Mountain technology axes - how would you change them?

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 beardy mike 18 May 2022

If you are a British mountainer of a certain age, you will have swung a pair of Mountain Technology axes at some point. At the time they had a cult following, indeed they were my first axes - an Alpine Axe and a Technical Hammer. The forgings were beautiful. I also remember friends Vertige axes falling apart mid climb one time! Things have moved on so much in this realm and axes are barely recognisable these days compared to yore. So to my question - would these axes still stand up? The shafts were huge by today's standards. The picks were traditionally curved etc. Have you used some this winter and were you surprised or disappointed? It's such a long time ago that I used some, I don't know if I am looking at them through rose tinted glasses? Were they the ultimate tool for Scotland or have things moved on so much that there's just no comparison. And if you were going to make them again, how what would you change about them to make them rub shoulders with the best?

Post edited at 22:33
 DaveHK 18 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

If you could keep the looks, pick angle and adze size but half the weight (ish) I'd be interested.

Post edited at 22:37
OP beardy mike 18 May 2022
In reply to DaveHK:

I remember the weight not being so dissimilar to modern axes? Maybe I'm crazy but weren't the vertiges about 550g or maybe 600?

 DaveHK 18 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

> I remember the weight not being so dissimilar to modern axes? Maybe I'm crazy but weren't the vertiges about 550g or maybe 600?

I was thinking about the curved pick Technical axe. There might be a market for something like that for general mountaineering although there are plenty of other options out there already. But it would need to be lighter as all the modern equivalents seem to be.

Vertiges are so outmoded I can't see any market for them without so much redesign that they wouldn't have any similarity to the original.

I've got a vertige in the loft if you want me to weigh it tomorrow?

Post edited at 22:49
 Robert Durran 18 May 2022
In reply to DaveHK:

> I've got a vertige in the loft if you want me to weigh it tomorrow?

I keep one under my bed.

 DaveHK 18 May 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

> I keep one under my bed.

You must live in a rougher area than me.  

 alibrightman 19 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

No comparison. I would change them into Nomics.  

I'd say that leashless technique and hand rests are the most important changes since the 1980's. A pair of yellow Pulsars with hand rests and spring leashes would be pretty decent.

 jonzza 19 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

My 55cm technical adze weighs 640g, barely more than the current dmm cirque!

I sold a 50cm version of the same axe recently and the buyer drove from North Wales to Manchester to collect it, so it must still have some fans.

 TobyA 19 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

I remember briefly chatting to a guide in the Alps, French I think, it must be 20 or 21 years ago. He had a MT Technical but had removed all the rubber from the shaft. I think it was mainly just to save weight but he said the head and blade was the best he had found on any tool.

So lighter would be good.

Don't stamp your company name on halfway down the blade - I remember various people bringing them back to the shop having snapped the end of the blade there.

My first tool was a (IIRC) yellow MT Technical. It was very cool.

 elliptic 19 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

Vertiges came in two versions, standard alloy head ~600g which was a bit too light, and steel head 800g which was too heavy! Most other comparable tools at the time were somewhere in between which was right for overall balance given the shafts were generally heavier back then. I also always felt the head/pick geometry was compromised by being a blatant copy of the Chacal - which was perfect with a 45cm shaft, but Vertiges were 50cm - the result was a pick slightly too short and steep (and thick) to work well on hard ice but with the light weight it did make them great for hooking and torquing.

Anyway... the technical axe was an absolutely lovely thing IMHO with perfect ergonomics in the hand. The shaft tube was actually the same outer size and profile as modern tools - very early ones had a thin plasticky sleeve, later versions had the thicker rubber grip but if you remove the grip a modern Petzl trigrest fits perfectly on the bare shaft. The only thing I disliked personally was the later update replacing the cast spike insert with a bit of flat plate and some plastic packing. I suppose nowadays you'd hot forge the pick (I did manage to bend the pick on mine at one point, but it straightened out again with some carefully applied bodyweight...)

Weight wise I'm in two minds about modern super light axes,  I have a 350g Spire Tech which is great for carrying just-in-case, and perfectly capable on single-axe mountaineering routes (classic ridges etc) but the lightness in hand sometimes feels slightly disturbing (its oddly easy to drop) and it certainly wouldn't cope with the grade 3/4 Scottish ice which my old technical axe got me up when I was starting out. I reckon there's still a place for robust general purpose axes in the 500-600g range.

Post edited at 09:33
 Jim Walton 30 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

The Massive plus on the Tech Axe was the shaft and the adze design.

The shaft and rubber were really hard wearing.  You could drive the shaft into snow or in between rocks and never tear the rubber.  You could clear the snow off your crampons without the risk of tearing the rubber.

On the Tech Axe the adze was/is a solid piece of metal as opposed to the Alpine version that had a hole in it for saving weight.  The solid wide adze with the heavy (by modern standards), but perfectly weighted, head makes the Tech Axe the greatest digging axe ever made.  In fact I would say to anyone intending to do your WinterML then you need to scour the internet for a 55cm MT Technical Axe.  Digging a snow bollard or bucket seat is a breeze with the Tech Axe.  Not so with a Grivel Evo or similar.

The head piece is connected to the shaft with 2 perfectly made rivets.  It's a thing of beauty.

It is too heavy for Alpine work but I still believe The 55cm MT Technical Axe is the greatest tool for Scottish Mountaineering.  Pair it with a Tech Hammer and you are good up to Grade III.

