Norton’s couloir effort had been an astounding attempt. A new altitude record of 28,126 feet—surpassed, if it all, only by Mallory and Irvine on their fatal final attempt along the windy North East Ridge.
But most would-be Everest climbers had written off Norton’s Couloir as impossible. Too steep. Too much loose snow. Too much vertical climb. Too serious a penalty for a single slip after too many hours at too high and cold a place under the most extreme exertion possible.
“Why not use crampons to climb Norton’s Couloir?” asked Jean-Claude. “Or even along the steep snow ramps above twenty-seven thousand feet on the East Ridge or North East Ridge, where only Mallory and Irvine have gone?”
The end of that sentence chilled me. But then, I’d taken off the Finch balloon coat and a cold breeze was coming down Cwm Idwal and across Llyn Idwal.
“Crampons don’t work on a snowfield as steep as Norton’s Couloir,” I said irritably. “Or even on the high-ridge snowfields below where they established high camp at around twenty-seven thousand feet.”
“Why not?” asked Jean-Claude with that maddening Gallic smugness.
“Because human feet and ankles don’t bend that way, God damn it!” I said loudly. “And because crampons can’t keep a grip on steep snow slopes when the climber’s weight isn’t above them, bearing down on them. You know that, J.C.!”
“Yes, I know that, Jake,” he said, dropping his old crampons onto the snow.
“I think our friend has something to show us,” said the Deacon. His pipe was puffing along well now, and he spoke through gritted teeth.
Jean-Claude smiled, bent to his big bag, and pulled out a single, shiningly new metal crampon. It took me a few seconds to see the difference.
“It has front spikes…points,” I said at last. “Like horns.”
“Twelve-point crampons,” said Jean-Claude, his tone brisk and businesslike now. “The German ice climbers were talking about them. I had my father design and manufacture them.”
We all knew that Jean-Claude’s father had gone from being a blacksmith to running one of the biggest metal-pouring and forming companies in all of France, certainly in Chamonix. M. Clairoux Sr.’s business had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to French government (and some British and one American) contracts during the Great War. Now they produced everything from specialized steel pipelines to dental instruments.
“That looks dangerous,” I said.
“It is,” said Jean-Claude. “To the mountain that does not want to be climbed.”
“I think I understand,” said the Deacon, stepping forward to take the scary-looking 12-point crampon in his hand. “You kick these points in, put your weight on the solid, almost unbending shank of your new stiff boots, and use it as a platform. Even—theoretically—on near-vertical ice.”
“Oui,” said Jean-Claude. “But not just on ‘near-vertical,’ my friend. On sheer vertical. And worse than vertical. I have tested them in France. We shall test them here today.”
I confess that my heart started pounding rapidly. I’ve never enjoyed ice climbing. I hate surfaces where my boots can’t get a grip, however tenuous. J.C.’s “we shall test them here today” made my cold skin go clammy.
“There is more,” said Jean-Claude. “Show me your ice axes, my friends.”
We’d brought ours with us, of course. I pulled mine out of the snow and set it in front of me: long wood shaft and metal adze and pick on top. The Deacon retrieved his ice axe from the snow and leaned on it.
“How long is your ice axe, Jake?” asked J.C.
“Thirty-eight inches. I like that shorter length for cutting steps on a steep slope.”
“And yours, Richard?” Ree-shard.
“Forty-eight inches. It’s old-fashioned, I know. But so am I.”
Jean-Claude merely nodded. Then he reached into the bulging bag in the snow and brought out a series of “ice axes” that weren’t ice axes at all. The longest couldn’t have been much more than 20 inches or so in length. They were hammers, for God’s sake. Only with different adzes and picks atop each wooden or…dear Christ…steel shaft.
J.C.’s daddy had been busy at his steel-fitting plant.
“Your designs?” asked the Deacon, hefting one of these absurd hammer-things.
J.C. shrugged. “Based on what the Germans have been doing this year—you two told me so yourselves after you returned from Munich last November. So I climbed icy routes with them in Chamonix in December—with some young Germans, that is—saw their new techniques, used some of their new equipment. Then I made my own variations at l’usine de mon père to improve what they had.”
“Those aren’t ice axes!” I was almost spluttering.
“No?”
“No,” I said. “You couldn’t hike with any of those, couldn’t lean on them, couldn’t even cut ice steps on a steep slope.”
Jean-Claude held up one finger. “Au contraire,” he said softly, lifting one of the five short axe-hammer-things he’d left lying on the canvas bag. The one he was holding up looked most like a regular ice axe—wood shaft and all—but like a real ice axe that had been left out in the rain and shrunk by two-thirds. But instead of there being an adze on one side, as our ice axes had, the short end was as blunt as a hammer. It was a hammer.
“This ice hammer, my father and I call it ‘straight drooped,’” said J.C., “is superb for cutting steps on a steep ice or snow slope. And one does not have to lean out of balance as one would with either of our old longer ice axes.”
I just shook my head.
“The shortest one is there,” said the Deacon, pointing to a large hammer-sized thing made entirely of steel with a pointed and sort of threaded base and a long, flat pick on one side and very short adze on the other.
J.C. smiled and lifted it, then handed it to the Deacon, who took it in his free hand. “Light. Aluminum?”
“No, steel. But hollow in the shaft. This is what Father and I called the ‘technically curved’ short ice axe. For use on steep ice slopes, perfect for carving steps. This slightly longer one with the wooden handle, the one which looks more like a shortened version of a regular ice axe but with this long, curved, serrated pick, we called the ‘reverse curved’ axe. It is used”—he turned to the impossibly vertical ice wall behind him—“for that.”
The Deacon had handed the two short ice axes to me and was rubbing his stubbled cheeks and chin. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, though we’d finally procured some hot water at that execrable inn.