). In contrast, someone who has the “T” technique figured out will make a placement about every two feet, or 50 placements in 200 feet. If each placement takes four swings (that’s in decent ice, might require more) that’s 200 swings vs. 800. As anyone who knows ice climbing well can tell you, it’s the swinging that’s the harder work than the actually pulling up….
There are a thousand technique subtleties in climbing well on ice with any technique, and I could list them for hours (and do in my coaching and clinics), but I hope the above makes some sense. The “T” technique just works way, way better. Most good climbers around the world are now running some version of the “T” technique, but there are far fewer good ice climbers in the world than rock climbers. In Canada, Ouray and a few other places some guides and enthusiasts spend 50-100 days a year on ice and have all this figured out, but most people don’t climb that much ice in a career, and if they do don’t focus on how to do it really well.
One final analogy: A snow-plow turn on skis will get you down just about anything and is a good basic place to start with, but man, the hill is a lot more fun with some other turns! The “T” style is the basic skis-parrallell turn, and there are lots of refinements on it.
And here’s a video of why putting your tools close together is not a good idea. The climber’s sticks are not brilliant well before he falls off.
He’s also looking to the side rather than toward the ice (you can tell by the helmet cam’s swings to the side rather than pushes toward the ice), which is a good way to get a facial cut. Lots of other commentary could be made, but it’s a good illustration of why putting your picks close together is a bad idea…
https://vimeo.com/58137144
why no vimeo video here? grrrr

Posted in: Blog

Falling On Ice and Mixed Belaying

Date: January 16th, 2013

A few friends sent me links to this video a while back:

 

Now, as most readers likely know, I firmly believe falling on ice is generally a very bad idea. This video shows a guy testing that theory; he falls off and not only doesn’t break anything, it all looks pretty happy. He does come pretty close to lower-angle ice, but he’s judged it all well enough and it works out. This is a piece of evidence, as opposed to belief. Sometimes falls on ice work out just fine. I’ve also seen people break a leg top-roping when the rope stretched too much. My good friend Rob broke his ankle so horribly while traversing a few feet above the ground that it took years of work to get back to his old level. I have a number of friends who have really, really messed themselves up falling off while ice climbing. It’s dangerous.

I actually like these guys and their video because they do something that too many of us don’t: Question our assumptions, and look for real evidence. They found that a good ice screw will hold a lead fall, and did it in a sort of safe way. This seeking understanding of systems and ideas is important to me. This fall could have had a bad outcome, but they got enough things right for it to work. I always urge people in my ice and paragliding clinics to try and work with real numbers, and evidence as opposed to belief.  The more technical understanding we all have the better. So this video is another piece of information. Just don’t fall off when slightly out of control, a long way above a screw, with uneven terrain below or you may share my friend Jack Roberts fate. That’s another piece of data that needs to be factored in.

 

Mixed Belaying

I’ve been doing a ton of mixed climbing lately. In this arena I’ve always given and sought an attentive belay, but I’ve had a few experiences lately that really made me re-think my approach to mixed climbs and belaying the same. We all think we give a pretty good belay (like driving it’s the other people who aren’t as good), but mixed climb are often bolted somewhat like sport climbs so the “sport belay” tends to start happening. A month ago I fell off maybe ten feet up a mixed climb with the rope clipped two draws up. My belayer barely caught me before my back impacted a sharp rock spike, the same spike that messed my friend JD up a few years back. Just before I fell off I’d asked him to tighten the rope up a bit as I thought of JD’s accident. If I hadn’t of done that I might too have smacked the rock spike. Scary. But it gets worse…

A week later I again stick-clipped the second bolt, and then somehow fell off while clipping the third. Before I clipped I tested my tool aggressively, felt good about it, but boom, it popped. That has only happened to me a few times in life, and never while clipping low to the ground. I ended up in exactly the same position as in the first fall: Back inches off a sharp rock spike. Same bolt clipped, but I was clipping the next one as I fell so a lot more rope in the system. Somehow my belayer had gotten enough rope in that I didn’t deck. I really owe the health of my body today to her attentive belay. I am fairly certain I would have decked hard with the first belayer.

A few days later I was belaying a friend of mine on a local mixed cave route. He blew a move low, and he’s a bigger guy than me. I had the rope well organized, and he stopped close to the ground, but not on it. Had I not just had my own “holy shit!” moment I might not have given him the uber-focused belay that kept him off the deck. I also used to think stick clips were for wusses. I’m going to go buy a better one now.

In mixed climbing it’s all really, really good until it isn’t, and it’s easy to get a little bit lax on belay duty. Mixed falls tend to be far more aggressive and explosive than sport climbing falls; more outward force, more head-over-heals stuff, and just more unexpected. Let’s keep it tight on our leaders, and remember to clip at waist level when possible instead of high over head; this keeps the outward force on the top tool lower and reduces the amount of rope in the system (less loose rope generally equals less chance of hitting the ground, counter-intuitive for a scared leader but important to remember).

In my ice clinics I often have to really get belayer to suck up the rope hard when the climber is low to the ground on an ice top-rope; if there’s 50M of rope in the top-rope it will stretch a solid couple of meters or more under body weight. I’ve seen a few accidents over the years from loose top-ropes, again a good reminder to keep ’em tight while TRing.

 

Posted in: Blog

Partners

  • Red BullArc'teryxBlack DiamondScarpa
  • Sterling RopeGin GlidersMuller WindsportsSmith Optics