Elaine negotiating steep descent using daggering with ice axe and front-pointing with crampons
Technique of using your ice axe on moderately steep ice. You hold the ice-axe with the adze (the triangular bit opposite the pick) in the palm of your hand with the pick facing the slope, and dagger the pick into the snow – usually just above waist height – and then push down on the adze. It is a more efficient method than swinging the ice-axe by its shaft above your head when the angle of the snow isn’t too steep. Here we can see Elaine daggering on the descent of Carn Dearg.
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