Ice climbing is a dangerous sport, and falling is something that should be avoided at all costs. I’ve created the following guide to teach everything that you need to know about ice climbing falls.

So, what’s the deal with falling while ice climbing? Ice climbing lead falls are incredibly dangerous, and there is a good change that you will break a bone. Falling should be avoided at all costs. If you’re climbing on top rope, it is perfectly okay to fall on ice.

The issue with ice climbing falls while on lead rope is that they are rarely ‘clean’ falls. In rock climbing, once you find yourself unable to hold a position, all four of your limbs usually come off the rock at the same time, because they rely on friction to keep them in place. This is a ‘clean’ fall; you will fall away from the surface you were attached to and keep going down until the rope catches you. In ice climbing, rarely will all four limbs (both arms and both legs) come off the ice at the same time, which can have disastrous consequences.

In the following guide I talk about why ice climbing falls are bad, what you can do to mitigate the chance of falling, and what to do if you do fall.

Ice Climbing Falls

First, let’s discuss why it’s such a bad idea to fall on ice. For rock climbers just transitioning onto ice, it can seem odd that the philosophy is to never fall. After all, rock climbing is all about pushing yourself to the absolute limit of what you’re capable of; falls are not only acceptable, but are almost expected. If you’re not falling, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.

Ice climbing, however, is a completely different story. Experienced ice climbers will tell you that you should aim to go your entire career without once falling on ice. Some people may fall once because of a stroke of bad luck, but you should do everything you can to mitigate the chance of that happening.

As world-famous ice climber Will Gadd says in his article: ‘Ice climbing falls will likely result in a minimum of badly broken leg, ankle, head, pelvis, neck, back, or all of this list.’

So, why this disparity? Why is it so bad to fall when you’re on ice? There are three main reasons:

Lack of ‘Clean Falls’ When Ice Climbing

The first and foremost reason relates to what I was talking about above in terms of a ‘clean’ fall. A clean fall in climbing is one where you come off the wall smoothly, still aware of where you are and in a safe position to be caught.

Anyone who’s ever lead climbed knows what this feels like; you pop backwards a little, keep your legs below you, and drop for a second before the rope tightens up. It might be a little scary of disconcerting, but most of the time you won’t be injured.

Ice climbing falls, however, are rarely ‘clean’. In rock climbing, you’re kept in place by the friction between your hands, your shoes, and the surface of the wall. When this friction fails, it usually fails all at once; your feet won’t stay attached to the wall once your hands slip off, because there’s not enough friction to keep them in place.

Ice climbing, however, doesn’t rely on friction. You use metal spikes on your crampons and ice axes that are driven into the ice so that you can stay in place.

The problem here is that, once driven into the ice, it’s not always easy to pull your crampons or axes out, especially once you lose balance and begin to fall. Once of the most common injuries in ice climbing falls are broken legs, because of this exact reason. A climber, too tired or in over their head, accidentally falls from ice. Both of their ice aces come loose, and gravity takes over; the climber pitches backwards and his body begins to head towards the ground.

However, because of the way they’re designed and how firmly they had been kicked into the ice, the climber’s feet stay attached to the ice, even as their upper body falls. In fact, the motion of falling might actually drive the crampons deeper into the ice, making it more difficult for the climber to experience a ‘clean’ fall. Even if the crampons come out at first, there’s then the risk that they’ll make contact with the ice somewhere in the fall and cause damage, especially if you’re on less-than-vertical terrain.

This can lead to an array of injuries. Falling backwards while your feet are immobile puts an insane amount of pressure on the tibia, fibula, and knees of a climber. It can lead to broken bones, torn menisci, or spiral fractures.

Furthermore, once the feet do pop off, the climber is now in a bad position to recover from the fall; they will be off balance mid-air, with their head somewhere level with their feet. This increases the chance of getting tangled in the rope or taking a hard swing back into the ice once your belayer catches you.

