Ice Climbing in Stratos Pros?

[facialhairtuesday]

I'm new to hardbooting (after almost 10 years of soft booting), and I just got a set of Stratos Pros...my question is, can I use these boots with clamp on style crampons for ice climbing (i.e. http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/verticality/crampons/ice-climbing-crampons/dart)

The method of attaching to the boots is almost identical (wire bails for toe and heel), but the clamping mechanism is on the heel instead of the toe like on my Cateks....

Anyone know?

[crucible]

These Petzl crampons should work on your HEAD Stratos boots, providing that there is enough clearance over the toe and heel of your boots to allow for proper clearance of the crampon bails.

The key trade off that you will have to work with is the lateral stiffness of a Stratos cuff vs. a regular ice-climbing boot. The cuff stiffness of most snowboarding hardboots will magnify all shifts in leg movement and make ice-climbing more awkward and unforgiving.

I think you'd be better off to use a backcountry skiing AT boot like the Dynafit Zzero of Scarpa Spirit 4 for ice-climbing and hardbooting. The sole pattern of the bottom of the boot will mate better to crampons, and the cuff flex will allow for more natural climbing movement.

I used an older version of the Dynafit Zzero to climb and snowboard both Mt. Mckinley and Mt. Logan in the 90's.

[bobdea]

if you can deal with the stiffness

when I was working at sunday river we had a ice storm from hell and I ended up running crampons on burton fires while de-icing lifts because my koflachs were wet

they were sort of a pain to get on but worked

[AMK]

These Petzl crampons should work on your HEAD Stratos boots, providing that there is enough clearance over the toe and heel of your boots to allow for proper clearance of the crampon bails.

The key trade off that you will have to work with is the lateral stiffness of a Stratos cuff vs. a regular ice-climbing boot. The cuff stiffness of most snowboarding hardboots will magnify all shifts in leg movement and make ice-climbing more awkward and unforgiving.

I think you'd be better off to use a backcountry skiing AT boot like the Dynafit Zzero of Scarpa Spirit 4 for ice-climbing and hardbooting. The sole pattern of the bottom of the boot will mate better to crampons, and the cuff flex will allow for more natural climbing movement.

I used an older version of the Dynafit Zzero to climb and snowboard both Mt. Mckinley and Mt. Logan in the 90's.

that is a great tip ever. Thanks so much. I was thinking how it could work as well.

[ak_rider]

with some tooling around on the heel bail i'm pretty sure you could get the crampons to work, but like others said, why would you want to? i mean, this setup would work if it had to like if you were going to ride a big line that required crampons on a bit, but the main focus of the trip was for snowboarding. but if you're just going out to ice climb, no snowboarding involved, i would recommend getting a cheap pair of plastic boots. the old scarpa invernos are pretty good and i saw them new at REI a few years ago for about $99.

with the crampon you posted, you won't really be able to get all of the use out of it using the head stratos. aside from muscle fatigue-like others said being due to sb boots not being as flexible, unless your body is very flexible, i see it being rediculously difficult to do anything with the heel points. You won't be able to feel as much in sb boots, so the monopoints on both feet will probably make you extra tipsy.

plus, most climbs i've done, with the exception of the super fun road side climbs in AK, require some bit of hiking. HB's don't really facilitate this too well.

[Sinecure]

My BD crampons work pretty well. I just use them for bc riding, not for real ice climbing so YMMV.