I received the products just a few days ago and decided to write out a few first impressions of them along with some photos.  As an overall impression I can say that the E-climb gear seems pretty good quality, they were delivered promptly and the overall customer service was excellent. The web site of E-climb needs some improvement though, especially I hoped for more detailed technical specifications of the product on the product pages (they have most of that information in FAQ section). At this point I haven’t yet tested them in serious climbing conditions, so there will be few updates on this post towards the end of February.

Klau ice screws with replaceable tips

On a concept level a screw with reusable tip seems an excellent idea. While screws can be sharpened, it’s really difficult to restore the original bite without professional tools and plenty of experience. Furthermore professional sharpening machines such as Grivel’s are not readily available, not at least here in Finland. This being said reusable tip sounds such a concept that might involve several technical difficulties, including some that relate to material strengths and corrosion at connecting surfaces.

Picture above: E-climb Klau ice screw’s replaceable tip.

Overall E-climb has taken an interesting and novel approach. The screws tubes are made of aluminum and the tips coromoly steel. The aluminum tubes makes the screws exceptionally light, but as a down side the tube’s inner diameter seems to be narrower than “standard”.  In my case it means that I probably can’t use Grivel’s Candela to clean up the screws. The tip and the tube are connected by set of threads and the connection is secured by dry adhesive that takes about 6 hours to bond once connected. The hanger of the screw can be used as a tool to change the tips. Screws are color-coded using rubber band on hanger end of the screw and they have a handle for speedy placement that fold on the side of the hanger. The handle extends fairly far, which should give plenty of leverage while driving them in. The manufacturing quality seems pretty good, screws are sharp and despite being aluminum they feel smooth (which gives me hope that they’ll drive comparably to Grivel’s and BD’s – one of my principal concerns prior to having tested them).

Update 21.2.2011: After initial tests I and my climbing partner Jari were pretty happy with the E-climb’s Klau screws. As expected the far extending handle makes it breeze to drive the screws in and at least when new their initial bite seems to be good, perhaps not quite as aggressive as BD’s but still good. They rack fairly well and surprisingly the handle did not cause problems either. Out of all of my screws Klaus were also easiest to clean up, again something that might be just because they were the new ones. In any case I was positively surprised. Best of all Klau’s really are feather weight compared to other screws. You should note though that during our first testing session the weather was fairly warm; therefore we need of course to verify the results on hard ice before the final word. I also did not test how the tip replacement system works (I’ll get back to it, once I do). Finally I’m a bit worried about the durability of the folding handle, again something that I’ll get back to later on if there’s need for it. For now it’s thumbs up for E-climb’s Klau screws. If my feelings stay the same, I’m likely to purchase some more of these.

Dissip shock absorbers

We’ve had shock absorbers or screamers for some time. While Yatesh is the most known manufacturer, there are several different types of them produced by such companies as Petzl and Mammut. Typically shock absorbers rely on stitching that tears open in a controlled manner. As a result of this construction they can used to absorb the energy of one fall only – reusable shock absorber sounds like a great idea.

Picture above: Couple of E-climb’s Dissip shock absorbers.

Again E-climb has adopted interesting novel approach. Dissip consists of a dyneema sling and a curved aluminum plate through which is used to thread the sling trough. When a force that exceeds its activation force (about 3 kN) is applied to the Dissip the sling starts to run through the holes of the aluminum plate converting the energy of the fall to the heat. The sling that’s delivered with Dissip is quaranteed for five falls that fully extends the sling and there’s replacement sling available at the E-climb. While the approach certainly works in terms of shock absorption, I was unable to find actual facts related to shock absorption performance of the Dissip. When asked from the manufacturer they said that in case of a fall factor 0,5 fall, with 80kg mass and 3 meter rope length (i.e. 6 meters total fall) the reduction of the force would be around 30%. I suspect that the slight ambiguity in shock absorption abilities inherited from the build approach of it. In other words the performance is varying and dependent on multiple attributes. Still it would be great to have a set of comparison tests that would give wider visibility on performance metrics of Dissip. From the build quality point of view Dissip seems good and the good impression is further enhanced by smart details such the indicator markers that makes it breeze to remember the falls that the sling has already taken. Just use your ice screw tip to break / cut the indicator tag at the corresponding circle (see the comment below by Xarles).

Web stores that sells the gear in the article:

• E-climb Dissip Shock Absorber – E-climb
• E-climb Klau ice screw – E-climb
• Grivel Candela – Backcountry.com, Moosejaw, Needle Sports, Telemark Pyrenees, Barrabes

Few closeup shots of Klau:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Few closeup shots of Dissip:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Picture above: Broken Wild Country Helium.

1. Berghaus Extrem gloves
Seams seem to tear apart in heavy use, especially with ropes. They would be great gloves, I love their dexterity and warmth but as their seams may tear apart during a single day, they just aren’t an option for ice climbing. Even while ski touring one needs to be careful when ever handling ropes.

2. Grivel Rambo 4 crampons
The yellow plastic of the active antibots breaks apart easily from its attachment; harder black plastic. I’ve seen this happen practically in every pair of Rambo’s I’ve seen. Despite the problem they’re best ice climbing crampons I know, and with a bit of patience one can fix the problem temporarily by pushing the plastic part back in place.

3. Wild Country Helium Quickdraws
The anti-slip rubber of Helium Quickdraws is too “hard” and therefore breaks in below zero temperatures from the stitching seam. I have a set of five of these and it has happened on everyone except one. Different type of rubber, for instance such that’s been used in Black Diamon’s Positrons would probably fix the problem. Though I like Heliums, they’re not currently the first choice for an ice climber.

