What I learned from a session at Ice Factor, the world’s largest indoor ice climbing centre. Kinlochleven, Highlands, Scotland. To set the scene, just picture being inside a 40ft freezer.

Basics

Ice climbing is climbing up a wall covered in or made of ice. At its most basic, the kit consists of a helmet, two handheld ice axes, a harness, ropes, a belay device and aggressive-looking crampons attached to winter boots. As we stumbled across the floor of “the freezer” all kitted up, our instructor advised us to walk as if there was a football between our feet, which was a great tip that stopped me nearly treading on my own cumbersomely-cramponned feet and faceplanting the ice.

Feet – Using Crampons

We started by practising front pointing, the basic foot technique used to climb ice walls. It involves deciding on a good foot placement – a divot or strong bit of ice – and firmly jamming the toe spike(s) into it, square on. Having got used to rock climbing, which involves the feet usually being turned outwards or inwards, this felt weird – I had to consciously stop myself searching for purchase with the inside edge of my foot.

Regarding body position, you’re supposed to keep your feet level (harder than it sounds) and wide-but-not-too-wide (helpful I know), knees close to the wall and slightly bent. Imagine your feet form two points of a triangle and your body the other point – you’re supposedly more stable this way. It’s quite an unnatural stance and it was hard to trust that the crampons would hold my weight, although I quite enjoyed ramming the front spike into the ice as you can kick it quite hard.

Hands – Using Ice Axes

Then we practised using ice axes. The trick is to either find a solid indentation made by previous climbers  and “hook” the tip in there, or to find a good spot to swing the axe at and make your own “hold”. You want to aim for a spot as far up as is within comfortable reach, so you can make progress without overstretching.

The hardest part is hitting the exact spot you aim for squarely, so any regular wood-chopping axe-wielders will be at an advantage; it’s really satisfying when you hit the spot, and you can swing the axe quite hard. Top tip: improve accuracy and relieve stress by imagining the face of someone you really, really dislike on the spot you want to hit (Trump did it for me – never a sentence I thought I’d say).

Putting it Together

Full of unwarranted confidence, we tied in and put what we’d learned together. I probably resembled a climbing version of Bambi on ice, all limbs and little co-ordination. It took concentration to move the right arm/leg at the right time, as the process of moving up seemed more methodical and less “artistic” than rock climbing; I kept wanting to stick a leg out to the side, or move one arm when I should be moving the other. It seems painstakingly slow to begin with, as you move your feet up just inches at a time.

Fortunately I got my limbs working with each other before long and settled into a [messy] rhythm of foot-foot-hand-hand, repeat. Like rock climbing, the majority of the effort comes from the legs, so foot placement in particular should be solid; the axes are really just to stop your body falling away from the wall. The lack of obvious holds (usually present in rock climbing) was odd, but in a way it was easier to find placements on ice as the sharp axe/crampons can be jammed pretty much anywhere.

The sketchiest bit was topping out, ie. going over the lip at the top of the climb. When the wall is in front of your face it’s quite easy to see placements, but where it angles away from you it feels like you’re blindly swinging the axes or jamming your feet and hoping for the best. But if you’re okay with heights, don’t mind the possibility of falling (why climb otherwise?) and trust your belayer (why climb otherwise?) you’ll be fine.

My Conclusion

Ice climbing is great fun. It seems to lack the creativity of rock climbing as you can “mould” a path in the ice yourself; by way of comparison, there’s no such thing as making new holds in solid rock using brute force and pointy things, so you have to contort your body to whatever shape the rock dictates. However, I’m probably silly to keep comparing it to rock climbing as it’s so entirely different. Ice climbing is a formidable activity in its own right that could take you places otherwise inaccessible, which is surely more than good enough to warrant giving it a go.