I have owned 10+ pairs of the La Sportiva Katana’s – basically they fit my feet better than any other climbing shoe I have ever had. I have pretty long narrow feet with ‘big’ big toes, and the Sportiva boots seem to fit the shape of foot pretty well; for me a boot that fits is the most import aspect of any climbing shoe. The Katana’s are reasonable technical boots, but are comfy with the velcro closure and large tabs they are easy to synch tighter for harder pitches then slacken off for easy pitches or undo on belays.

Katana

I have used more technical climbing shoes in the past which I could only keep on for about 5 minutes at a time, which meant they were useless for anything other than bouldering; I would be unable to stand on anything by the top of pitches due to my toes hurting too much. The Katana’s are a good compromise between technicality and comfort – I can wear mine all day on long routes as well as do hard moves requiring delicate footwork in them (the rock boot is not the limiting factor my foot work is). Hence I use my Katana’s on everything from alpine rock to sport climbing.

Katana

The sole on the Katana’s is really good – hard-wearing and sticky, and the new XS Grip rubber is stickier than the old version vibram. I find the Katana are excellent for smearing and when newish work well on edges too; however once they have become quite worn I find they do loose there stiffness at the toe making them poor at edging. So if you are planning on climbing lots of ‘edgy’ routes e.g. slate routes, then I would not recommend the Katana’s – however for virtually anything else they’re great.

I use Grivel G14 Crampons for all the ice, mixed, and alpine climbing I do; there are three main reasons for this 1. versatility, 2. performance, and 3. wear. I need to have one pair of crampons that do everything; in an ideal world I would own and use 3-4 different pairs of crampons for separate activities – however I don’t have enough money for this so have to make do with one pair for everything.

G14s

The G14s are not the lightest crampons on the market, but they are incredible versatile. The G14s can be configured in dual or mono-point mode – I generally use them as mono-points for all mixed climbing and water ice climbing i.e. everything in Scotland other than Ben Nevis thin face climbs; while I use dual points for almost all alpine climbs (except if I know that it is almost entirely mixed climbing with little or no snow climbing in). I use mono points basically when it is technical – you can be incredibly precise with mono’s using holds that would be impossible to use otherwise, and on hard ice the force of your kick is focused onto a smaller point so you require less effort at every kick. Obviously all of this is dependent on how sharp the points of the crampons are.

Mono points do not perform well on snow ice and soft ice or hard snow; they have a tendency to slice through the snow which can be a bit scary – dual points work really well however on this type of terrain. This means the Grivel G14s in the dual point setup are great for alpine climbing from moderate route to the biggest ice faces. As the G14s are semi ridged they do not ball up like the old style fully ridged crampons (e.g. Rambo’s, Footfangs etc.). They also come with Grivel’s new antiballing plates which actively push the snow off the crampons, however I find that they fill with snow and thus do not work ideally, yet they are a vast improvement over older anti-balling plates.

The G14s are really hardwearing – I am onto my second pair of them, yet the first pair did 5 Alpine seasons, 7 winter seasons – one of which was in Canada climbing every day for 4 months. So basically they last for ages, and with the modular front points you can replace them with brand new ones really quite easily.

G14s

Obviously these crampons are not the ideal choice for everyone – they weigh more than most of the other crampons in our range, and the G14s best suited for more technical ground. However if you want a pair of crampons to do everything from ski touring to Scottish 5s and everything in-between I can really recommend the Grivel G14s.

We’ve just got the Petzl Nomic Ice Axe in stock for this winter; I have used them a bit so thought I would share my thoughts on them.

Petzl Nomic Ice Axe

Firstly the Petzl Nomic Ice Axe are so good for ice and mixed climbing that using them is almost cheating! I’ve used the Nomic’s both drytooling and ice-fall climbing – they basically made everything feel easy. The axe is brilliantly weighted, meaning a lower amount of force is required to get the pick into hard ice, saving you energy with every swing. The Astro pick is a remarkable piece of engineering, when you swap hand positions the pick does not have the characteristic shift of other axes – this is because the different hand positions on the ice axe corresponds to specific teeth on the pick. So for technical ice and mixed climbing I can highly recommend the Nomic’s.

Reg Using the Nomic's on the North Face of Les Courtes

I was pretty sceptical about there use on alpine and mountaineering routes, however my climbing partner Reg used them on our ascent of the North Faces of Les Courtes and Les Droites, and they worked brilliantly. They are really for good for any snow/ice/mixed climbing past about 45º, and you can plunge them. To plunge them you have to just keep holding the handle and plunge the pick. The down side of using them on Alpine terrain is that they are not as secure plunging, it is hard to place/remove pitons with them (although it is possible, yet not recommended by Petzl), and they do not have adzes, so any cutting has to be done with the pick. On anything longer than one pitch you are also really going to want some spring leashes the best options seem to be the Black Diamond Spinner Leash and the Grivel Double Spring Leash. With these leashes you get all the advantages of leashless climbing – gear being a doddle to place, easy to swap hands making traversing and mixed climbing a breeze, as well as making Ice climbing less pumpy – with the security of knowing if you drop you axe you will not loose it. The other advantages of the spring leashes are that at belay the axes are still attached to you, so if the rope flicks the axe(s) out from where you have placed them – your not going to loose the axe (I have managed to do this a couple of pitches up the Weeping Wall in Canada). Also with the spring leashes you can get extra security while placing ice screws as you can weight your axes with the spring leashes if necessary (this is of course cheating!).

These axes are never going to catch on for classic alpine and mountaineering as they are not suitable; however for any kind of technical ground they a brilliant.