• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Home
  • Media
    • Adventures
    • Places
    • Prophets
    • Apparatus
    • Sustainability
  • Find a guide
    • Guides in France
    • Guides in Italy
    • Guides in Morocco
    • Guides in Switzerland
    • Guides in the UK
endorfeen

endorfeen

The voice of adventure, the heart of nature.

  • About us
  • Write/ share
  • endorfeen – instagram page
  • enforfeen Facebook page
  • endorfeen twitter page
  • Pinterest
Use of the Alpenstock during Descent from Mont-Blanc in 1787

Before the ice axe, came the Alpenstock

You are here: Home / Apparatus / Before the ice axe, came the Alpenstock
by endorfeen ・ December 22, 2020 (Updated: January 27, 2023)

endorfeen is a collaborative magazine. Member of our community can share their stories, experience, lesson, tips and reviews. Post yours now!

A wooden stick on Mont-Blanc

Jacques Balmat and his fellow man Dr Paccard were the first to climb Mont-Blanc in 1786 successfully. They were carrying an alpenstock with them. It is a long steel-tipped wooden stick, used by alpinist. It is considered to be the ancestor of the modern ice axe.

The climbing stick was made of beech, yew or fir wood. They all present different characteristics (weight and stiffness).

Balmat’s alpenstock was a large 3-meter stick. When Saussure did his ascent (in August 1787), he had a 2.6-meter one with him. While nobody knows the inventor, the alpenstock was the first universally-used tool by alpinists.

Jacques Balmat - 1788 - using an alpenstock
Portrait of Jacques Balmat - showing his ixe axe and alpenstock

The Alpenstock and the oldest ice axe

Josias Simmler, the Swiss theologian and classicist, author of the first book relating solely to the Alps (16th century), already mentioned the existence and use of the Alpenstock (“the alpinus baculus”).

It is used as support in steep slopes or to sound glacier and crevasses. Because of its length, Alpinist would also use it to help a fellow climber. The Alpenstock is not a hammering nor an anchoring tool. Alpinists would very often use a small axe to carve steps in the snow or ice for example.

As early as the 18th century, the combination of the Alpenstock and the axe gave birth to the first ice axes.

Until 1870, the habit was for the guide to use an ice axe and for the tourist to use the alpenstock. The length of the pole had decreased quite a lot. In 1875, the Alpenstock was a wooden stick of 1.8m to 2m, as described by (Dauphiné Tourism Society). Made of resistant wood, it should allow the climber to stand on it without breaking it.

The end of it

While it was still used by some, in some valleys, the alpenstock disappeared from the mountains after World War II.

One of the last stories involving the ancestor of the ice axe is the escape of the caporal Anton Hörnle from the Gebirgsjäger (“mountain hunters”). He was made a prisoner in the winter of 1944-45 by the French alpinists, Jacques Boell, an officer of the alpine troops, Alain Le Ray, and captain Stéphane.

While the German mountaineer was on the “point de Ronce” (3,612m) he got arrested by the French group. After spending some time together, Anton Hörnle, took advantage of a brief moment of inattention, to grab his alpenstock and slide down a very steep slope (more than 40 degrees), losing the French soldiers behind.

While used for centuries, the more modern ice axe rapidly replaced the alpenstock in all occasions.

endorfeen logo
endorfeen

Everyone has a story to tell. endorfeen is built as a collaborative platform, giving the voice to anyone with a story to tell.

If you have things you want to share, register here.

Social media

Instagram
Pinterest
Facebook
Twitter

Categories

Adventures
Apparatus
Places
Prophets

Information

About us
Contact us

Contributors

Login

Great adventures come to those receiving our news

Copyright © 2023 endorfeen · Privacy Policy · Contact Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • English
    • Français (French)