It can be confusing trying to pick what pair of crampons might be best for you. I’ve put together this article to show you everything you need to know about the different types of crampons.
So, what are the different types of crampons? There are three main types of crampons, distinguished by how they attach to your boot:
- Step-In Crampons
- Hybrid Crampons
- Strap-On Crampons
Step-in crampons offer the best fit to your boot, as they use welts in the boot and metal bars to hold the crampon in place. However, they’re also the most specialized piece of gear, and you need the proper footwear to be able to use them. Hybrid crampons use the same metal bar on the back, but they have straps on the front of the boot, so they’re compatible with a wider variety of footwear. Finally, strap-on crampons fit over your boot and use adjustable or elastic components to fit.
Step-In Crampons
What are they: Specialized pieces of equipment that can be used for extreme activities. They utilize metal bars and rubber welts to attach tightly to your boot.
Cost: A pair of step-in crampons will cost about $250
Pros:
- Strong fit between the crampon and the boot creates better stability
- Specialized design allows them to be used for technical pursuits
Cons:
- Expensive
- Heavy
- Overkill in certain scenarios
- Not compatible with every type of boot
Activities:
- Ice climbing
- Mountaineering
- Dry Tooling
- Mixed Climbing
- Alpinism
Step-in Crampons are the most specialized type of crampon. They’re used for extreme activities such as mountaineering, ice climbing, and dry tooling. Because of this, these crampons are the ones that will fit most tightly to your boot; when you’re wearing them, they almost feel like an extension of your foot, not a completely different piece of footwear.
Step-in crampons work joining metal ‘bars’ on the crampon with rubber ‘welts’ on the boot. A welt is like a small ledge in the rubber. The ‘bars’ are just that- thin metal bars that are bent in a semi-circle so they fit over your boot. When you want to put the crampon on, you fit the bars into the welts and tighten the crampon so that they dig into the groove, holding the crampon in place. Then, you use other straps to tighten up the crampon, ensuring it can’t move.
To get a better idea of what this looks like, check out the video below:
See how the front bar rests smoothly in the welt, while the back bar is snapped into place? That holds the crampon tightly against your boot, ensuring that there’s very little movement between the two.
This closeness of fit is what allows step-in crampons to be used for the technical activities that they’re designed for. If you’re ice climbing, dry tooling, or working on a technical ridge while mountaineering, you can’t have your crampon shifting around. It needs to be a rock-solid fit so that you can have confidence in every foot placement.
Because of how much effort is put in to making sure the step-in crampon fits well with your foot, this design is going to give you the best traction on snow and ice. If you’re in an environment where the quality of fit is essential and you need to know that your crampons are going to keep you attached, I would recommend going with a step-in.
However, the burliness of their design also works against these crampons in certain scenarios. First of all, they’re the most expensive of the bunch, costing between $200 and $350 to purchase a pair. That’s because the intricate design of the toe and heel bars requires a lot of craftsmanship.
More restrictive than the cost, though, is the fact that these crampons only work with a certain type of boot. To use step-in crampons, you’ll have to be wearing a specialized mountaineering boot that has the proper welts in place for the bars. This is where the real cost comes in; mountaineering boots are at least $500, and they’re a pretty specialized piece of gear that most people aren’t going need to buy.
Finally, step-in crampons are going to be overkill in most scenarios. If you’re just spring hiking when there’s snow on the ground, or even for come moderate glacier travel, you’re not going to need a full pair of step-ins. In fact, you might not even want to bring them; bulky and heavy to carry, and they take a while to put on. In a lot of different scenarios, step-in crampons are not the right piece of gear for the job.
With that being said, the jobs they do, they do very well. There are two main activities for which you would use step-in crampons, each with their own specific design:
Ice Climbing
Ice climbing crampons are designed for just that: getting you up vertical sheets of frozen water with as little effort as possible. To do this, you utilize a technique called front-pointing, where you kick the toes of your feet into the ice to gain purchase in the ice.
To aid in this, ice climbing crampons are designed with sharp spikes at the toe, which you use to break the ice and find footholds while climbing. These spikes — aptly named your front points — can be arranged in a variety of different ways:
- Mono points: Where you only have on spike at the front of your crampon. This allows for greater precision concerning where you place your feet, but you sacrifice some stability
- Dual points: You have two spikes on the front of your crampon, placed equal distances apart and with equal lengths. This creates greater stability.
- Offset: Where you have one mono point and one shorter point somewhere off to the side. The offset setup is a hybrid method that tries to match the stability of dual points with the precision footwork enable by a mono.
Mountaineering
Mountaineering crampons have two main differences from ice climbing crampons:
- Their front points are flatter and less sharp, not designed for kicking into ice
- They have more points on the sides and the back of the crampon
Both of these design changes enable you to walk more easily in these crampons, although you lose the power to climb steep ice as well. That’s because mountaineering is a much more general sport that covers a wider range of activities. You won’t just be climbing on waterfalls; you’ll be crossing glaciers, kick-stepping your way up snow gullies, and descending steep faces. For this type of adventure, you need something a little more generalized.
The extra spikes along the sides and the back help you gain traction on steep snow. They more points of contact you have with the ice, the more friction your boot can create. Ice climbing crampons do this by placing several spikes towards the front, because that’s where your foot will be in contact with the surface. In mountaineering, however, you’re often walking flat-footed, meaning that the friction needs to be more holistic in where it’s focused.
