Instep Crampons

Richard Phillips said:

What are people's opinions of these? Are they up to a Winter's
walking/hiking at Snowdon/Pen y Fan?

My stock answer: "it depends". There's winter walking and there's
Winter Walking, and there's more than one way up most hills.

Our New Year's walk in the Perthshire highlands was one where we'd have
done quite well with these. Snow on the hillsides was light flurries
and never constituted a problem, but the walk-in through a boggy,
frozen wood was one where full crampons would have been more trouble
than they were worth but you had to watch your footing quite a bit in
just plain boots. That was a winter walk up a Real Hill (TM) and they'd
have been great. OTOH Roos' last venture was in rather more snow and
ice and from the general description then insteps would have been, at
best, rather dubious.

Of course, it's generally the case that you can remove the latter
category by simply not attempting it, but that rules out a lot of
excellent walking. There are days in winter where full crampons are
necessary to get anywhere much. Such days are usually quite amazing,
and would be very dangerous with instep crampons.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In message <[email hidden]>

Richard Phillips said:

Hello all,

I've been following the "Boots and crampons" thread with a lot of
interest, but I thought I'd like to dedicate a thread to this
subject.

What are people's opinions of these? Are they up to a Winter's
walking/hiking at Snowdon/Pen y Fan?

Cheers,
Richard.

Never tried instep crampons so I don't have first hand experience of
what they would be good for. On the other hand I already have several
pairs of crampons ranging from lightweight flexible to heavier weight
semi-rigid and also including super-light specialist alloy crampons for
ski-mountaineering. Given the choice of modern lightweight crampons
which would be suitable for a wide range of uses and aren't too heavy to
pack and carry in winter, I would just carry those and wouldn't bother
compromising further by having instep crampons.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

Winter - with a capital "W". Nope.

Get a proper set of crampons.

druidh

Peter Clinch said:

Richard Phillips said:

What are people's opinions of these? Are they up to a Winter's
walking/hiking at Snowdon/Pen y Fan?

Quoted message said:

My stock answer: "it depends". There's winter walking and there's
Winter Walking, and there's more than one way up most hills.

Quoted message said:

Our New Year's walk in the Perthshire highlands was one where we'd have
done quite well with these. Snow on the hillsides was light flurries
and never constituted a problem, but the walk-in through a boggy,
frozen wood was one where full crampons would have been more trouble
than they were worth but you had to watch your footing quite a bit in
just plain boots. That was a winter walk up a Real Hill (TM) and they'd
have been great. OTOH Roos' last venture was in rather more snow and
ice and from the general description then insteps would have been, at
best, rather dubious.

Quoted message said:

Of course, it's generally the case that you can remove the latter
category by simply not attempting it, but that rules out a lot of
excellent walking. There are days in winter where full crampons are
necessary to get anywhere much. Such days are usually quite amazing,
and would be very dangerous with instep crampons.

There are different kinds of instep crampons. I've got two. One is a
plastic sheet with little studs sticking out, which I haven't tried
yet due to global warming :-) The other is a square steel plate with
four big crampon-style fangs at each corner. I haven't compared the
latter to full crampons, but my guess is they'd be nearly as good as
full crampons if all you were doing was walking rather than
scrambling.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

As Druidh says get a proper set of crampons. Instep are a waste of
money and only have four points. You will be a lot more secure with
10 or 12 points.