4. Sigg Bottle cap
Threads of the cap get eaten by the bottle. To prevent this bottle should not be filled too full, the cap should not be tightened too tight and one should not allow the bottle to freeze.

5. North Face Summit Series Gore-Tex XCR jacket
The watertight zippers of the jacket wear down quite fast in below zero temperatures, especially if there’s plenty of use for the zippers.

6. Black Diamond Ice Clippers and their Xenos ice climbing harness
Ice Clippers slip through the clipper holders of Xenos after a while. In order to avoid that one should avoid too heavy loads (>five screws) and bending the clippers while packing it up. Still if the lip of the Ice Clipper would be just a bit longer or the clipper holder in the harness just a bit stiffer, it would work perfectly.

7. Grivel Manu backpack
The Manu concept, detachable gear loops, is great and I’m using it frequently. The problem though is that with the gear loops only (i.e. backpack removed) the velcro on the back of the gear loops sticks to everything and cause for instance slings to wear faster than I would hope. An extra sheet of something to put on top of the velcro will fix the problem, but perhaps that could integrated to the Manu somehow too.

Few images about the products mentioned:

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Any comments and experiences of similar weak spots are greatly appreciated. I’m sure there are plenty of such around. It’s a great help for fellow climbers to be aware of them.

At first First Shot feels sturdy, high quality, piece of gear; exactly what we have come to expect from Black Diamond. There are several problems though. First Shot is somewhat difficult to open with gloves. The metal hook, that’s supposed to be used for cutting and threading the cord through the hole, bends very easily. Furthermore it’s not at all that easy as you could think to create the Abalakov using First Shot. Everything was even worse when the conditions were difficult. We tested the thing both in good conditions and in dark pretty heavy snow storm and ended up doing the Abalakov thread traditional way each time.

Of course it might just be that I was dumb enough not to figure out the correct way of operation. I kind of doubt that though. I went through the instructions pretty well and did several trials prior to trying First Shot on real ice. Based on my experience in its current stage it is not worth of your money. For me First Shot was a huge disappointment. Especially because Black Diamond usually gets it right.

Here are few findings for the next season:

1. Grivel Cascade – Fresh ice axe replacement blades – These are B-rated, but should be better for ice climbing than Grivel’s T-rated stuff, which excel on mixed routes. The link is not to the Grivel site, for some reason, there are plenty of such Grivel products that aren’t there. The link is to Needlesports, they have a good set of replacement blades.

2. Grivel Double Spring Leash (2 krab version) – It is not really a leash, but flexible runner, which can be attached to the harness to avoid loss of axe.

3. Arc’teryx Gamma MX soft shell jacket - A soft shell jacket, no hood, but ideal for wearing under Goretex or other waterproof shell. There’s also hooded version available, price is pretty steep though typically well over 300€.

4. Arc’teryx Gamma MX soft shell pants - The pants part of the above jacket.

5. Arc’teryx Bucket Liner – A hat that’s compatible with your helmet.

6. Arc’teryx Gamma SV Glove - Like many others, I’ve been looking for perfect ice climbing gloves (have a stock of quite a few already), would these be finally the ones?

7. Black Diamond Avalung II – I’m not absolutely sure if Avalung would be something that I would carry while climbing ice, though there’s certainly occassionally a danger of avalanche around. Anyways, for some reason I’ve been tempted to buy one for a long time.

8. Black Diamond First Shot - An interesting tool for getting the abalakov right for those days when you’ve done it already twice and it still wasn’t good enough.

9. Grivel Speedy – A kind of ice screw quickdraw combination, resulting better safety, reduced weight and faster placement.

10. Petzl Crevasse Rescue Kit – A compact emergency kit that contains everything needed for hauling / ascending in rescue situation.

11. Exped DownMat Pump - Like the award winning down mat, but with integrated pump. I mean, the pumping was the only real problem with these, and now it seems that they have solved it.

12. MSR Lightning Accent snowshoes – I’ve been long drooling over these snow shoes. Unfortunately I’ve already got MSR Denalis and I haven’t therefore really been able to justify the purchase.

13. Valandre Freja sleeping bag – A sleeping bag for cold winter nights, still pretty light. Temperature rating up to -33 in Celsius with weight only about 1,5kg is impressive.

14. Silvretta Freeride 800 AT skis – Recently I’ve been thinking that AT skis might be good alternative for approaches and ascents. This being said though, I guess I would like to have these just because of last season I carried my snowboard around way too much (not while ice climbing ofcourse).

15. Silvretta Pure Freeride AT bindings - The perfect companion to Silvretta Freeride 800 AT skis… though if you would like to use skis with your mountaineering boots, one should propably consider Silvretta 500′s. They’ll fit almost on any boot, but for obvious reasons aren’t that good for ski-ing.

I guess I need to start working harder in order to save enough money for all of this.

According to manufacturer N-rit heat pads provide up to 20 hours of warmth, the average temperature being 60 degrees in Celsius. Pads are odorless, non toxic and disposable. The extra plus on these is the fact that pads can be put back in to reseal able outer packaging, which stops the warmth. As a result they can be used on multiple occasions

Pads warm up within few minutes; one just needs to shake the pad to get it going. This being said you should prepare the pads before you’re freezing. Those few minutes are very long if you are. I can tell.

I’ve used these inside my gloves. They were an excellent aid while climbing in very low (around -30 in Celsius) temperatures. Problem with these pads is the size, they’re a bit difficult to place inside the glove unless there’s large enough integrated heat pad compartment there. In addition to gloves, these can be used inside sleeping bags, jackets, or for instance to warm up electronic equipment for prolonged usage.

I bought my pads from Kärkkäinen, Oulu, Finland. Price was around 2 euros. This being said, I’m sure that any well equiped sports store will sell these or something similar.