Meanwhile you might read what the people at arcticstartup.com said about us and take a look at the original press release. Here are also a few examples of what kind of information and into what extent the service is going to be able to offer. All of these can be compared side by side as well: Half Ropes (53 different), Single Ropes (125 different), Climbing Harnesses (132 different), Mountaineering Boots (58 different), Technical Axes (55 different), Belay Devices (67 different) and Avalanche Transceivers (15 different).

Update 30.3.2011: You might also like to see what mountainenthusiast.com said about the launch. .

Picture above: Maija reaches the South Peak.

Picture above: Getting ready to ski down slope called Hydrologen to the Tarfala valley with Kebnekaise crew.

Picture above: First half of the 270m of ice climbed.

Location details:

View www.climbingextreme.com in a larger map

Few images from the trip below:

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1. Profiles of great ice climbers, such as Will Gadd , Aljaz Anderle , Jeff Mercier  and Tapio Alhonsuo .
2. 43 different half ropes , 47 different belay devices  and 13 different avalanche trancreceivers  that can be compared side by side.
3. Extensive set of information of ultra-light (<35g) clear clip nose carabiners, such as Petzl Ange , Mammut Bionic Wire Safe Gate , Wildcountry Helium  and DMM Shield .

It would be great if some of you would be interested in participate our beta. All the activity in the system and feedback is greatly appreciated. If you’re interested, just drop me a line through the contact page (remember to include your email) or apply for beta access through www.tribevine.com (mention that you found out about the beta from climbingextreme.com). I’ll send you an invitation.

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Hey climbers!

My name is Kathrin, I am a medical student and at the moment I am working on my diploma thesis with the topic “Ice Climbing”. I really need your help to complete my work: in order to successfully conduct the study I need as many ice climbers as possible.

• What is it all about? The aim of my study is to analyze injury patterns which are characteristic for ice climbing. I hope that I can draw some conclusions on how one can make ice climbing a safer sport.
• What has to be done? What I ask you to do for me is, to fill out a questionnaire on amount of hours spent climbing, experience, equipment, potential injuries etc. The first questionnaire will be sent out by the end of November and the study takes place until April, so there will be on the whole 6 questionnaires to be filled out. Per month, this would mean 5 minutes expenditure of time for you. Everything is carried out via mail (saving time, easy to do) and is done anonymously.
• Who can take part? Absolutely EVERYBODY can take part in this project, there are no limitations concerning proficiency, experience or frequency of climbing.

I would be very glad if many interested and motivated ice climbers send me their email-address and thereby make it possible for me to do my diploma thesis.
THANK YOU in advance for taking the time to help a student interested in sports !!

Best wishes,
Kathrin Lampl
Email: kathrin.lampl@pmu.ac.at
Mobile: 0043676/4655999

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I think such a good cause deserves a help.

Just thought to write a short post about a project I have been involved with recently. It’s called Tribevine and is partly guilty to the fact that there haven’t been too many posts recently. I have just have been very busy with the project and all that’s around it. Of course the other other reason is the magnificent winter up here. It has been just too tempting to do more climbing and less writing with the weather like these.

Anyways since ice climbing is one of the focus areas of Tribevine, I thought to write few lines about it. Tribevine aims to put together the most knowledgeable individuals around the globe and their knowledge about the outdoor products in to a single structured database. One of the things that set Tribevine apart from everything else is their focus on close co-operation with real world communities.

Though opening of the closed beta is still one to two months ahead, they’re accepting closed beta applications already. Tune up for more information and go to Tribevine Facebook page or follow them at Twitter.

Some photos by Jussi Kuukasjärvi:

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Topics currently on the drawing board:

• Creating a perfect Abalakov thread (V-thread) – Detailed instructions, tips and tricks for creating Abalakov thread.
• The perfect belay anchor on ice – Detailed instructions, tips and tricks for creating belay anchors, techniques involved changing the lead etc.
• Emergency skills on multi-pitch ice climb - Skills, tips and tricks for emergency situations on multi-pitch climbing routes.
• Quickdraw s – what’s different? - A small review on different types of quickdraws.
• Kebnekaise randonee trip – Trip story about last year’s randonee trip with plenty of (good) images.
• Dreambag – In search for best down sleeping bag for high mountain trips.
• Handy equipment review – Review on some not so necessary, but handy, equipment there is for ice climbing
• The best ice climbing websites – Review and tips for best ice climbing related web-sites in the cyberspace.

In addition to these there will be plenty of climbing trip stories and images. So table is yours let me know, what would you like read.

The author - Juho Risku

I have been thinking about putting up a blog related to ice climbing for some time now. Though I really can’t credit myself of being the best, or most daring, hard core, climber around here or even close to the top row, I love climbing frozen waterfalls, I love the bite of the cold winter air, I love the feeling being high and seeing sights that most people simply can’t because they can’t climb, I love the exercise, physical nature of climbing ice, I love the feeling to fear, wining the fear and I certainly like taking risks – though not too much.  There for it was kind of natural for me to start blogging about ice climbing. I’m just trying to share some of the love I have for the sport of climbing frozen waterfalls.

I’ve been climbing for several years now, almost entirely ice. The purpose of this blog is to share my modest experiences about ice climbing, feelings, climbing spots, related equipment and techniques, tips and tricks, and hopefully inspire few other authors to join in this blog to share their knowledge so that fellow climbers could benefit from what they’ve experienced.

Though this blog is mostly concentrating on ice climbing, I’m occasionally writing on related topics which interest me, such as winter hikes, randone skiing, snowboarding, mountaineering, snow safety issues and such. Perhaps during the summer times, when there’s less ice, there will be few not so ice related posts as well. I’m also warmly inviting fellow climbers to write.