In summary: because you use spikes, not friction, to hold you in place while ice climbing, it’s much harder for all four points of contact to release from the ice at the same time. This leads to some parts of your body falling while other parts of your body stay attached to the wall, which forces your limbs into some pretty uncomfortable positions.

Degree of Protection

The above description should be more than enough reason for you to never want to fall while ice climbing . If not, however, there are other things you need to take into consideration that can make falls even more dangerous.

First of all, ice protection is significantly less secure than rock climbing protection. Especially when you’re sport climbing, you get the luxury of having stainless steel bolts that are drilled into cliff faces and held in place with special glue. These bolts can last decades at a time and catch hundreds of falls.

When ice climbing, however, you protect yourself using something called an ice screw. This is a long, hollow screw that you twist into the ice and then clip your rope through.

Ice screws themselves are fairly solid, but they depend a lot on the actual ice that surrounds them. You need to take into consideration the temperature, the formation of the ice, how deep it is, and how much air there is inside. It becomes a lot harder to judge and find good placements on ice, meaning that you can’t have the blind faith that you do when sport climbing that your protection will always hold.

Rope Risk

There’s a reason a lot of people prefer to climb with a double-rope system when they’re ice climbing: you have knives attached to your hands and feet.

Seriously, crampons and ice axes are sharp. They’re designed to penetrate thick layers of ice in one swing and to be used hundreds of times per session. A properly sharpened crampon point or ice pick is going to have no problem severing through a 9mm rope if it happens to come in contact with it at the wrong angle.

This is a problem because you don’t always know where you are when you fall. It’s common to flail your limbs and lose your spatial awareness. If you take a tumble and end up cutting through or damaging the rope with one of your tools, you can exponentially increase the danger that you put yourself in.

Avoiding Falls While Ice Climbing

We’ve now covered why falling while ice climbing is a bad idea, so now let’s move on the necessary steps you need to take to avoid falling on ice.

Watch Your Placements

The way to avoid taking a fall while ice climbing is to make sure that your tools are well placed. A lot of this comes down to experience and technique, and I could write an entire separate article about how to properly place your tools. For now, I’ll just list a few pointers:

• Don’t be afraid to use force. You’re a full-grown adult, and the makers of your ice tools knew what they were doing. Don’t be afraid to really hammer away at the ice to drive your tool into it.
• Test it before you trust it: weighting your tool, or giving it a nice sharp snap with your shoulder (in the downwards direction), can be a good way to ensure that it’s not going to cut.
• Watch your angles: You need to make sure that you place the tool in the right angle so that it will hold you where your weight is going, not necessarily where you are/were.

A good rule of thumb to use is that if you wouldn’t trust your tools to hold you even if both of your feet became unattached, your placements aren’t good enough.

Don’t Choke Up on Your Tools

Similar to the above point, choking up on your tools can actually increase the chance that they get yanked out from the ice.

Axes are meant to grip with faced with a downwards force. When you choke up, you change the weight distribution so that you’re pulling more outwards and less downwards, which increases the chance that your placements will release.

Instead of choking up, work on moving your feet and improving your technique so that you’re hanging down on the tools. If you feel the need to choke up, there’s a chance that you actually just didn’t bring your feet high enough.

Place Your Ice Screws at Your Waist

Sometimes, trying to be safe can actually lead to an accident.

As a beginner or someone who doesn’t have as much lead experience, it’s perfectly natural to want to place your ice screws as high as you can. This gives you a feeling of increased safety (because you’re temporarily climbing on top rope) and means that each screw will protect you for a longer period of time.

However, trying to place your screws high can actually be the cause of a fall. Remember what I just said above: ice axes are meant to be loaded directly downwards, and this is the position where they are most secure.

If you’re reaching up and trying to screw in a piece of protection, however, you risk compromising this position and causing your ice axes to load in weird ways. Coupled with the fact that you only have one ice axe in the wall while screwing, this can highly increase your chance of taking a fall.

