Chopping an Ice Axe

Modification:

The donor axe was a 55cm DMM Vertex, which I had gotten for a sweet deal. But my issue was it just was too damn long, especially that my goal for it was to start climbing some technical skimo lines. I had seen all of the cool skimo nerds climbing with the Petzl Gully, or the Blue Ice Akila. All great choices, but as I mentioned, I got a sweet deal on this.

I decided that I was going to cut off about 11cm from the bottom of the shaft, while doing that I was going to remove the bottom spike. I had considered adding the bottom spike back on, but I think it’s unnecessary for the type of climbing and skiing I do. If I’m using this tool, I’ll be climbing something hard enough that I’ll be swinging with it, and if I want to plunge the ake like a pilot then I can do that just as well with the bottom axe removed.

It was really a pretty easy project, first I decided where I wanted to cut it, and added some tape there to mark my cut line and also ensure that my cut was straight. Then with an angle grinder and cutoff wheel I made the incision. Easy peasy. If you don’t have access to an angle grinder you could probably do this with a hack saw or a dremel with a cutoff disk.

To finish the job, I drilled a whole and added a bolt, to the pomel wouldn’t slide off the bottom, then I added some spray foam in the bottom of the shaft so snow wouldn’t build up.

Casey practicing climbing a blue ice bulge In Crawford Notch, NH

Nitty Gritty Details:

Weight before: 450g

Weight After: 369g

Final thoughts:

If the piece of gear you have in your closet isn’t working how you want it to don’t be afraid to make it work more for your use case. Lots of people think they need to buy the exact thing they want, sometimes you can make gear that you have (or find cheap) work just as well! As a side benefit, people see it and know you’ll make shit happen.