Ice Tools

The Raptor gives you a hell of a bang for your buck.

These picks are magic, or nearly so.

Petzl has been working on these three tools—one entirely new, the other two updated versions of existing tools—for years now.  Available fall 2018!

Dry-tooling out sick caves grabs headlines, but the cold fact is that most climbers still only climb ice and still need ice tools. The Cassin X-Dream, which I used all last winter, hasn’t forgotten the ice climber.

The Grivel Tech Machine has a steeply bent shaft and an ergonomic grip meant for technical dry tooling and ice climbing.

The Ergo has a number of peculiar features, but I like the grip best, so let’s start there.

The X-All Mountain is the finest thin-ice tool I have used, and one of the top all-around ice tools.

Since their introduction to the market roughly five years ago, leashless tools have revolutionized mixed climbing. Petzl's Nomic is one of them.

New to the market as of last season is the Spanish company e-Climb. The centerpiece of their line, the Cryo, is a water-ice and alpine climbing axe that boasts truly unique features.

Black Diamond's Venom ice axes are hybrid piolets that combine design elements of technical ice tools with the proven design of a mountaineering axe.

The carbon-fiber Cobra has the rigidity of a steel pipe with virtually none of the weight, and what heft there is, is mostly in the head, right where it should be. The best part, though, is the tool's feel.