Instead, put your ice screws in around your waist. This is easier to do and it gives you a more stable position to screw from. If you’re not comfortable enough to do this, you’re probably not ready to lead on ice.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The single best thing you can do when ice climbing is to make sure that you practice enough before you even consider tying yourself into a lead rope.

To once again reference him, Will Gadd recommends that you should take 150 laps on top rope (about equivalent to 30 day’s in the mountains) before you lead on ice. One of my friends spent an entire semester working with one of the best guide companies in the world before he was comfortable enough to venture into leading.

There are two reasons that you need to do this. The first is simply over caution: because of how high the stakes are on ice, you need to be extra, extra sure of your own abilities and mental preparation before you decide you’re ready to graduate from top roping.

The second reason is that ice climbing is difficult. Especially for those who are used to rock climbing, it can be a tough pill to swallow that ice climbing is a completely different sport that requires an entirely new skillset. The motions are different, the techniques are different, you’re going to feel off balance. You need to worry about conditions, belayer placement, ice quality, and route grades. There are a lot of factors that need to be taken into consideration, and it takes time to learn all of them.

Want to make sure you never fall while ice climbing? Hone your skills to the point that it won’t happen.

Train Your Brain

All the skill in the world means absolutely nothing if you can’t coach your brain to think clearly in times of stress. Anyone who’s ever lead climbed or scrambled is probably familiar with how poorly your muscles start working once you get stressed. Your palms become sweaty, your legs start shaking, and it becomes impossible to breath.

In ice climbing, thinking about falling can actually trigger a fall if you get too scared and start forgetting your technique. Because of that, you need to get used to the sensation of being in no-fall territory.

Different people handle stress differently, so I can’t necessarily recommend any once technique here, but there are a few things you could try:

• Ethan Pringle famously used meditation and breathing techniques to get over his fear of heights and send the hardest boulder problem in the world.
• Doing laps of lead climbing on rock, especially in run-out areas, can get you used to the feeling of being high above your last point of protection.
• Scrambling is a great way to get you used to exposure. Like ice climbing, you often find yourself in no-fall-zones.

Personally, I use all three techniques to condition my mind to not get freaked out when I find myself in situations where I absolutely cannot fall. Whatever your technique, find what makes you comfortable and practice it until you’re certain that you won’t get freaked out and cause a fall.

Don’t Push Your Limits

This one might feel contradictory to the rock-climbing crowd out there, but it needs to be said: don’t push your limits while ice climbing.

Now, obviously, you won’t always be 100% comfortable in every scenario, and you eventually need to push yourself so that you get better. This process, however, needs to be done slowly and gradually, with an appropriate margin of safety in everything that you climb.

You can improve your skills and climb harder routes without pushing your limits. In climbing, you often find the route that will require 100% of your effort and give it a try. You know that you probably will fall, and that’s alright.

In ice climbing, however, you need to reframe this mindset.  To make sure that you don’t fall, you should only climb on routes that are 50-70% of your maximum ability. As you get better, your threshold will increase, and more difficult routes will fall within this range; that’s how you get better. Maintaining a safe threshold and room for error, however, is essential.

Forget About ‘Easy Ice’

Easy ice is a myth. It doesn’t exist.

Just because a route is low-angled and has good protection doesn’t mean that it’s easy. The consequences of your fall are potentially worse on low-angle slab, because of how many times your crampons are going to catch in the ice on the way down.

Additionally, having this kind of mentality can be detrimental when climbing. Thinking you’re on an ‘easy’ route can lull you into a false set of confidence and cause lapses in judgement. It once takes one bad kick, one faulty swing, or one missed second of concentration for a tool to pop and for you to find yourself unable to walk due to a fall.

Reframe your mentality so that you never consider a route ‘easy’. All ice routes are dangerous, and they all demand the same level of respect (and fear) so that you dedicate 100% of your attention towards not falling.

Don’t Lead It if You Wouldn’t Solo It

This is the key feature that differentiates ice climbing from rock climbing (and most other sports, really): don’t lead something if you wouldn’t solo it. Don’t do a route if you don’t believe that you can execute it perfectly, because the consequences are too high.

