When we are on claws, the snow-shuffle and the normal forward swing of the walking foot, heel and toe, have to be forgotten. The foot is lifted rather higher, and is planted cleanly on the ice, without the usual forward scrape. The high, clear lift of the foot must become mechanical, otherwise the points will catch on boot or puttie, and a nasty trip or fall may result. The downward pressure or thrust of the foot varies in force according to the angle and the hardness of the surface. To prevent the points working loose in the holes they make, the foot has to be placed at once in the position and at the angle in which it will have to sustain the weight of the body passing across it. A balance climber who has mastered the tense, dancing action of the foot as it is set upon a rock hold will have to learn little new, except the habit of the higher lift and the more vertical plant.
In ascending, our object is to keep the feet pointing forward and straight as long as the angle will allow us to; only turning the toes outward when we can no longer get the heels down. On most ice it is sufficient if we get hold with two points of the claw alone; and on a fair surface we can walk straight-foot up very steep angles, trusting only to the two points on the toe. Up softer steep surfaces, or literally precipitous angles, we adopt a crab or sideways walk. We descend steep angles with the knees bent and the toes forced down. The ankles have to, and soon do, acquire an increased suppleness and strength, in claw practice.
Perhaps the most difficult task for the beginner is to learn the art of walking and balancing upon flexed ankles, while traversing across steep faces. To strike all the points in neatly and strongly sideways, and with a flexed ankle, so that the flat of the sole may meet the surface cleanly and without a scrape, takes some practice; but slab climbers, who have suppled their ankles by foot-clinging upon steep rock angles, will find themselves a day or two’s frog-marching to the good on ice.
Practice alone will bring us confidence in the new adjustments, or allow us to feel as securely in balance above a foot inclined at a high angle, over a bent ankle or a curved leg, as upon a right-angled hold of rock or ice. Once confidence has come, the sense of security in the attachment of the claw to the ice enables a freedom of movement astonishing at first to anyone accustomed only to the feel of the ordinary boot-nails on ice steps.
This additional and confident security, which the claw gives to our foothold, almost eliminates the chances of what are wrongly termed ‘accidents’ on ice; the breaking foothold, the faultily placed foot, or the slide of the sole on a bad surface as the transference of the weight produces a change in the direction of the leg-thrust. We can balance, therefore, on steep angles far more boldly, and keep our hands free for better purpose. A strong party on claws, in a couloir of uniform surface or on a sound ridge of mixed ice and rock climbing, is often free to do without the rope at all, if it so pleases. The rope is to guard against the results of ‘accidents’ to individual members; and competent icemen, if they are released from the distraction of the rope, and able to concentrate on their own good progress and safety, have all the less temptation to commit ‘accidents.’
Once we have mastered the movements and become confident, we begin to distinguish between varieties of ice, and to vary our claw craft accordingly. For instance, in alpine ‘grainy’ ice there are three ordinary varieties: hard, soft and rotten. ‘Rotten’ ice does not lie in the Alps to more than the depth of an inch or two, though it is found of a greater thickness in other continents; when we find it in the Alps, we clear it away with the axe, to leave a firm tread for the claw on the good ice below. Hard and soft grainy ice have their several adjustments, whose differences have to be learned by practice. Hard ice will usually be found lying at high angles, so steep that we shall sometimes be unable to get more than the hold of a single claw point. Experience alone can make us feel as safe upon the one talon as we have learned to feel upon a single boot-nail on sound rock. For work of this advanced character, for which the heavy, long-pronged claw is better suited, the best practice can be found upon the big fall-ice of dry glaciers. We soon discover, in such practice, that balance is easier when we are confident to move fast, a resuscitated platitude; and that, while moving, we are satisfied with a single point where the whole ten would not have seemed superfluous, had we halted to admire the panorama. But holds, on ice as on rock, are not intended to be held in perpetuity.
The claw is not only useful upon steep ice: on hard repellent snow it spares us the penance of stamping or scraping steps. It is equally reassuring to foothold and nerve on ice-lacquered rocks, or on broken rock surfaces coated with wind-snow or glaze. In a bad season—that is, a season during which snow has been frequently falling, and the rocks are surpliced in various blends and qualities of snow, frozen and refrozen—the claws are often retained for the whole day, and become as natural to the feel of the feet as the more usual boot-nail. It is sometimes even difficult to remember if they are on or off, until they are removed, when the feet become as helpless as they do when skates are first detached. In a snowstorm, for a descent, they should always be put on; and even in clear weather and on good footing it is an immense reassurance to the leader of a tired party ascending or descending a couloir or slope of suspicious or ‘mixed’ surface, if he can count upon the extra security that claws will give to the deteriorating footwork of his party.
Again, on those early, fasting, glacier crawls by lamplight, with which most of us are familiar, when we are expected to balance, with cold joints and often without the protection of the rope, along crevasses and walls which may be easy enough by daylight but seem pulsing with danger and dread in the darkness, claws come as a great safeguard; their tactile value is a reassurance to eyes and to feet still leaden with insufficient sleep and superabundant cold.
The evening descent of a glacier, dry or partly snow-covered, with its crevasse jumping, wearisome for tired legs, and its balance traversing on ice too slippery for jaded feet or day-polished boot-nails, becomes again a delight if it can be taken directly and at a rush, with the new surety of foothold and the change of muscle movement that follow the putting on of our claws. Straight and time-saving lines through glacier falls can then be ventured, even with men dragging heavy sacks or heavy legs, if they have once the new feel of dancing security under their feet.
It is worth while putting claws on even for the short but offensive descent of the snout of a glacier. They crackle crisply down its pebble-pimpled wrinkles and make light gliding of its glassy declivities.