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Grivel offered an indoor pick at one point (if I remember correctly). There have been some attempts to develop ice climbing indoors. It’s a sweet place to train, but I don’t live around there anymore. Basically they took a bouldering area and replaced the resin holds with little blocks of wood. There is actually a dry tooling bouldering area at Kirche Fluntern in Zurich (part of ASVZ, the university sport division).
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Steel picks destroy resin holds and the crowded nature of many gyms makes it dangerous to be tooling around with a pair of axes in your hands. But what do you do when you want to train, to go to the gym?Ĭlimbing gyms are generally not the place for ice tools. Ahhh, but when you’re out on the ice, the details dissolve. Routes have to be in the right conditions, at the right time of year. Then factor in the fact that you can’t generally climb all the time. And you need to find a climber who likes the idea of climbing sheets of ice. You need one which has money to accessorize with ice axes, decent crampons, ice screws, the equipment list starts to explode a bit. With ice climbing and dry tooling you now need a partner one step up on the “alternative” sport ladder. They need to be reliable, push you when needed and understand your limits. With normal rock climbing it’s already enough of a hassle finding a partner. If you want to know the answer before getting to the end of this article, I’ll just tell you, I think they rock. I’ve since spent a few trips to the gyms around Zurich with these interesting ice or dry tools for indoor climbing, getting a feeling for how they work and how useful they are. I received a pair of Schmoolz a few weeks ago to tryout by the inventor in the UK.