Jeff and I worked with Kyle Willis at High Mountain Gear to create a Russian Ice Hammock for our trip to the K7 massif in the Karakoram.
Just like every climber in the world, we stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us. We took inspiration from other designs we saw, like Steve Swenson/Mark Richey, Andy Kirkpatrick and Paul Ramsden. We scoured the internet as well and found a New Zealand article and other resources.
There are many tradeoffs on the design, such as weight vs. reusability; length and width ratios. We also made many calculations with Kyle to optimize strength and tie-down options.
We paid Kyle for his time, expertise, materials and overall bad-assness, and together we created this piece of gear and brought it to K7 and used it successfully on the ice slopes.
Setting it up is a real test in patience, planning and fortitude. The key is to create a wall instead of a bathtub shape that the tarp wants to sink to.
One of my dream-goals was to use an ice hammock, because it meant that I was climbing a long enough and steep enough ice route that it required sleeping on a shear icy face. I’m proud to have accomplished that with the help of lots of great people.
I hope that this article:
- Points folks towards Kyle to provide them their own Ice Hammock
- Pushes forward the gear and technologies for ice climbers who are chasing their icy dreams
- Drives other people to continue to evolve our sport, share ideas and building the wealth of climbing knowledge together!
Alpine climbing is unique because we go explore places and gather knowledge in the unknown that we then have a choice. We can SHARE our new information, or we can HIDE what we have learned.
It’s not black or white, all or nothing. Some pieces we want to keep to ourselves because we haven’t accomplished our purpose or goal yet. Other pieces will help everyone and push the sport forward.
We should neither call withholding information “gate-keeping” nor should we require everyone to “figure it out for themselves.” Climbing is a dangerous enough sport that we must learn from others mistakes, and nearly every climber has a mentor or guide (even from a book). If Chouinard had kept his new pick design to himself… that thought experiment could go in many directions. But he didn’t, and many climbers benefited from his innovation. The main point is that no climber attains glory or success by him or herself. We stand on the shoulders of giants and all praise should be passed back to those who have helped us.
Thank you Kyle, Steve, Mark, Andy and Paul for sharing your wealth of knowledge and helping me attain my dream of sleeping on a steep ice face.
