Black Diamond Hydra Review

TLDR: 4.5 out of 5 stars - an excellent tool, the head weight system is innovative (imo), and I think the stock ice pick is very good. The stock drytooling pick is also very good for what it is. The decision to go with this tool versus others on the market is largely a matter of hair splitting preference, brand loyalty, and purchase price. I think it's primary use is for Ice and single digit M climbing. I am not a double digit M climber, but know plenty of people that are - they tend to use very niche tools for that type of climbing.  

I have had these for 1.5 seasons. I have two pairs, one set up for gym dry tooling with the stock dry pick, and one setup for outdoor use with the stock ice picks.

Use:  WI 2-WI4+ / M3/M4 / Indoor gym dry tooling

I'm mostly a ice / mountaineering type focusing on a lot of the moderate classics throughout Colorado and in Bozeman, Montana and less of a hard test piece type of climber. 

Starting at the spike and moving upwards:

I have not ice climbed with the factory spike in place. I immediately ordered the alpine spike, as in places like RMNP I think having a real spike is useful especially to use tool in piolet mode when marching up up snow. The factory spike is uninspiring for these purposes in my opinion. The alpine spike is asymmetrically placed to allow access to the M5 bolt at the bottom that holds the pommel in place. I was at first skeptical of the effectiveness of the spike due to its asymmetry until I used it and can safely say that it's shape and location doesn't effect it's ability to piolet on ice, rock, etc. It performs exactly how you would expect a spike to perform. The downside to this spike is you have to buy this after buying the tool.

Lower pommel:

The very bottom pommel is slightly less comfortable than the Nomic, if you are are hanging 100% of your body weight off of it. I think the surface area is ever so slightly smaller, (from looking visually, no measurements yet) so the pressure on your finger is slightly higher. I'm not good enough for this to matter, and I don't know that it in reality it will actually matter. In ice climbing rarely are you really hanging off your tools in the same way that you are in a figure 4/9 sequence, where 100% of your bodyweight is indeed smashing your pinky into the pommel. 

Handle:

To accommodate different hand sizes the Hydra adds spacers to the handle length, and doesn't change the pommel angle like the Nomic lower pommel, which changes the angle about a fixed point. How much this matters is again likely a preference thing. I think it changes the swing slightly but not enough you cannot figure it out in 5 minutes.

Moving up the handle there is a very small pointer/ middle finger indentation along the length of the handle. Your like of this detail is preference dependent, if you enjoy sinking all your weight into the lower pommel then this feels great. If you like the little finger projection fin on the X- dream then you may not like this indentation being less pronounced. The handle itself near the top has a series of cutouts, that is likely for weight savings / tool balance or both. These are fine provided you are not piolet-ing the tool in soft snow, in which case it seems to fill with snow and soak your hand. I have this entire area covered in grip tape mostly to prevent snow from collecting here. I included a grab from the BD website showing the handle.

Upper Pommel:

I suspect like many, I don't spent much time here, unless doing indoor gym stuff - but when I do hang totally statically here on 4/9 sequences it is as comfortable if not more so than the lower pommel. My outdoor set has taken a fair amount of abuse here without any issue. 

Shaft:

The shaft is beveled inward like a dog bone and incredibly stiff, due to hydroforming. It will flex slightly when doing figure 4/9 sequences, but during regular ice climbing it feels super stout. I cover mine in tape as I swap tools primarily by biting, since this is what I practice in the dry tool gym the most, and now is second nature. 

Head:

The head weight system is a real innovation in my opinion. Other tools have a weight on pick configuration which works well until it doesn't - which usually means mid lead on something hard where it becomes loose and rattles annoyingly during each swing. The solution is to crank the hell out of it with a tiny allen tool that strips the screw and then later when you want to swap picks out, a time consuming effort with the drill press and cobalt bits to drill out the screw without damaging the weight. This tool dispenses with this approach and instead moves the weights to the head. The weights come in a two pairs, black which are "light" and silver which are "heavy". BD seems to vary the weight by making them out of materials with different densities, as the weight difference is much greater than the geometry. That sounds confusing but what I mean is the heavy weights are only slightly thicker, but much heavier than the comparable light weights.

There are generally 3 weight configurations, two light, two heavy, or a mix. If you add in swapping in hammers (micro vs Alpine) there's technically 6 options, but in general the trend is light, medium, heavy. I've opted for the alpine hammer as I feel it provides a large area to place your hand and makes it easier to piolet the tool, which I'm a big fan of. Since the weights they are attached to the head bolts they don't come loose, and swapping picks is easy. 

Pick:

The stock ice pick is really something. It's asymmetrically beveled down from about 4.5mm (4.54mm) at the head to about 2.8mm (2.74mm) at the tip, and sticks incredibly well. It does not have any teeth at the top of is head so will be unstable in Stein situations on mixed terrain. I've managed to climb up to about M4 with the ice pick and it does ok. 

Swinging / climbing: 

The Hydra swings like almost any other detached handle tool, drawing the tool back and swinging forward with a wrist flick sets the tool in ice. If you've learned how to swing a detached handle tool previously your learning curve will be very short.

The weight system will really let you balance the feel of the tool, I tend to like a lot of weight in the head to really drive the tool into ice. 

One thing I love about the Hydra is just how stiff and solid it feels. I really think hydroforming makes shaft flex almost non existent, and it really inspired confidence. The entire tool seems very solid and well built.

I've deducted a half star for a slightly less comfortable lower pommel than other tools, and for the cutouts which attract snow like crazy. I like the weight savings but maybe fill them next time with something that prevents snow from collecting there and soaking your gloves. 

On the other side of the coin, while the pommel is slightly less comfortable, it and the handle seem like they'll stay attached to the tool which is kind of a big deal and a big improvement over other tools out there these days.

Other Picks:

I also have the true mixed pick but I have only climbed indoors with it. I think it would really shine on steep terrain, where climbing on rock was a half or more of route. I have yet to take it to Vail and try any of the amphitheater routes, or bolted routes near Spiral Staircase to see how it does, but this is on my list this season. 

The dry pick is also pretty impressive for a stock pick. I have previously had the Krukonogi picks for my indoor picks, and I have not found myself wanting yet with these picks.  I was worried at first how they would do on a lot of the classic holds you find such the bridge, balls, drilled plates,  mill stones etc.  I do think that the BD steel is much softer than aftermarket steel, and the I can see the beak wearing down, especially on harder mediums (granite, indoor hard steel holds) especially if you are avid at this style of climbing. 

I would be curious to hear what others think, and will update this if anything changes throughout the time I own the tool. Happy climbing!