Post edited at 21:22
 NathanP 31 May 2022
In reply to Jim Walton:

I bought a 55cm Alpine axe in the late 80s and still use it as my walking / easy climbing axe. I always regretted not getting the technical axe, just because it looked so much nicer - I think it was out of stock at the time - but the flatter axe works very well and I've never found a downside. I wouldn't really change anything. I suppose making the shaft slightly lighter would be nice but it has never seemed heavy - when you are only carrying one axe, no ropes or gear, an extra hundred grams isn't a big deal. 

I had the hammer to match for a while before buying a pair of Simond Piranhas so I sold the hammer to a friend. He snapped the pick off at the logo stamping in the course of an epic on the Little Brenva Face. Felt rather guilty about that.

Vertiges were just horrible. The weight and balance of either version felt wrong, the pick didn't seem to bite into ice very well and was too short. Easily the worst technical axes I've ever tried.

 steveriley 31 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

Still use mine on (rare) winter excursions. Absolutely fine as a general walking/mountaineering axe, good for easier routes up to limits of my modest abilities/cowardice. The alloy at the end is a touch soft but no other complaints, I might feel differently if I was one of the people above who’d snapped the pick.


 top cat 31 May 2022
In reply to Jim Walton:

>

> It is too heavy for Alpine work but I still believe The 55cm MT Technical Axe is the greatest tool for Scottish Mountaineering.  Pair it with a Tech Hammer and you are good up to Grade III.

I think you mean 'good to grade VI........'. Certainly V....

 Myfyr Tomos 31 May 2022
In reply to Jim Walton:

Have to agree Jim, the Technical tools are things of beauty and superbly balanced. Still have them and the axe is still my go-to winter companion.  The choice of axe was never the limiting factor in my winter climbing. 😂 

In reply to beardy mike:

My Technical axe was one of the very first and just had a hard plastic cover on the shaft rather than the later rubber.  This chewed up quite badly and became a little annoying as it would snag on slings and clothing.  Sometime in the nineties it was lost on a call out but not before I had paired it with the hammer version which developed a crack on the head, though thankfully Clive Rowland Sports (Inverness) exchanged it with little fuss.

Moved onto a pair of Vertige after my Cassin Ice System set but could never fully trust the hammer after a team mate enthusiastically hammered it vertically into snow to create a belay.  The head, being alloy, was festooned with dents and it struck me then that some form of steel hammering plate would have been a better design.  I did compare the Vertige back to back with Simond's Chacal/Barracuda and they appeared to have the same pick angle and tooth design.  Purely coincidental.....  

Still use a 50cm Technical axe as the best "go to" for walking/mountaineering days, having struggled to cut steps efficiently with the BD Raven Pro, good looking as it is!

Brilliant though the Technical is, I'd go for the aluminium shaft Chouinard Zero, 55cm, on the ML "technical ground/ice axe arrest" days.  Great weight and massive adze.  Only a shovel is better for digging snow! Just don't carry it on the expedition.

 Mark Bull 31 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

I had a very early version - like this one http://www.smhc.co.uk/objects_item.asp?item_id=32669 but with a black grip. It was a great all rounder for walking and easy climbing, but unfortunately it had a design flaw in that the cross-section at the base of the adze was too small. I was trying to cut a step in some low-angle water ice during a very cold spell when the adze snapped clean off - a sad end for a good tool.  

 ExiledScot 31 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

They were great axes, they just needed slightly modified shaft shape, different picks, with bolts that didn't glueing and balancing differently for a better swing, apart from that they were fine. 

Note. For a brief window they were the best, very brief, but by the mid 90s most brands had better alternatives. 

 PeterM 31 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

I've still got a pair that get used. A later pair with a slight kink in the shaft. The adze is the best I've ever seen or used. It's  impressive how much snow it shifts when bulding bucket seats. Great for climbing. They are a bit beefy. Shame you cannot get replacement picks. I do have an unused alpine and banana pick which I wonder if they could be used as a template. They are still massively useful tools. See page 11 here for an old add. Mine are the hamer and adze of the left-most alpinist. Strangely the bolt configuration is different for these compared to others were the pick bolts are above and below rather than side by side https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmcNews/media/u_content/File/summit/back_issues/SU...

Post edited at 16:42
 GrahamD 31 May 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

I still use my walking axe and vertige axe and hammer.  They still seem to work.

 Damo 01 Jun 2022
In reply to TobyA:

> ...... had removed all the rubber from the shaft. I think it was mainly just to save weight but he said the head and blade was the best he had found on any tool.

Ha! I did exactly the same thing many years ago. I had the 70cm axe and rarely used the rubber grip, so ground it off. It left a nicely minimalist silver shaft and the beautiful form/function forged adze/pick design. The spike was actually a bit of a weak link, a steel pin in an aluminum cone, that eventually broke. I still have it, and fondle it occasionally, but still end up taking something else.

I led my first near-vertical ice with long axes then a partner lent me a pair of Vertiges and I thought they were magic. But it was 1993 Both the shaft and the picks were too thick, but they were lighter than some of the other things around at the time. 

 RobertKett 01 Jun 2022
In reply to beardy mike:

I still have a pair of 50 cm Alpine axes. Other than having to relearn  straight-shaft technique I've always enjoyed using them. I've always had confidence in them, including torquing (they have plain picks i.e. without a name stamped in). They're like good friends.

As a result of reading an article in one of the magazines (I forget which), I modified the pick profiles to improve their penetration. This meant filing a chamfered sharp edge along the top of the pick; chamfering the tip to form a sharp edge; and chamfering the teeth a little so they had a bit of taper. It seemed to work; I was happy with the results.

Thanks for posting that


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