I stumbled across a great article recently.
In a nutshell, this all about the roots and the history of Drytooling and ultimately centers on the legitimacy of Mixed Climbing as a pursuit.
At length, there is discussion about the efforts of Jeff Lowe, Will Gadd, Scott Semple, Kevin Mahoney, and others. These guys are pioneers. Living legends of the craft, blazing a trail for others climbers and products like DRY ICE. If they had not been motivated to crush, we'd have nothing to talk about here.
Below lies the core of the article as it relates to DRY ICE:
Eager to prove that these specialized skills had a place in the larger realm of alpine climbing, mixed climbers looked to establish technically difficult lines on big peaks. One such route was the first ascent, in 2002, of
(VI M7- WI 6 X), on Howse Peak, in the Canadian Rockies, put up by Scott Semple, Will Gadd and Kevin Mahoney.
Semple wrote, “Like most M-climbers, [I found] several seasons of clip-ups had steepened my learning curve and restructured my perceptions of winter terrain. ‘Steep ice’ had become an oxymoron, verglas was a welcome tool stabilizer and burning through eight picks a season had made me comfortable with the funky, the thin and the wobbly.”
It had taken Scott Semple took several seasons to become comfortable in that terrain. If DRY ICE Tools had been around then, would it have taken less time?
Musashi from Glen Crawford on Vimeo.
