How To Place Ice Screws - Ice Climbing | Climbing Daily, Ep. 678

Okay, so do you want to tell us a little bit about how we're going to protect the ice climbing today or what we use? So, well, we use ice screws. You have different sizes ice screws. They vary from 10 centimetres to 22 centimetres, so you have a wide range. Basically, you need to have a look at where you're going to place your ice screw, so you don't want to put it on the bulge, but you nowadays the ice screws are very easy to start engaging. If you keep the pick really sharp, it's super easy, so the way you do it is you need to be in the position where you don't want to be too high because it's hard to push in. You want to be next to your waist. It has to be horizontal. You want to make it bite to start with, so you try not to wiggle it, so you try to slowly engaging it, slowly, and when it bites, if you can find a, if you have one of those, it's actually really good because it makes it easier to just spin it around, so then you just, super easy, just spin it and what you want to see is a carrot of ice coming out, so you see this is a perfect placement. You need to have the hanger flush to the ice, so this is a perfect placement. When you engage your ice screw, if you feel there are layers of bubbles, the more you go in, the more you might find other layers, then a longer will not make it any more safer, but of course, I mean, it depends on the thickness of the ice. Sometimes you don't know, so you try, and then you can, if you don't like your ice screw, you can always put another one next to it, so obviously you can, if there's a lot of ice, for example, here, I can just clean it, and then here, for example, this would be a very good spot to put your ice screw in. Yeah. See, good ice is coming out. Do you feel the consistency when you drive it in? Yeah, it's feeling like there's a little bit of resistance. So if there was air, then you would, there would be, you would feel it go, it'd spin really rapidly. Cool, and how strong are they compared with, like, rock protection? I don't know the actual kilonewton, so you might have, you might have to search that, but you can hang off a truck of this, and I'd be confident it wouldn't go anywhere. Obviously, ice changes as well, and if you were, if you were going to stay there for a few hours, maybe the ice screws would melt, if it was warm, so... So what you're saying is, they're good if the ice is good. Exactly. Thanks for that, Isabel. I am still a little bit scared, though. Don't forget that Boomfest is coming, so head over to the Epic TV website to €25,000. It's got to be worth a punt. That's all we've got time for this week, guys. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you next week.