Virtually all of the general mountaineering axes are sold in the adze configuration. This is more for historical reasons than for practicality. At one time entire routes where laboriously chopped from bottom to top when bare booting and step kicking where the alpine standard. While chopping the occasional step still remains a useful trick, it is not performed nearly as often as it once was. Modern 12-point crampons and particularly the prevalence of front pointing up even very moderate slopes have relegated step chopping to a rarity. Many people have never had call to use their adze ever! There are better applications than the adze that could be applied to the general mountaineering axe. Of course, modular technical axes allow swapping out the adze for a hammer or even a different climbing element. The adze at worst is dangerous--just another sharp edge to injure oneself on in a fall. It reduces the clearance between one’s face and the axe head when the pick is embedded. Many people have struck themselves in the face while removing their tool. An adze makes this more likely and causes more damage than a hammer. (Many waterfall ice climbers carry two hammers nowadays instead of an adze for just this reason.) A hammer face is much safer and more useful as well. A hammer allows you to pound in pickets and it aids in placing pins and stoppers. You can easily chop a step or clear a belay ledge with a hammer. A hammer has been shown to clear ice faster than an adze anyway. You can grip the head of a hammer just as securely as an adze for self-arrest. Perhaps the only advantage of the adze is that it provides a flat surface to rest your palm on when carrying your axe piolet canne. Never sharpen an adze. Consider wrapping the adze with duct tape to make the edge more blunt. Should manufacturers stop putting adzes on their general mountaineering axes? I say get rid of it!

Thanks, -Markus

-- Markus Zobrist (markuszobrist@hotmail.com), October 01, 2002

Answers

Hmm ... ever tried chopping an entire tent platform from ice or hard snow using a hammer? Also in funky hard snow I've occasionally found the adze better than the pick for climbing. I agree an adze is somewhat more dangerous, however. Even self arresting, it's possible to slice oneself with it. Historical inertia is what is keeping it going, perhaps we will see some general mountaineering axes with hammers.

-- George Bell (gibell@attbi.com), October 30, 2002.

At least one general mountaineering axe has been sold with a hammer. I don't know if it is still available but I saw an SMC Himalayan (60cm) with a hammer on sale in a retail shop in Jackson Hole in 1998. We have found pounding pickets in hard snow to be quite difficult with a general axe and have moved to taking both a general axe and a technical axe on steeper mountain routes. This provides a more secure self-belay as well as both a hammer and adze should they be required. On less steep routes where I would not benefit from the better self belay, I would not be pounding pickets except for crevase rescue and would be fine with a general axe with an adze. Yes, it is more weight but I find the peace of mind to be well worth it.

-- Troy Maxfield (sawtooth_troy@yahoo.com), December 03, 2002.

Today, the classic piolet is used as a snow climbing tool. That is why these tools are progressing towards lighter, basic rated axes, rather than burly, technicaly rated mountain axes. Tools that need to be able to pound pins and the like are cascade tools which often cross over into the alpine game for the steepest, most technically demanding routes. The adze is often far more secure than either a classic or reversed-curved pick in the right conditions; however, since the alpinist can only reasonably carry one, truly steep snow pitches will be done with at very least one hammer and a shovel blade. In response to a hammer being more effective at chopping ice, I answer as a victim of this practice, that it depends on the adze and/or hammer. A Grivel New Alp 2 adze will chop better than any hammer, especialy their lighter piccolo hammer. That said, I'm also sure that a standard hammer from almost any company will clear ice just as well, if not better than a triangle shaped adze, such as the BD model. If you might be chopping out a bivy ledge, carry an adze. If all you want is stability on snow, carry trekking poles because that's what you're doing: trekking. If you need an axe for the protection provided by its ability to self-arrest, be happy with an adze because, as I said earlier, the adze facilitates more security on many different snow conditions and, over a long climg, it is more likely to prevent bruising on the palm.

-- Justin L Boening (Byosar@aol.com), December 08, 2002.