Alpine: 9. Crampon Anti-Balling Plates
Alpine & Mountaineering • 1m 17s
In this video we discuss crampon anti-balling plates. Snow can stick to the bottom of your crampons, especially in wet snow conditions. After a few steps, you’ll feel like you’re walking on slippery (and heavy) platform shoes, and your sharp points will be useless.
One solution that manufacturers have come up with to solve this problem is “anti-balling plates.” These attach to the bottom of your crampon, and help to prevent snow from accumulating (or balling up) in the bottom of your crampons while traversing snow.
While anti-balling plates are useful for these situations, note that they do add extra weight to the crampons and may not be suited for situations that don’t require them (i.e. ice climbing).
We hope you found this video helpful. Feel free to comment below with questions or thoughts!
Please remember, climbing is inherently dangerous. Climb at your own risk.
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