This is maybe the most important point I can make, because it absolutely needs to be your mindset when you start leading on ice. The rope and screws that you bring are an absolute last resort, and their presence should in no way make you feel like you have an allowance to fall. Unless you would be comfortable climbing the route with 0 protection, don’t climb it in the first place.

What Happens When You Fall?

Everybody makes mistakes (and everybody has those days). Doing everything within your power to avoid falling isn’t enough; you also need to acknowledge the fact that someday you might fall and make sure that you’re properly prepared for it.

Because ice climbing falls are so serious, you have to take whatever measures you can to mitigate the harm that will be done when a fall occurs. Below, I talk about what you need to do to be ready for the day when you do take a fall.

Downclimb or Clip In

The first step (and one that could probably also be included in the above list, but oh well) is the recognized when you’re going to fall and withdraw from the situation. Downclimb to a rest spot, an easier position, or a point where your belayer can take in the slack. If you feel able, shake out and go for it again; if not, cut your losses and rappel down (hint: in most cases, this is the better option).

If you don’t feel comfortable downclimbing, or you think you’re too pumped out to make it, there are still ways to avoid falling. Get a really solid stick with one of your axes and clip yourself to it via a PAS; once you’ve done this, back up your position with an ice screw or a v-thread. This will give you time to rest, breath, and reassess the situation.

Place Enough Protection

Placing that extra ice screw every now and then can be the difference between a bad fall and a really bad fall. Even if you feel fully in control, even if you’re on easy terrain and you don’t think there’s any chance that you’re going to fall, placing the proper protection can do wonders to protect you from further injuries.

This doesn’t mean that you think you’re going to fall; it’s just an acknowledgement that eventually, everybody makes a mistake. You’ll misjudge a sheet of ice, or your crampons will blow in a less-than-ideal position, or your intuition will fail you and you’ll find yourself tumbling off the ice. When this happens (as it probably will at least once for experiences ice climbers), you’ll be thankful that you bothered to place your protection.

Doing this doesn’t mean that you think you’re going to fall; it’s just an acknowledgement of the statistical possibility that you might fall. It seems like a contradictory philosophy (know that you can climb the route without falling, but place your protection like you think you might fall), but it’s the one you need to have if you want to stay safe.

Have an Escape Plan

Modern technology is a lifesaver, and you’re an idiot if you’re not taking advantage of it.

There’s nothing I hate more than people who refuse to bring the best gear because it ‘ruins the experience’ of their romanticized adventure. I once had a climbing partner try to convince me to leave our SPOT at the campsite while climbing in the Red River Gorge because, in his words, ‘Jim Bridwell never needed a GPS beacon’.

This aversion to technology (and safety in general) can quite literally cost people their lives. There’s nothing romantic or adventurous about dangling from a multi-pitch ice climb with a broken ankle, stranded with no plan of escape because you didn’t bring along the right tools to help you out in a pinch.

In this age of InReaches, SPOTs, and satellite phones, there’s no excuse for not having some way to communicate with the outside world when you head out into the wilderness. Having an escape plan means thinking in advance to the worst-case scenario and knowing how you’re going to get out alive. In many situations, this means having some way to get in contact with search and rescue teams so that they can find you in a timely manner.

The only think worse than knowing you’re out of your league is knowing that you’re out of your league and you don’t have any way to call for help. I’ve been there before, and it’s not fun. Have a plan to save your own ass if something goes wrong, and don’t let any ideas of adventure or romanticism get in the way of executing that plan.

Summary

So, there we go! That’s everything I can think of surrounding falls in ice climbing: why they suck, how to avoid them, and what to do if/when one happens. I hope the information in this guide helped, and please be safe when you head out on ice. Life-changing accidents can happen in the blink of an eye.

As always, this article is meant to inform and inspire and should not be taken as a source of instruction. Do your own research and seek expert help before you decide to pursue any vertical adventures.

Stay safe and have fun!