Ice foot

“ At all events, we have no evidence yet of any glacial ice-foot that steadily increases. If, however, such an increasing ice-foot were to arise, it would tend to bury the terminal moraine and unite itself to the snout of the glacier, but before the process had advanced very far the surface of the ice-foot would begin to acquire a slope, on which a snow-bog could hardly be formed. ”

“ It was in giving one of these vigorous thumps that I hit a spot where, under a thin coating of snow, was hard ice. My foot, failing in its grip, slipped, and the impulse caused me to lose my balance. I slid down the steep incline at a terrific pace, accompanied in my involuntary tobogganing over ice and snow by the screams of my horror-stricken coolies. I realised that in another moment I should be pitched into the stream, which would have meant being carried under the long tunnel of ice to meet certain death beneath it. ”

“ As closely as possible Egerton followed the favorite line of travel, along the high ice-foot of the bold shore, inside or outside as conditions required. This name is given to the ice-ledge which forms by gradual accretion on the rocks or earth of the shore. As the main sea ice rises and falls with the tides, the ice necessarily breaks near the shore; the inner, fast-adhering ice is known as the ice-foot, the outer ice as the main pack or the floe. ”

“ On steep ice the inside or back wall just above the step should be cleared away, to allow the shin room and to let the leg stand upright above the foot.
The outside edge of the step should never be cleared entirely or flattened. The ice dust or fragments, if not too large, should be left there, to pack under the foot and give it a further prop inwards. A good step looks like a rough notch before it has been used; but after the first foot has passed over, it should have taken the shape and size of the sole, and look like its mould. ”

“ From a high rafter I could see an open lead on the other side of the belt of rough ice, and beyond the lead the ice-foot, itself, as it is called in Arctic parlance,—the ice which is permanently attached to the land and extends out into the sea.
At ten o’clock, leaving Kataktovick to continue the road-making with the pickaxe, I went back to the camp, harnessed up the dogs and drove them along the trail that we had made. When we reached the open lead we had to look for a place to cross. Finally we found a point where the moving ice nearly touched the still ice. ”

“ Steps upon hard, overhanging ice, or upon ice near the perpendicular, are practically impossible to make or use with any real security. The chief difficulty is to make any sound hold for the hands, such as may keep the body in balance above the feet. It is also generally impracticable upon perpendicular or overhanging ice to cut away sufficient ice in the slope at the back of the step to allow the leg to stand erect above the foot, especially if the tread is slanted downward and inward at a safe inclination. ”

“ To go downhill, put your foot flat in the snow, heel and all, keeping your heel straight, to build a foundation. But do not thump your foot down. There is frequently, under the snow, a slippery surface of stone or ice.
Put not your trust in sticks. As you do not know very well where the point will rest when thrust through the snow, it will often cause you to stumble. Your body should be well supported and well balanced on your legs alone. ”

“ Otherwise the inside foot must always be passed in front, whatever the difficulty; and the better a man balances and the less he leans inward and clings to the slope, the easier becomes the passing of the foot. Where the wall is so steep that to pass the leg and hip-bone means really a movement out of balance, the leader may be trusted to have made some handhold above, if only for his own protection.
On steep ice, men on claws have to be very careful in passing the inside foot, so as not to catch the prongs in the puttie or fastenings of the firm foot. ”

“ During the development of balance climbing, whose basis is footwork upon any angle and any kind of surface, the scale has been steadily readjusting itself. Simultaneously with, or possibly as a result of, the unification of our several climbing methods upon rock, ice and snow into a single technique of balance, has come the new interest in foot-attachments, the popularizing of the use of ice-claws and of ski. ”

“ An ordinary climber can learn to move with comfort on angles, of good surface, between 55 and 60 degrees.
When we are on claws, the snow-shuffle and the normal forward swing of the walking foot, heel and toe, have to be forgotten. The foot is lifted rather higher, and is planted cleanly on the ice, without the usual forward scrape. The high, clear lift of the foot must become mechanical, otherwise the points will catch on boot or puttie, and a nasty trip or fall may result. The downward pressure or thrust of the foot varies in force according to the angle and the hardness of the surface. ”

“ As we gathered speed on our downward course, and the chisel edge of the ice-axe bit deeper into the hard névé, it sprayed our faces and necks with a miniature shower of ice. The temperature was low, and whenever the steel of the ice-axe touched one’s bare skin, it seemed to burn it like a hot iron. We all reached the bottom of the slope safely, and fired with the success of our first glissade, and finding an almost endless succession of snow slopes below us, we let ourselves go again and again, in a series of wild rushes towards the foot of the main cone. ”

“ The ice is so slippery that it is only possible to walk with maddening dislocations, and it is generally too level for a long glissade. It is then often feasible to adopt a ski-ing or skating stride, and strike out with either foot alternately. On a good surface and angle one may find oneself travelling in this way almost as easily as on skates. Similarly, on the wet lower ends of afternoon glaciers, if rubber-soled shoes happen to have been brought, it is worth while putting them on. One can drift down on them as lightly as on ski. ”

“ If the skate project much beyond the wood, the whole foot, and more especially its hind part, must be raised considerably from the ice when the front or bow of the skate is brought to bear upon it; and, as the skater depends upon this part for the power of his stroke, it is evident that that must be greatly diminished by the general distance of the foot from the ice. In short, if the skate be too long, the stroke will be feeble, and the back of the leg painfully cramped: if it be too short, the footing will be proportionally unsteady and tottering. ”

“ Every stone shall be eligible to count which is not clearly outside the seven-foot circle. Every stone which does not clear the hog-score shall be a hog, and must be removed from the ice.... Stones passing the back-score, and lying clear of it, must be removed from the ice, as also any stone which in its progress touches the swept snow on either side the rink. ”

