I’ve heard that leashes are no longer really relevant for ice climbing, but I wasn’t sure why. I decided to do some research and figure out if they were still relevant.

So, should you use leashes ice climbing? Using leashes for ice climbing helps your hold on to your tools, although they can get in the way and can increase the risk of hurting yourself when you fall.

Leashes used to be commonplace in ice climbing, but they’re become mostly redundant nowadays. As gear manufacturers continue to produce more and more innovative ice axes, and ice climbing grows as a sport, people are less inclined to use leashes. Most guiding companies don’t mention them at allwhen teaching new client, and even veteran ice climbers ditched their leashes back in 2005, because of the extra freedom of movement that it offers.

What Are Ice Climbing Leashes?

If you just started ice climbing, you might think of leashes as the elastic cord that runs from the bottom of your axe to your harness and prevents it from falling if you were to drop it.

In fact, that’s actually a tether, and they’re used most commonly on alpine or multipitch routes, when dropping your axe is a serious concern. A lease is a device that you hook onto your axe and loop around your wrist, so that it’s pulled taunt; it helps you hold on to the axe.

Leashes were much more common during the advent of ice climbing. Before Jeff Lowe took the techniques used in mountaineering and applied them to ice routes, ice climbing didn’t exist ass a solitary activity; vertical ice was mostly avoided. During these days, axes almost uniformly had straight handles with little to no grip on them.

Using these tools, the only way to get a good grip on steep terrain was to use a leash. You put the leash around your wrist, attached the other end to your axe, and it supported you when you gripped onto the ace. The leash helped keep the axe straight when you swung, and it allowed you to hang hands-free from your axes (a massive advantage on long or pumpy routes).

However, as ice climbing began to grow in popularity and more gnarly lines were climbed, gear manufacturers began to adapt. They created the ergonomically shaped ice tools we have today, with curved handles and rubber grips designed to help you hang on without the use of leashes. Once that happened, climbers began to challenge themselves by climbing routes leashless as a testament to their strength and cardio.

As they did, however, they began to discover some of the benefits that came with leashless climbing. These benefits didn’t just have to do with technical performance; they also included the enjoyment of the sport. As Andy Kirkpatrick explains:

“[my partner]… found the climbing to be easier, less cluttered, and more fun without his leashes”

– https://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/articles/view/to_leash_or_not_to_leash

Pretty soon, almost no one was using leashes ice climbing, and nowadays they’ve become something akin to a relic.

With that being said, there are still some advantages to climbing with leashes. I’m not here to pass judgement or tell you what to do when you’re climbing; I’m simply trying to share some information. If you’re just getting into the sport, I would recommend speaking to an expert guide as to whether or not leashes are best for you.

Pros of Leashes

So, what are some of the pros of ice climbing leashes? If you poke around forums online, people will have you convinced that there are absolutely no redeeming features about these at all, but that’s not necessarily true.

While the benefits of leashes have been mostly diminished by the design of modern ice climbing tools, that doesn’t mean they’ve completely disappeared. There are three main pros that can be mentioned:

• Ice leashes produce a better swing
• They allow you to hold on to the tool easier
• You don’t have to worry about dropping your tool.

I’ve broken down all three of these in greater detail below.

Better Swing

Here, don’t take my word; listen to what the best ice climber on the planet, Will Gadd, has to say:

“Leashed tools swing better. I have yet to get a better swing out of a leashless tool than a well set-up leashed tool. The perfectly relaxed fast swing is the holy grail of leashless tools… I’ve swung both thousands or maybe millions of times by now, and I have yet to swing a leashless tool that swings as fluidly as a leashed tool.”

In ice climbing, your swing is extremely important. You need to be able to drive the tool into the ice powerfully and in a precise manner. At the same time, you need to minimize the energy that it takes to do so.

Because of the leverage that they provide, leashed ice climbing tools make getting a good placement with your tool far easier. If Gadd ­— again, widely accepted to be one of the best ice climbers ever — can’t get his ice climbing tool to stick as well without a leash, it’s safe to say that most other people won’t.

With that said, however, you can still get good placements with a leashless tool; they just won’t be as good.

More Security

Falling in ice climbing is something that must be avoided at all costs, and ice climbing leashes help with this. Because they loop around your wrists, they allow you to take the weight off your forearms and ‘rest’ on your tools. You can let go with your hands, counting on the leashes to keep you in place.

This is a massive benefit on long, pumpy routes. If you feel yourself getting tired,you can just let go with your hands and hang on the leashes for a few moments while you regain some strength.

Less chance of Dropping Your Tools

The third time I ice climbed, I almost dropped my tools. I was on a long route, with the belay ledge far out of sight, and I would have been forced to climb the rest with one axe had it happened.

With a leash, you don’t need to worry about that. Because they’re attached to your wrists, you’re a lot less likely to fumble with the handle and spend on of these spinning towards the ground. This is extra useful if you’re resting or putting in an ice screw; anyone who’s climbed before knows how weird it feels to stab your tool into the ice and leave it there while you place a screw.

Cons of Leashes

So, despite all of those benefits, why have leashes lost their popularity in recent years? There are a few main reasons that people have stopped using their leashes, besides the development of more futuristic tools that don’t require them:

• Less maneuverability
• The difficulty of setting them up
• The increased fall danger

Less Maneuverability

This is probably the largest reason that people ditched their leashes. As routes get more technical and ice climbing gets harder, you need to get more creative with the beta you’re using. Leashes tend to get in the way of that.

Even something simple, like matching both hands on one axe and then swapping your hands to move laterally, becomes almost impossible to do when you’re leashed in. This restricts what you’re able to do when you’re climbing in terms of movement and creativity.

Especially on difficult routes or mixed climbs, where weird maneuvers like figure fours are required, people quickly found that their leashes were starting to get in the way when they were climbing. As tools got easier to grip and ice climbers got stronger, the benefits provided by the leash could no longer outweigh the frustrations of having them strapped to your arms.

Can be Difficult to Set Up

Another issue with the leashes is that, if you attach them wrong, they can hinder more than they help. The main struggle here is that your hand position when you’re standing on flat ground strapping on your leashes, and your hand position when you’re swinging an axe, are different. This led to new ice climbers improperly attaching their leashes to their axes.

Because of this, the leashes became an impairment. Worse of all, this is a mistake that you might not notice until you’re one the route, at which point it may be too late to fix it.

Greater Fall Danger

Finally, leashes can end up hurting you if you fall. This can happen in two ways:

1. Your feet cut out on you and your hands are too weak to hold onto the axes. The leashes hold you in place, but in doing so, they twist your arms in unnatural ways and place a lot of strain on your shoulders. This can lead to upper body injuries.
2. You fall clean off the ice, losing your grip on your axes. Now, instead of staying put on the wall or simply falling to the ground, your axes are attached to your body via the leash as you fall. They risk swinging around, getting tangled up, or impaling you.