please explain WI7

Please explain the definition of difficulty of a route rated WI7
Serious ice climbers only please

On anything resembling traditional ice: sustained vertical ice where the protection is almost completely psychological. Placements are difficult, thin and tenuous with little chance any ice screw or other protection will hold a fall until the belay. Few to no real rests are available and the climbing is continuously difficult and engaging throughout.

On the new spray ice Will Gadd and company are climbing; overhanging ice with a technical/physical difficulty equivalent to steep M7 mixed climbing, regardless of the quality of protection.

Here you go:

alaskaiceclimbing.com/ratin…

JulianB wrote:On anything resembling traditional ice: sustained vertical ice where the protection is almost completely psychological. Placements are difficult, thin and tenuous with little chance any ice screw or other protection will hold a fall until the belay. Few to no real rests are available and the climbing is continuously difficult and engaging throughout. On the new spray ice Will Gadd and company are climbing; overhanging ice with a technical/physical difficulty equivalent to steep M7 mixed climbing, regardless of the quality of protection.

You might want to ask Will Gadd, Raphael Slawinski, or someone who has actually climbed on spray ice.

Ultimately, it seems to come down to whether or not you require protection to be a part of the grade, or whether you are simply grading the pure climbing on its own merits.

Per Jack Roberts from original Colorado Ice

WI7
Vertical to overhanging ice that is thin, poorly bonded to the surface beneath it, and offers only imaginary protection from leader falls. Protection is difficult to place or non existent. Setting up belays requires a very high level of expertise, and climbing skills demand creativity. This rating might also apply to climbs who's main technical problem is the successful ascension of curtains of ice requiring creative techniques to climb and place protection. This grade applies to only a handful of climbs in Colorado, and these have not seen enough repeats for them to be a consensus WI7. However they do represent ice climbing on the cutting edge.

Freedom of the Hills
A full pitch of thin vertical or overhanging ice of dubious adhesion. An extremely tough pitch, physically and mentally, requiring agility and creativity.

Freedom of the Hills is actually a great book with lots of info. You should check it out if you havent already?

Might wanna add Extreme Alpinism by Twight to that reading list.

Winter Dance is a good example of what that grade is. Another Alex Lowe route. Here is a picture of the crux pitch on it. Originally rated WI7+ but now downgraded to WI7−. Whit Magro made the first free ascent of it not to long ago. I ran into him and asked him about it. He stated," It was only 100 feet of WI7." ha!...But even that seems to be fairly protected and not a "no pro" pitch. But routes like Riptide on Mt. Patterson (WI7 R) in Canada have just about no protection though not severely overhanging. Then there are the WI6 routes that the first ascent party kept at WI6 so no big arguments would be had about the grade. (Look at what happened when Mark Twight and Randy rated Reality Bath WI7, a lot of arguments occurred!) It just seems to get confusing at that grade and above in my opinion. More of an argument in the climbing community then anything....

JulianB wrote:On the new spray ice Will Gadd and company are climbing; overhanging ice with a technical/physical difficulty equivalent to steep M7 mixed climbing, regardless of the quality of protection.

While I'm in no position to independently confirm the grade, I do know that Will stated that "Spray On" left him more pumped than any climb he had ever done in his life, and he climbs waaaay harder than M7.

Jon H wrote: While I'm in no position to independently confirm the grade, I do know that Will stated that "Spray On" left him more pumped than any climb he had ever done in his life, and he climbs waaaay harder than M7.

Yeah but he graded that WI10 and said it was physically comparable to M10/11 drytooling, so I was just extrapolating that idea downwards. Also, there are a decent number of hard climbs out there that have grades like M8 WI6 where the M8 part is considered the technical crux, so it wouldn't be too shocking if spray ice WI7 is physically comparable to M7/8 mixed.

Brad Brandewie wrote:A picture is worth 1000 words...

Looks like Stan Price on Long Neck Bottle in Cody.

I took the photo down since it wasn't mine. I just wanted to show Ellenor what I thought WI7 looks like.

Stan Price ... WOW!

My only experience with grade seven ice is the route Homefield Advantage (5.11 WI7, or M7) in Hyalite. While relatively well protected by bolts, the crux of the climbing was the steep fragile smear of ice. You couldn't just swing your axes and get sticks for breaking the fragile ice. Lots of gentle combing techniques were used like icy hand jams. Because of the way the water flowed down the rock, the ice was actually a little steeper than vertical, which made it feel really steep. I would equate the physical difficulty as comparable to the 5.11 cobbles higher on the route. That's of course climbing 5.11 with gloves and crampons.

I like to think of ice grades as describing the characteristics of the climb (angle, fragility, sustain) rather than pure difficulty. The difficulty of ice climbing is so dependent on conditions, that it's pointless to fixate on what route is harder.

Sorry for the spelling errors. My phone has a mind of its own.

Phillip