“ On very rough ice, or on the rough icy surfaces found in snow couloirs, where we cannot make certain of keeping on the feet if we face squarely forward, it is best to adopt a sideways position of the body, the sides of both feet in contact with the slope, and one foot just below and slightly separated from the other. The distance between the feet must depend upon the character of the surface and the angle of the slope. ”

“ This additional and confident security, which the claw gives to our foothold, almost eliminates the chances of what are wrongly termed ‘accidents’ on ice; the breaking foothold, the faultily placed foot, or the slide of the sole on a bad surface as the transference of the weight produces a change in the direction of the leg-thrust. ”

“ Beginners and bad icemen are inclined to avoid this difficulty by shuffling from step to step with the outside foot always leading, protecting each change of foot with an axe hold. This is dangerous and ruinous to the steps. On the very rare passages where it may be found necessary,—for instance, on the few feet of traverse across the face of an ice-glazed rock wall, or across a vertical ice bulge in a couloir, where passing the foot is impossible,—the leader will have cut a continuous ledge, on which he intends the feet to be thus shuffled and without risk. ”

“ We have butted several times against projecting floes, but it is as unmoved as solid rock. Very foggy: Rescue not visible. Thermometer at 29 degrees.
“We recognize, among the floe fragments around us, old play-fellows. Here we played foot-ball; there we skated; by this hummock crag stood my thermometers; and here I shot a bear. We are passing slowly from them, or they from us. Now and then a rubbish pile will show itself, cresting the pure ice. Even an old champagne basket, full of nothing but sadly-pleasant associations, is recognized upon a distant floe. ”

“ Snow ice, or shell ice, should be broken with the foot or shovel and putty of snow and water pounded into the holes. When snow falls sweep it off at once and make it into an embankment at the sides of the rink. Strong sun melts thin ice much quicker than thick ice. By keeping track of the weather reports splendid skating can often be obtained by very little attention to the skating pond. A large watering pot is sometimes a sufficient 93implement with which to renew the surface of a badly cut skating area. ”

“ It is well not to look at either the ice or the feet, but to keep the face erect and looking forwards. When persons first begin to skate they balance themselves with their arms almost involuntarily, and, when one foot is off the ice, they raise up the arm on the opposite side to prevent themselves from falling. ”

“ First, we cut two parallel tracks, four feet asunder, through six and five feet ice, with a ten-foot saw; then lozenged diagonals; then straps (ropes) are passed around the fragments, and a block and line, nautice jigger, or watch tackle, made fast to the bowsprit, hauls the lumps upon the floe, where they are broken up by the ice bars. A formidable barricade of dirty ice, about the size and shape of gneiss building stones, is already inclosing our vessel. Many a poor fellow has « 326 » had an involuntary slide-bath into the freezing mixture alongside ”

“ Ours is the contrast of utter helplessness with illimitable power.
“9:50 A.M. Brooks and myself took advantage of the twilight at nine o’clock to cross the hummocky fields to the Rescue. I can not convey an impression of the altered aspects of the floe. Our frozen lane has disappeared, and along the line of its recent course the ice is heaped up in blocks, tables, lumps, powder, and rubbish, often fifteen feet high. Snow covered the decks of the little vessel, and the disorder about it spoke sadly of desertion. Foot-prints of foxes were seen in every imaginable corner ”

“ Our only trouble again was the glaze on the rocks, a black, shiny veneer too thin for axe operations, too thick to be trifled with. Such ice always interferes more with the hands than with the feet, for sharp boot nails can roughen the surface of an ice ledge 106 enough for a foothold, whereas the hands can make no impression. If the ice is very cold, gloves must be worn as a protection against the frost. ”

“ As I sounded through the ice I could determine the shape of the bottom with greater accuracy than is possible in surveying harbors which do not freeze over, and I was surprised at its general regularity. In the deepest part there are several acres more level than almost any field which is exposed to the sun wind and plough. In one instance, on a line arbitrarily chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty rods; and generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation for each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three or four inches. ”

“ A fresh wind makes the cold very unbearable. In walking to-day, my beard and mustache became one solid mass of ice. I inadvertently put out my tongue, and it instantly froze fast to my lip. This being nothing new, costing only a smart pull and a bleeding abrasion afterward, I put up my mittened hands to ‘blow hot’ and thaw the unruly member from its imprisonment. Instead of succeeding, my mitten was itself a mass of ice in a moment: it fastened on the upper side of my tongue, and flattened it out like a batter-cake between the two disks of a hot griddle. ”

“ They sit in the sun, when they are tired of skating, and see that though a torrid luminary beats down on the frozen surface, burning and browning the faces of their friends, the ice remains perfectly dry and unmelted; they trudge through snow, and find that they are not wet; they see the thermometer marking anything up or down to thirty degrees of frost, and go out coatless and very likely hatless, and are conscious only of an agreeable and bracing warmth ”

“ For balance climbing, footwork is all-essential. On rock, only where angle or unsound texture makes footwork alone insufficient, do we help out with the hands. On ice or snow, only where angle or a texture too soft or too hard denies our feet their assurance, do we supplement them with ice-axe and ice-claw, or to a certain extent with ski. While a man remains a grip climber, he will never make an iceman ”

“ We must turn vertically up, or down, or follow as steep a diagonal as we may. We make steps as far as possible apart, and we tread exactly and lightly in each other’s. If there is firmer snow below, we drive the axe to the head at each step, and loop the rope. In extreme cases we may turn face inward, as the toe is less disturbing than the heel or side-boot. Or we may have to clear away the snow and make steps in the ice below. All as our craft dictates. On positively dangerous snow there is much to be said for unroping, should we have to continue long in equal insecurity. ”