Long long ago when I was still hiking, I acquired some snowshoes.  I headed up the Mt Washington trail off I-90 and followed switchbacks until I reached a fork in the path.  To the left it continued up the mountain, but much steeper and narrower.  To the right it cross a stream.  In the summer this is an at-grade crossing.  In the winter it was a nine-foot drop down to the water, and just a little too far to jump in regular boots, let alone snowshoes.  I found myself sliding downhill with each step.  I literally had to adopt a walking style where I would place each foot skewed uphill so that after I slid down, the end was still on the trail.  Pretty exhausting, and in retrospect pretty dangerous as downhill there were lots of tree wells. That’s where a tree keeps snow from accumulating near the trunk, and you basically create a hole to the ground that is difficult to climb out of.  After turning around at the fork I decided two things: First I should stick to trails more level side-to-side.  Second I should get an ice axe so I could climb up if I ever slid down the hill.  I received the ice ax the next Christmas.  They are an interesting mix of bad-ass looks and suprising light weight.  Naturally I needed to learn now to use my new ice ax.  Rather than watching some videos, I went to REI and picked up a book on mountaineering.  Specifically “Mountaineering The Freedom of the Hills, 7th ed”.    It’s a 500+ page book, so I took my time getting around to starting it.  Like ten years.  (They’ve published two more editions since then).

Last year I started plowing through the book and learning about knots, protection points, belaying, and yes, ice ax usage.  I have no idea whether I’ll use any of the knowledge I gained. I’ve only been able to vertically climb a rope during two periods of my life, and I start to feel dizzy when I get close to a cliff edge.

In the ice ax section they discussed using the mean end of the ax to climb ice, and the long end to form a brake when sliding down a hillside, and laying it sideways to prevent a rope from digging in to the edge of a crevasse during a rescue.

I felt a great sense of accomplishment when I finished.  I picked up the book so many times I had rubbed part of the subtitle off the spine of the book.  “Mountaineering The Freedom Of the Hills” is definitely targeted at people who are serious about aided climbing.