Hybrid Crampons
What are they: Similar to a step-in crampon but instead of a front bar to attach to your boot, there’s instead a strap that you pull into place
Cost: Hybrid crampons can cost around $200
Pros:
- The fit is almost as good as for a step-in crampon
- Additional flexibility makes them easier to walk in
- Compatible with a wider variety of boots
- Easier to take on and off while wearing gloves
Cons:
- Not as technical
- Still too heavy to use for casual activities
Activities:
- Glacier travel
- Non-technical mountaineering
Hybrids are a more-flexible, less-specialized version of the step-in crampon that have started to fain popularity in recent years for more general mountaineering pursuits. Hybrids have the same heel setup as a step-in crampon, which works to hold the boot tightly in place and secure a good fit. However, instead of a metal bar in front, hybrids instead have a strap that’s pulled into place.
This system allows for more flexibility when walking, meaning it’s better for mountaineering trip where you need to cover a lot of ground. Anyone who’s walked in crampons knows how uncomfortable and clunky it can feel, and hybrids decrease some of that stiffness. Additionally, the toe strap is easier to pull on when wearing gloves, meaning if you need to take these on/off mid-mission, you won’t have to risk freezing your fingers off.
Another benefit of the hybrid system is that it’s compatible with a wider variety of boots, although only by a small amount. They still need a welt on the back of the boot for the metal bar to fit in, so you can’t wear them with most common hiking boots. However, they will work with boots that don’t have a front welt, so you have a few more options in terms of your footwear.
Most hybrid crampons have a spike system that’s designed very similarly to the mountaineering version of the step-in that was discussed above. This means they’re good for walking across surfaces, but won’t perform as well for more technical jobs like ice climbing.
This is the main downside of the hybrid crampons. They perform better on flat or moderately slopes surfaces, but not nearly as well on steep or technical terrain. The strap system on the front means they don’t connect quite as securely, and the crampon design prevents them from working super well on steep ice.
Now, a lot of other blogs you read will tell you that you can climb moderate ice — say, up the WI-4 — in a pair of hybrid crampons that don’t have dedicated front points. This is true, but only if you’re a seasoned mountaineer who has lots of experience with that sort of thing. If you’re a beginner, I would recommend sticking with the ice-specific tools.
Because of this, hybrid crampons are sometimes criticized for filling a slightly awkward ‘in the middle’ niche. They don’t quite have the versatility to be used for technical missions, but they’re still bulky and heavy enough that they’re too much to bring on causal hikes where you want a bit of friction.
That doesn’t mean, however, that hybrid crampons don’t have their place in the mountaineering world. If you’re pursuing far-away summits where you need to cover a lot of ground, hybrid crampons are a great option for you.
Strap-On Crampons
What are they: Non-technical peies of gear that slip over your boot and provide a little bit of extra traction. The spikes are usually about 1/4th the size as they would be on a step-in crampon, and they’re not nearly as sharp.
Cost: GThese can be purchased for around $40-$70
Pros:
- They fit over almost any pair of boots
- They’re lightweight and simple to use
- The spikes on the bottom still give you an impressive amount of traction on low-angled snow
Cons:
- Not suitable for any technical activities
Activities:
- Winter/spring/fall hiking
- Scrambling
- Backpacking
- Moderate glacier travel
The most common but least technical type of crampons, strap-on’s cover a wide variety of uses from casual hiking to cutting-edge scrambling.
These crampons slip over your boot and are held in place by adjustable straps or elastic features. They don’t require any welts, and they don’t have any metal bars to you need to slip into place. Because of this, strap-on crampons are going to be compatible with almost every type of hiking boot on the market, as long as you get the right size.
A very common example of a strap-on crampon would be Yak Traks, which popularized this type of footwear for casual activities. Yak Traks helped turn crampons from a technical piece of mountaineering gear into a helpful item that most people keep in their closet.
The beauty about strap on crampons is that they’re a lot less intense than step-in or hybrid crampons are. They’re lighter, easier to use, cheaper, less bulky, and overall less confusing than a full pair of crampons are. You can slip them over your hiking boots or hiking shoes without needing to work about sizing them properly or snapping your back bar into place (which, believe me, can be a pain in the ass sometimes). These crampons allow you to gain traction on slippery surfaces without needing to invest in a $200 piece of gear and an $800 boot just to go with it.
Because of this, strap-on crampons are used for a wide variety of purposes:
- Spring/summer/fall hiking: This is probably the most common use that you’re going to see. If the trail’s wet but you’re itching to get out, it’s a good idea to throw a pair of strap-on crampons onto your feet so that you’re not sliding all over the place.
- Backpacking: Similarly, you’re likely to see these on backpacking trails, sometimes even in the summer. In the heart of the Rockies, where I first started getting into the outdoors, there are often snowpacks that last year around. Crossing these while wearing a 30-pound pack becomes a lot more comfortable if I have a pair of trail crampons on.
- Scrambling: Especially in the early and late season, it’s extremely common to see scramblers toss a pair of strap-on crampons into their bag in case they hit any patches of snow or ice that need to be navigated.
Essentially, strap-on crampons are used for any scenario where you want a little bit of extra traction on your feet. Obviously, you don’t need half-inch spikes to go for a causal winter hike, which is why you won’t see most people wearing hybrid or step-in crampons in these scenarios.
Now, obviously, the strengths of the step-in crampon are also its weaknesses. These are non-technical pieces of gear that can’t be used for much more than walking. You could probably get away with crossing a glacier in them, if it was low-angled and you have an experience group with you. Anything more than that, however, and these become mostly useless. Not even the most grizzled vet would consider trying to ice climb in trail crampons, because it’s simply impossible.
However, for most people (and in most scenarios), these crampons are a perfect mix of friction and low-maintenance that allow you to go places you otherwise might not have been able to go.